Labour minister Jake Richards hit out at Nigel Farage’s Nightingale prison proposal, saying the Reform UK leader has ‘no real solutions’ to the problems gripping the system
Nigel Farage’s plot to create temporary prisons for serious offenders has been blasted.
Justice minister Jake Richards told The Mirror that the Reform chief has failed to offer real solutions to the prison crisis.
Speaking during a visit to HMP Feltham in West London, Mr Richards rubbished Mr Farage’s proposal to spend £5billion creating new ‘Nightingale’ prisons.
He said: “Reform’s policies, to the extent they have any policy on this, is to make temporary prisons.
“Now for your readers and my constituents, I would not want a temporary prison with serious offenders inside near me and my family or my constituents.
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“I’m sure you wouldn’t and your readers wouldn’t. Nigel Farage doesn’t mind that. Basically he’s got no real solutions to the problem, which sums up Reform.”
In July Mr Farage announced that if his party came to power, it would build five low-security prisons on Ministry of Defence (MOD) land.
This would create 12,400 spaces for “lower category offenders”, he claimed.
Mr Richards said the wider public understand why Labour has been forced to make tough choices to tackle prison overcrowding.
When the Tories left office there were 88,818 prison places and 87,726 people behind bars.
The Justice Minister said: “When I speak to constituent as they get it, I think that’s why the Tories got kicked out, they’ve only got 100 MPs and they’re polling at 15% because they completely wrecked the country.
“And if you were going to pick the best example to show how much damage they did, it was in prisons and criminal justice.
“I think people understand that and they appreciate that the government’s going to make difficult decisions to fix it.”