Labour’s agenda on criminal justice stands apart from the policy fog

Good morning. One reason why vision matters in government is it gives you a way of saying “no” to things: it allows you to work out what is and isn’t mission critical.

A good example of that can be found in the wide-ranging changes the government has planned for the criminal justice system. More on that below.

A serious Starmer

The policy rationale behind Labour’s new approach to prisons and the criminal justice system is simple: for 14 years, the UK didn’t build enough prisons to sustain our previous approach of using ever-lengthening prison sentences to combat crime. Elsewhere, those same incentives have created a lengthy backlog in cases, meaning that victims of crime face ever-longer waits for justice.

Given that neither of these problems can be fixed overnight, the government has a choice between “option 1: invent time travel” and “option 2: reform the criminal justice system so we send fewer people to prison, get better at rehabilitating the people we do send to prison, and change how some trials in England and Wales work to speed up the process”.

So, some of what the government is doing, including by reducing the time offenders have to spend in custody, is simple necessity. But it is also fair to say that the government’s political and communications management has been significantly better in this policy area than any other. Keir Starmer brought in James Timpson as prisons minister (who was interviewed for this week’s Lunch with the FT, so do make sure to pick up a copy of the FTWeekend!). He is someone who knows the system well, and has credibility on the right of politics. It was a good way to signal to prison reformers that the government was on their side.

Since his appointment, the justice secretary Shabana Mahmood has been freed up to focus on trying to dampen attacks on the government from the right. Choosing David Gauke, a former Conservative justice secretary who had provided useful informal advice to her in opposition, to write an independent review into sentencing was a good way of once again co-opting opposition politicians who agree with this agenda. Mahmood herself has been able to concentrate on reassuring people — and don’t forget that most British voters really like the old approach to criminal justice — that she isn’t some kind of milk-and-water liberal. Policy ideas that have been used the world over to reduce prison time are carefully spoken of in the context of their most rightwing-sounding adherents (Texas not Denmark, for instance).

Some of that has resulted in some pretty crazy policy ideas. It would not be a good idea to enforce chemical castration on people who have been convicted of a sexual crime, because the nature of life is that some people will be wrongly convicted. It is also not, as far as I can see, ever going to be something that is line with human rights law in the UK as it currently exists. But Mahmood’s willingness to say she will look at it again is why the government’s reforms haven’t, thus far, been the subject of the kind of negative headlines that it feared (a new poll by YouGov finds two-thirds of Britons support the chemical castration of serious sex offenders).

The big reason for this, as Robert Shrimsley sets out in his column this week, is that Keir Starmer knows exactly what he wants to do with the criminal justice system. He knows what he thinks will work to turn things around, he has an effective secretary of state that he trusts and the whole government machine therefore works effectively.

The machinery of government does not know what Starmer wants on most other policy issues. Part of why Downing Street has become a warm home to quite so many think-tanks is the government’s tendency to seek central direction elsewhere. One fruit of that is a new report by the think-tank IPPR, to be released today, which I will write about at greater length next week. But unless or until Starmer can find the degree of purpose he has on criminal justice elsewhere, his government will continue to drift.

Yesterday, we asked whether the U-turn on winter fuel payments had weakened your confidence in Rachel Reeves’ strategy. About three-quarters of you said you’d lost most, it not all, confidence, 11 per cent of you said the government was right to reverse course, and 13 per cent were on the fence. Thanks for voting!

Now try this

Right. I’m off to see Gang of Three, a new play about the 1976 Labour leadership election that is getting rave reviews.

However you spend it, have a wonderful weekend! We’ll be back on Tuesday.

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