Rehabilitation and Sentencing

Perhaps the Secretary of State will remember that, back in 2001, there was something called the Halliday review of sentencing. In July of that year, I talked—much as the Secretary of State has done this afternoon—about avoiding reoffending. Does he acknowledge that a £40 million cut in the South Yorkshire police budget, more prisoners on the street, more offenders reoffending because the police are not available to protect the public and the victims is not a charter for common sense; it is a charter for criminals to get on with the job that they have been doing and from which we have been trying to protect the public?