In My View
Posted by Robert Walter, MP for North Dorset, at 14:55, Thu 6 December 2007:
IN MY VIEW
I hope you can sleep soundly in your bed at night but I am somewhat surprised by the latest figures for ‘End of Custody Licence’ releases which reveal that 89 prisoners have been released early from Guys Marsh Prison near Shaftesbury. In fact 26 were released early in October alone.
Across the country over 11,000 prisoners, including 2,000 violent offenders and 1,000 burglars, have now been let out of jail early in just four months because the Government has ignored repeated warnings that it was failing to provide sufficient prison capacity. Ministry of Justice figures show that from these criminals a large group have now committed at least 180 offences when they should have been behind bars.
I believe that early release of offenders has put the public at risk but has not dealt with prison over-crowding. It should be scrapped immediately and sufficient cells provided to accommodate all offenders sentenced by the courts. When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, he claimed that he believed in punishing offenders. In fact these figures show that he has already given eleven thousand criminals a break.
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Local farmers should have a level playing field against food imports. But a damning report into the Brazilian beef industry by the EU’s Food and Veterinary Office, has found there is no systematic audit system for animal health in Brazil. They found that there is inadequate or no training of state vets. There is an unreliable system to determine that animals have been resident in a disease-free region for 90 days prior to export and no programme to monitor the efficacy of “foot and mouth” vaccination. I believe the Government should ensure that the foot and mouth disease controls, which apply to British beef, apply equally strongly to imports from Brazil.
Whether it is in Britain or Brazil, the same strict standards should be applied to the traceability of meat. Our Dorset farmers comply with some of the most stringent standards in the world – rightly so – and yet meat can be imported from a country whose animal health controls have been found wanting by the EU. This cannot be right.
I have discovered that since 2006 the UK has imported over 150,000 tonnes of beef from Brazil but the Government is unable to say from which states this has come from, which is deeply worrying when such serious shortcomings in the Brazilian regime have been highlighted. The Government has already caused one outbreak of foot and mouth disease this year, it mustn’t be responsible for another.
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A report this week from Help the Aged reveals how Dorset pensioners could be losing between £5,000 and £50,000 over a lifetime by not claiming the benefits which they are entitled to. One in three pensioners is not aware of who to turn to for advice or how to access benefits. Furthermore, the Government is failing its legal duty to eradicate fuel poverty in vulnerable households by 2010. Over one million pensioner households live in fuel poverty whilst the Government is doing nothing as £4.5 billion worth of benefits for older people lays unclaimed.
We keep hearing from the Government how much they have done to tackle pensioner poverty. But for many pensioners the truth is rather different. This report is a damning indictment of the failure to deliver improvement, despite all the money it has spent.
Comments
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Posted by Brian Rayner, 17:22, Thu 6 December 2007: (Is this post abusive?) #
Many thanks Robert but your email about sleeping soundly at night in Shaftesbury is scare mongering of the worst type. The answer to your question is yes we do sleep well at night.Correct me if I am misinformed however, but Guys Marsh is a low category prison isn't it, and none of the 2000 violent offenders or 1,000 burglars were sent there anyway.It depends also on how early these people were released and why? A few days, two weeks for good behaviour?Perhaps their sentences were excessive anyway, or even too lenient for a few. There is a multiplicity of questions to probe and rectify before coming up with glib and scaremongering statements such as yours. A shortage of prisons may be part of the problem, but a much larger one is the social problem that resulted in these men and women being incarcerated in the first place. We need to address that urgently.Drugs? Jobs within the environment that the community and government could finance? Why spend hundreds of pounds stirling incarcerating an offender, when we could use the same cash on him/her to benefit everyone in the community. For example the streets and countryside in Dorset are tips and need a thorough clean up. Moreover we deplore the spending of trillions on Trident, and I respect the needs of the workers who wish to stay in employment, but there are so many more important social opportunities out there that need addressing. Water Defences, Canal Renovation, Aircraft Emissions to name just three and not necessarily in that order.The answer regarding Trident from those who disagree me with me, will no doubt be the age old chestnut, "but if we have no defence then we have no possibility of completing what you wish for". Hogwash!Conventional weapons possibly, Trident submarines and nuclear weapons no. Respectfully yours Brian Rayner.
Posted by Andy Newton, 22:13, Sat 8 December 2007: (Is this post abusive?) #
I rather agree with Brian Raynor. Despite what the last Tory leader said when he was Home Secretary (I've forgotten his name but Anne Widdecombe said "there is something of the night about him" (Got it! Michael Howard. I swore I would not vote Tory with him in charge, and I didn't)) prison DOES NOT work. Prisons are stuffed to the gunwales with people who shouldn't be there, people who need proper treatment not incarceration. If these people were dealt with sensibly there would be less crime, less money wasted on prisons, and more space for the violent criminals who should be there.
We are currently led by the most right wing government in my lifetime. We do not need Tories clamouring to be even further to the right of the Nazi Party of Great Britain (aka New Labour). David Cameron is our only hope of protecting British freedoms by getting rid of the expensive and ineffective ID card scheme. Don't scupper his chances by whinging like a Daily Mail editor because minor criminals have left prison a few weeks early - you can't keep them locked up forever, like Guantanamo Bay!
Andy Newton - Tory voter and Guardian reader - I like to have my prejudices challenged