Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Justice – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 23 November 2010.
Kenneth Clarke
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
2:30,
23 November 2010
I am grateful for that invitation; I have already received a letter. I shall do my best, although I am not quite sure when I will get to visit the probation trust. The Government are placing particular emphasis on rehabilitation and on reducing our quite appalling reoffending rates, as we have ever since my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice led for us on this matter in Opposition. I accept that a great deal of good work is being done on the ground now and obviously we will have to build on it. I quite agree with my hon. Friend Richard Harrington about the ineffectiveness of some short sentences, because nothing whatever is done when people go out of the gate once they have finished their sentence, but I am quite clear that we cannot get rid of all short-term sentences. I have always believed that for a certain number of cases no alternative is reasonably practical for magistrates.
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