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The government has won a vote in the commons over its controversial winter fuel payments – but Keir Starmer knows he’s not winning over the public. Unpopular decisions are the theme of the day as Nish returns to join Coco on the PSUK couch. 

 

Later, our hosts are joined by former inmate turned podcaster and TV host David Navarro, alongside CEO of the Prison Reform Trust Pia Sinha to discuss the disastrous state of the UK’s prisons. It’s an eye opening chat – through David’s lived experience and Pia’s knowledge of the system we gain a better understanding of where our justice system is going wrong and how we can begin to fix it. 

 

Nish fights sleep as we’re brought up to speed with the Tory leadership latest, before firing up in disappointment at misguided comments on the Grenfell disaster from two former Prime Ministers. Coco lightens the mood with the unexpected love story between two of Westminster’s best known MPs.  

 

 

Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.

 

Useful Links: 

David’s Channel 4 Documentary https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-secrets-of-uk-prisons-untold 

Prison Reform Trust https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/ 

 

Guests: 

Pia Sinha, CEO Prison Reform Trust

David Navarro, Host, Delinquent Nation 

 

Audio credits:

Sky News

BBC

 

Contact us via email: PSUK@reducedlistening.co.uk 

WhatsApp: 07494 933 444 (UK) or + 44 7494 933 444 (internationally)

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TRANSCRIPT

 

Coco Khan Hi. This is Pod Save the UK. I’m Coco Khan.

 

Nish Kumar And I’m Nish Kumar. This week we’re embracing the government’s newfound unpopularity.

 

Coco Khan And later, we’re joined by two very special guests to discuss the challenges facing our prison system. But first, Nish is back. Return of the Mac. Where have you been?

 

Nish Kumar I’ve been on tour. I was off last week because I was doing a last minute run of previews just before the tour started. And the tour is up and running.

 

Coco Khan Well, obviously I’m heavily biased, but I have seen the show and is fantastic and probably libelous.

 

Nish Kumar So it’s definitely not like this. I want to be clear for any lawyers listening who aren’t going to come to the show. It’s definitely 100% not libelous, but.

 

Coco Khan It may be a Jason.

 

Nish Kumar I believe that it’s legally caveated sufficient.

 

Coco Khan It is a spicy show. And if you would like to see a legally caveated show, you should absolutely get tickets. It’s running around the country.

 

Nish Kumar I’m off to Scotland tomorrow. I’m off to Glasgow tomorrow. Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh. I’m all over the entire United Kingdom. And I’m also doing a day in Dublin, which I’m very excited about.

 

Coco Khan But anyway, let’s get into the political news of the week where case Davos. Well, who wants to be popular anyway?

 

Speaker 3 We’re going to have to be unpopular. Tough decisions are tough decisions. Popular decisions aren’t tough. They’re easy. When we talk about tough decisions, I’m talking about tough decisions. The things that last government run away from the governments traditionally run away from. I’m convinced that because they’ve run away from difficult decisions, we haven’t got the change we need for the country.

 

Nish Kumar That’s Keir Starmer, who seems to have aged a hundred years in the last couple of weeks speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg last Sunday.

 

Coco Khan This is at least an evolution of last weeks. Things are going to get worse mantra, but it is a strange tone for the government to set as all week long front pages of websites and newspapers have been cluttered with headlines decrying the government’s stance on winter fuel payments for pensioners.

 

Nish Kumar And on Tuesday afternoon, we saw the Government’s policy of means testing the up to 300 pounds payment put to the test in a vote in the House of Commons. The Government won comfortably with 348 votes to 228 for a majority of 120. Only one Labour MP voted against the Government, but a number quietly abstained.

 

Coco Khan So we spoke about this on the podcast last week, but what are your thoughts on this?

 

