Keir Starmer has said there are “too many prisoners and not enough prisons” as he hit out at the monumental failures in the justice system caused by the Conservatives.
The new prime minister said he was “restless for change” but cautioned it would take time, citing the “mess the government has made on prisons” and making clear he could not build a new one in 24 hours.
He said it was impossible to stop the current policy of releasing prisoners early because of the lack of capacity in jails.
Speaking in No 10 on his second day in office, Starmer was pressed on his decision to appoint James Timpson, a businessman who employs ex-prisoners, as a justice minister. Starmer said Timpson had “huge experience” but avoided endorsing his view that only a third of people in prison should really be there.
However, he did say he wanted early intervention to stop young boys in particular from getting on the “escalator” of a life of knife crime and going to prison numerous times.
After meeting with his cabinet for the first time, Starmer said he would embark on a tour of the four nations of the UK and meet city mayors in the coming days as he said he wanted to turn his back on “tribal politics” by reaching out across party lines.
The prime minister said he wanted to meet first ministers and metro mayors across the UK to deliver change as quickly as possible. He said he was not a “tribal politician” and had a “mandate to do politics differently”, and that self-interest was now in the past.
The Labour leader said he had already spoken to Laurie Magnus, the government’s ethics adviser, about delivering higher standards of conduct and had made clear to his cabinet what was expected of them.
Starmer appointed his cabinet on Friday and will continue to make junior ministerial appointments over the weekend. He appears to have made Anneliese Dodds, the party chair, a new development minister, leaving a vacancy in her old job running the Labour party.
Asked about the overwhelming number of his cabinet who attended comprehensive state schools, Starmer said: “I’m proud of the fact that we have people around the cabinet table who didn’t have the easiest of starts in life but to see them sitting in the cabinet this morning was a proud moment for me and this changed Labour party and a reinforcement of my belief in that aspiration, which is a value I use to help me make decisions.”
Stressing delivery of his missions, Starmer said “mission boards” would be created to bring about change on growth, the NHS, education and other areas, with him chairing the overarching structure.
Starmer cited prisons and criminal justice as one area where the government would struggle to work quickly. He told the press conference in Downing Street: “We’ve got too many prisoners, not enough prisons. That’s a monumental failure of the last government on any basic view of government to get to a situation where you haven’t got enough prison places for prisoners, doesn’t matter what your political stripe, that is a failure of government.
“It’s a failure of government to instruct the police not to arrest. This has not had enough attention, in my view, but it’s what happened.
“We will fix that, but we can’t fix it overnight and therefore it is impossible to simply say we will stop the early release of prisoners and you wouldn’t believe me if I did say it.”
He also said he wanted to go forward with “raw honesty” about the way the NHS was not working. “It’s broken and our job now is not just to say who broke it – the last government – but to get on with fixing it,” he said.
The prime minister was further pressed on whether Labour would scrap the two-child limit on child benefit and would not commit to overturning it, but insisted his government would be clear about driving down child poverty.
Starmer also said the Rwanda scheme was “dead and buried before it started”, confirming that his government would cancel flights scheduled by Rishi Sunak for people who crossed the Channel illegally.
