Michael Gove talks about demolishing old prisons and building new ones
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00:00What is the solution at the moment? I mean, is it right that we should be letting out prisoners?
00:03Is it right that we bring down sentence levels? That's under review as you know by David Gork. I mean, what is the solution?
00:10I do think there is an instant solution.
00:12So I think it is the case as
00:15my previous point about, you know, how to review sentences
00:19indicates that a sentencing review is right. I think that there are some
00:25cases where
00:27sentences could and should be longer, but it's also the case that we have a prison population at the moment
00:35so high
00:37and in particular a prison system under such strain that the work of
00:43rehabilitation in prisons is
00:46dramatically impeded. Now, you could
00:51resolve this problem by having significantly more prison places, an investment in
00:58education and rehabilitative work in prisons, but to be fair to the current Lord Chancellor
01:05it is not the case that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is prepared to spend that amount of money.
01:10One of the things that we were planning to do
01:13was, when I was there, was to change the physical nature of the prison estate by selling off
01:20prisons in urban areas, Wormwood Scrubs, Wandsworth, Brixton and so on. The old Victorian ones? Exactly.
01:26Building new prisons which were
01:31in locations that would allow us to have the sorts of facilities and support required and it would be justified on the basis that
01:38these prime inner-city sites
01:41could be developed for housing or for commercial use in a way that would work and George Osborne had a
01:47very well thought-out plan for that and had set capital aside, but of course when
01:51Theresa came in and Liz Truss came in as Lord Chancellor, that plan didn't reach fruition. There were a variety of other priorities that they had.