Sentencing Bill

Just to clarify the point, the statistics that my hon. Friend cites show that for those who were given a short prison sentence, the reoffending rate after they left prison was 75.6%, compared with 71.5% for those on a suspended sentence, but for somebody who has been in prison for, say, one year, their reoffending rate over that year while they are in prison is zero, so the right comparison is between zero and 71%. If we include the effect of the prison sentence rather than ignoring it, as the Ministry of Justice’s 2019 research does, there is an astronomical difference between the reoffending rate in toto over one year for those who were given a short prison sentence versus those who were not. There is a complete misunderstanding of what the statistics show us.