What steps he is taking to reduce reoffending rates.

Reducing reoffending is a key priority for the Ministry of Justice. The National Offender Management Service is committed to reducing reoffending by 10 per cent. by the end of the decade. We will deliver that through our cross-Government strategy to reduce reoffending, and we are supported by the significant increase in investment since 1997.

Despite the extraordinary complacent remark made by the Minister in an answer to a previous question, reoffending rates have soared over the past 10 years, and among 18 to 20-year-olds, the reoffending rate is 78 per cent. What will he do to bring down the overcrowding in young offender institutions such as Stoke Heath in Shropshire, which I visited on Monday, which now contains 30 per cent. more young adults than it was built to contain?

I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but he should look at the figures for the past 10 years. The Labour Government set a target to reduce reoffending by 5 per cent., but we have increased that target to nearly 7 per cent. In his own constituency, thanks to investment made by the Labour Government in those 10 years, crime is down by 22 per cent. I will certainly consider the issues of overcrowding in prisons and young offender institutions, but I will not take any lessons from his party; when it was in government, crime rose.