Justice minister Catherine McKinnell has told MPs it is “completely unacceptable” for prisoners to be released with a tent instead of housing, insisting it is “not government policy” for inmates at risk of homelessness to be given a tent upon their release.
Ms McKinnell, MP for Newcastle upon Tyne North, said tents “should never be an acceptable housing solution”. Her comments follow reports that the Probation Service was handing out tents to prisoners being released early after running out of housing for them.
Minister's response to concerns
Ms McKinnell said: “It is completely unacceptable for a prisoner to be released with a tent. It is not government policy. It is not something we want to see.” She added: “That is why we are working at pace to improve the current homelessness situation that we inherited from the previous government to make sure that nobody, including prison leavers, have to leave prison homeless or have to live homeless.”
She told MPs: “It is not government policy to provide tents to people being released from prison who are at risk of being homeless. We are clear that tents are never and should never be an acceptable housing solution. Overall housing responsibility does rest with local authorities in both England and Wales. We are working very closely with the Department for Housing (Communities) and Local Government to make sure that we work together to tackle the scourge of homelessness across the board, but also with this prison leaver cohort.”
MPs raise concerns in Commons
Ms McKinnell urged those concerned to encourage local authorities “to engage in pre-release panels, so that this can be done collaboratively right across the UK to make sure nobody leaves prison homeless”.
Her comments came after Conservative MPs Sir Ashley Fox and Esther McVey raised concerns about reports of prisoners being given tents upon their release during an urgent question about electronic tagging in the House of Commons. Sir Ashley argued that issuing those leaving prison with tents is “setting them up to fail”, while Ms McVey raised concerns that those classed as homeless would not be tagged, leaving them “roaming the streets without any way of locating them, free to commit more crime”.
Shadow minister criticises early release scheme
Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy said: “So chaotic is Labour’s early release scheme, prisoners are being given tents instead of housing upon release. As a matter of policy, these prisoners will be in probable breach of their licence and tagging conditions, which require them to have an approved address – all because the Probation Service is overwhelmed. We know two thirds of prisoners… who are sleeping rough go on to reoffend within the first year.”
Mr Timothy also claimed the Metropolitan Police’s decision to scale back its enforcement of tag conditions was a result of the Government’s early release scheme. It comes after Sky News reported officers will not respond to curfew or tag batteries breaches lasting less than an hour unless the person is considered a particular risk to the public, under a new pilot scheme.
Ms McKinnell replied: “It’s really important not to conflate the release of prisoners and the tagging policy, which we are working at pace to improve from the situation we inherited, and other demands on the police, which we are working very closely with them to resolve.”
Chairwoman of the Justice Committee Catherine Atkinson urged ministers to be “more ambitious in using restriction zones which keep an offender within a defined area”. The Labour former minister also pressed for tags to be fitted to prisoners “as they walk out of the prison gate”, to ensure victims feel safe. Ms McKinnell said the UK’s restriction zones are “world-leading”, adding that tagging systems will be installed “at the prison gate as soon as possible”.
