Downing Street: Estonia prison place plan was from former government and Labour has ‘no plans’ to follow it
A Downing Street spokesperson has said that reports the government were planning to send prisoners from England and Wales abroad to Estonia due to over-crowding were plans laid by the previous Conservative administration, and that it has no plans to implement the policy.
PA Media reports the spokesperson said:
The justice secretary has been clear that we have to bring in reforms to tackle the prison capacity crisis.
That’s why, alongside our commitment to build more prisons, we will be publishing a 10-year strategy in the autumn to set out how we will ensure that we always have the places we need to keep dangerous offenders behind bars.
On those reports specifically, I would point out that this was the policy of the former government and that this government has made no such plans or announcements with regard to Estonia.
Official figures published on Friday showed that the prison population in England and Wales had reached a record high, with 88,521 people behind bars, 171 more than the previous record set at the end of last week.
The Daily Telegraph reported that the Ministry of Justice was investigating “all viable options” to increase capacity after the Baltic state said it had offered to rent out spare capacity to other countries.
Earlier, Angela Eagle, a minister in the Home Office, did not comment directly when asked on Sky News whether the government was considering the plan.
Key events
PA Media is carrying some words from Claire Hanna, who looks set to replace Colum Eastwood as SDLP leader unopposed, after she was the only candidate to have declared her interest before the deadline.
The 44-year-old, who has been an MP since 2019 and before that was MLA for Belfast South said:
I’m not someone who thinks they have all the answers, it is daunting but I have been involved in the SDLP for many, many years and I have learnt a thing or two about the things that work in terms of organising people and in terms of motivating. I’m looking forward to getting stuck in if that’s what the members decide.
PA reports that Hanna received the nomination of every eligible SDLP constituency branch and support group.
Adrian Ramsay has finished his speech at the Green party of England and Wales autumn conference in Manchester. In it he paid tribute to the party’s first MP, Caroline Lucas, who stood down at the last election. She received a lengthy ovation.
Ramsay finished by thanking people who had voted Green, “Whether you were a first time Green voter or have voted Green every time you had the opportunity.”
He said to delegates in the hall:
Together we can keep on making history, keep on doing politics better and keep on delivering a brighter, fairer future. The ambitious, positive, inspiring future you have all helped demonstrate it’s possible to choose. This is what real change looks like – it looks like you.
His co-leader Carla Denyer is unwell and was unable to deliver the speech alongside Ramsay.
Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay has criticsed the new Labour government’s track record on climate policies, saying that “Labour’s obsession with growth at any cost” shows they “are becoming the party that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.”
Speaking at the party’s conference in Manchester he was warmly applauded by delegates when he said:
We want them to stop the huge new Rosebank oilfield going ahead. There is no justification for this. Letting existing oil and gas wells run for a few more years until the transition is complete is one thing. But opening the UK’s biggest undeveloped oil and gas field will result in nearly 500m barrels of oil being burnt.
It’s another example of Labour’s obsession with growth at any cost. They really are becoming the party that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. The climate science is super clear – there must be no new oil and gas.
He urged the prime minister to attend COP29 in person, and criticised Labour as “weak” as they “don’t seem to understand that the climate crisis is no longer something distant on the horizon.”
“Climate breakdown is affecting people’s lives right now,” Ramsay said.
He said the party “must not let the positive story around climate action be left untold”, saying it should not cede ground to “those who falsely claim it will make life more expensive for the poorest or deny us our freedoms.”
Adrian Ramsay, the Green Party of England and Wales co-leader, has told the party’s autumn conference that politicians need to challenge “the kind of inflammatory language which has given a green light to those racist views” which he said led to violent disorder last month.
He said “The rioting and disorder on our streets this summer was organised political violence fuelled by racism and Islamophobia,” and said the party will “stand in solidarity with all those in our communities who have united peacefully against this hate and we will continue to do that and call, at every opportunity, on others to do the same.”
Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay has said the reason his party did so well in the July election was not only because people “desperately wanted to see the back of the Conservatives” but also because “they were uninspired by the lacklustre offers and u-turns coming from the Labour party.”
