Labour refuses to rule out sending prisoners to Estonia as jail population hits record high - UK politics live
Labour minister Angela Eagle said the Ministry of Justice is ‘considering anything’ to alleviate prison overcrowding
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A Labour minister has not denied reports there are plans for prisoners in the UK to serve their sentences at prisons in Estonia.
Dame Angela Eagle, a minister in the Home Office, said the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is “considering anything” to alleviate prison overcrowding.
She did not comment directly when asked on Sky News whether the government was considering renting cells for British prisoners in Estonia as it was “not directly my ministerial responsibility”.
Dame Angela said: “The last government closed loads of prison places and didn’t replace any of them, so I think that colleagues in the MoJ will be considering anything that they can to alleviate the problem.
“What we cannot have is people who are convicted of perhaps violent or serious crimes not being able to be in jail.”
The possible scheme comes as the prison population has reached a new record high. Official figures showed there were 88,521 people behind bars on Friday, 171 more than the previous record set at the end of last week.
Stopping smuggling gangs crossing channel ‘like Whac-A-Mole', says former head of Border Force
The former head of the British Border Force has said stopping smuggling gangs bringing migrants across the Channel is “like Whac-A-Mole”.
Tony Smith, director-general of the UK Border Force until 2013, told BBC Today: “This is a very lucrative business for the smugglers - putting a smuggling gang out of business, there’s usually another one waiting in the wings because the money is there - it’s a bit like Whac-A-Mole, really.
“So you do need a very concerted international attempt, both in Europe and beyond.”
Fisherman says boats carrying migrants across the Channel ‘are getting bigger’
A fisherman on the French coast has said boats carrying migrants across the Channel “are getting bigger”, with some carrying 80 people.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is chairing a summit today aimed at destroying the criminal gangs involved in smuggling people over the English Channel.
The fisherman told the BBC: “They are getting bigger, the boats are carrying 60, 70, even 80 people and they’re large - 10-metre dinghies now as opposed to before, the last few years they were a bit smaller.
“On Monday when we were out it was quite a windy, rough day and I was very surprised to even hear one was coming across, and then when it got within around two miles of us we could see it in the distance.
“I heard a mayday put out on the radio from the Border Force vessel saying that the dinghy had broke up and there was over 50 people in the water.”
Prison population hits new record high
The prison population of England and Wales has hit another record high, Ministry of Justice figures show.
A total of 88,521 people were in prison as of September 6, up 171 from 88,350 a week ago - the previous record - and a jump of 1,025 from 87,496 four weeks ago.
The sharp rise is likely to have been driven by the number of people remanded in custody or given jail sentences following the recent disorder across parts of the country.
The prison population in England and Wales has been increasing for much of the past three years, having dropped as low as 77,727 in April 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before the pandemic, the figure had been above 80,000 since December 2006.
In the aftermath of the summer 2011 riots, the number climbed as high as 88,179 on December 2 2011, before falling back in subsequent months.
Labour will announce head of new border security command 'very shortly’
The government will announce the head of its new border security command “very shortly”, the border security minister has said.
Asked why the head of the new command had not already been named, Dame Angela Eagle told Sky News: “We are very close to making that appointment.
“You have to go through certain processes to make sure you get the right person, give people time to apply. You can’t wave a magic wand. There’ll be announcements about that very shortly.”
Asked whether it would be within the next week, Dame Angela said: “I’m not going to say in the next week, but there’ll be announcements, they are coming along very shortly.”
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Former chief inspector of prisons say staff struggle to ‘keep control’ in UK jails
A former chief inspector of prisons said he has felt concerned for his “personal security” in prisons for the first time recently, as staff struggle to “keep control”.
Nick Hardwick told BBC Today: “I’ve been in a lot of prisons, what I’ve noticed in some I’ve visited recently is for the first time I’ve felt concerned for my own personal security - they’re dangerous and frightening places, and staff are struggling to keep control.”
Thousands of prisoners are due to be released early in September to ease overcrowding and Mr Hardwick said: “That will remove the immediate pressure, I don’t think the Government had any alternative in the short-term other than to do these releases.
“But it’s a bit like squeezing a balloon - you release the pressure in one place but the bulge goes somewhere else - and the real problem now is, first of all, some of those released will re-offend for certain, and some of those released, a lot of those released, I fear will end up homeless because there simply isn’t the accommodation for them.”
Ministers still have “important choices” to stop the issues in prisons re-occurring, Mr Hardwick said.
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