Speaking to the party conference in Manchester, he said the party went into the election “clear that only the Green Party was offering the real hope and real change that people want to see.”
He repeated the party’s promise to work with the new government “where they are heading in the right direction”, but hold them to account “where we think greater ambition is needed.”
He singled out “winter fuel payments”, “airport expansion” and “the cruelty of the two-child benefit cap” as areas where he said Labour were already getting things wrong.
He said “In a few weeks we will see the first budget from this new government and we expect to predictably hear that there is no money. I will stand up … and tell the chancellor that she’s not looking in the right place.”
There was a warm response in the room as he continued “We need to invest in defending public services and protecting our environment – and we can do so with some changes to the tax system to ask the wealthiest in society to pay a little more. I proudly championed a wealth tax during the general election campaign, and I will do the same on budget day.”
Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer has given a brief address to her party’s conference via video, as she is, in her own words “holed up in a hotel room with flu-like symptoms.”
She said it was not how she hoped to address conference, especially when the party had enjoyed such a momentous year with four MPs elected for the first time. She also joked that one of the advantages of having co-leaders was that Adrian Ramsay could still do the speech in person. He is speaking now.
Claire Hanna set to become new SDLP leader unopposed
PA Media reports that South Belfast and Mid Down MP Claire Hanna is set to become the next leader of the SDLP after she was the only candidate for the role when nominations closed.
A party statement said Hanna had received the required nominations from SDLP constituency branches and support groups. She will now proceed for ratification by party members at the SDLP conference on 5 October.
Outgoing leader Colum Eastwood announced last week he was leaving the role after nine years. He and Hanna are the party’s two representatives in Westminster after the 2024 general election.
The Green Party’s Hannah Spencer is introducing the co-leader’s speech by co-leader Adrian Ramsay at their conference. I will bring you any key lines.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper has spoken to broadcasters ahead of a planned meeting with the prime minister, senior ministers and law and order and security officials to discuss small boat crossings of the English Channel.
She told the media:
We have this dangerous situation. The criminal gangs are undermining border security and putting lives at risk.
In the first half of the year, the number of crossings that we inherited from the previous government were at a record high for spring crossings.
The numbers for July and August have been lower than in previous years, but we have also seen lives being lost and we still see these criminal gangs operating along the north French coast.
Those gangs should not be able to get away with it and that’s why we are determined to go after them.
We have seen this really shameful increase in the asylum backlog under the Conservatives that we inherited.
We also saw much lower returns, way lower returns, than under the last Labour government.
So, the action that we have immediately taken is to significantly increase the number of returns since the general election, and we are also working now to close the backlog so that we can end these very costly asylum hotels
The Green Party of England and Wales is holding its autumn conference in Manchester, which started today. My colleague Peter Walker is there. He has just posted to social media suggesting that the co-leaders speech by Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer is in fact going to be delivered only by Ramsay, as Denyer is unwell. We will bring you key lines from the speech which is due to start shortly.
Security minister Dan Jarvis has welcomed a nine year sentence for a man who participated in violent disorder propagated by the far-right last month.
27-year-old Thomas Birley was sentenced to nine years in prison after being involved in incidents outside the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham, including adding wood to a fire in the large industrial bin which had been pushed against an exit and helping place a further bin on top of the one ablaze. The hotel was housing asylum seekers.
PA Media reports Jarvis told Sky News:
Of course, sentencing is very much a matter for the courts and a matter for the judge, but it reflects the seriousness of the crime.
I think most of us will remember the events of that particular day. I’m a South Yorkshire MP and Rotherham is not far away from my own constituency.
So, the sentence that has been imposed today, I think, reflects the very serious nature of the criminality that we saw on that day and I think it sends a very strong message that that kind of vile behaviour is completely unacceptable, it’s illegal and it won’t be tolerated.
Judge Jeremy Richardson KC and the court were told that 22 staff inside the Holiday Inn had barricaded themselves into the hotel’s panic room and “thought they were going to burn to death”, and that about 200 people were trapped inside the building.
Birley, of Rotherham, was found guilty of arson with intent to endanger life.