Nish Kumar Listen, I think the case that I think the Labour Party is trying to make is that by means testing these payments, you can make a meaningful saving by making sure the money doesn’t go to people that don’t necessarily need it. But I think it is also very difficult because there is always a concern that people will fall between the cracks. When you make this kind of come, there are people that exist on the borderline that badly need these kind of fuel payments and may lose out over the winter. And also in terms of the saving, it is expected to save between 1.3 billion pounds in 2024, 2025 and 1.5 billion pounds in subsequent years, which, given what the Government is trying to address, is a 22 billion pound black hole is a real concern. And my issue with this and my issue with this kind of rhetoric around this is this idea that if you’re making benefit cuts and you’re saying you have to do this because I have to make tough and unpopular choices, my question is always, who are those choices going to be unpopular with? Because regardless of what Christopher says about governments dodging decisions, we’ve had between 10 and 14 years of unpopular decisions, and I think the government could have saved themselves a huge amount of political misery if they had announced these cuts in concert with, say, changing the structure to capital gains tax or inheritance tax. The Resolution Foundation this week has been urging the Government to announce changes to cap gains and inheritance tax and national insurance in next month’s budget. That would raise more than 20 billion pounds a year for the Treasury. You know, which again, given that the Chancellor is trying to plug a 22 billion pound hole, feels like a much, much, much more significant figure. And when we talk about unpopular decisions. The question is always who are these decisions unpopular with? And it may well be that when we come around to the budget, Rachel Reeves does announce a change those policies. I would say that if you had telegraphed some of those policies in concert with this idea that you’re cutting fuel payments to pensioners, you might save yourself a hell of a lot of political difficulties. My grandmother is a pensioner. And I also think that if we’re looking at the way the pensions systems are rolled out, and I think this is true of a lot of benefits. There needs to be a simplification of the way that these things are dealt with and the way that these things are administered. There is simply no way without my mum doing everything my grandmother would be able to claim benefits. She’s like, It’s all.

 

Coco Khan Online as well.

 

Nish Kumar It’s all online. Yeah. Which obviously I understand is ostensibly designed to make things more straightforward, but you also have to consider who the target audience are of your benefit, of your sort of technical changes. And I also think that there needs to be a simplification of the processes that allow people who are eligible because there still are a number of pensioners that are eligible for this. And there is an argument being made by some Labour MP that actually this helps them provide more targeted benefits to the people who need it most.

 

Coco Khan So if the Government is taking the chance to implement some unpopular policies, we thought we’d help with some of our own contributions. So let’s start with the realistic. A bit of crystal ball gazing for Keir Starmer’s foretold things getting worse. We’ve already discussed some potential new taxes rejigging inheritance tax that would be unpopular, capital gains tax changes that would be unpopular. We have Paul Johnson from the Ifs come onto this couch and make a very good case for changing up council tax banding. Yeah, I mean, what else could they do that would really suck for them?

 

Nish Kumar I mean, I think I think if they want to be incredibly unpopular again with some of the wealthy people in society, I think they could clamp down on tax avoidance. I think that’s the other thing that is closing those those tax loopholes would be hugely, hugely significant. Let’s take a moment to dream up some more imaginative, unpopular policies. Let’s not blue sky think. Okay. Well your wildest unpopular policies. Okay.

 

Coco Khan So I’m going to say something and I’m I’m I know I’m going to outrage many people.

 

Nish Kumar If you if you say anything negative about Taylor Swift, I will immediately distance myself from it. I don’t need the rage of the Swifties.

 

Coco Khan How about this dog owners? I think you should have a license to own a dog because not being funny.

 

Nish Kumar You doing this?

 

Coco Khan I’m sorry, but there’s too many badly behaved dogs snitch. There are. People don’t know how to train their dogs to look after the dog. I’m just saying, I think you need a license.

 

Nish Kumar Can I just say I don’t disagree with you, but you can’t tell British people that their dogs are a problem.

 

Coco Khan I know.

 

Nish Kumar My mother in law, who’s.

 

Coco Khan Been a policy.

 

Nish Kumar My mother in law is Canadian, repeatedly says the strangest thing about coming to this country is finding out the British people prefer dogs to children.

 

Coco Khan Okay. All right. Listen, let’s be more egalitarian. How about licenses for all pets, cats, rabbits?

 

Nish Kumar Parrots. What? You’ve got to license people to own a budget. Yeah.

 

Coco Khan Yeah. Anyway, there you go, customer. If you want to ruin your standing with the British public, that’s a policy.

 

Nish Kumar I think if you want to go full on popular decision. I actually don’t even know how unpopular this is. Let’s go. Let’s. Let’s go full Brazilian on Twitter. Okay. Full Brazil.

 

Coco Khan Yeah, Full of Brazil. That sounds like I also wrote the song. Who would be saying that?

 

Nish Kumar I think let’s give the country a Brazilian.

 

Coco Khan Okay.

 

Nish Kumar And a bad Twitter. If you look at the last month and a half in British and American politics, the race riots in this country were driven by misinformation that was spread on Twitter. Yes. And if you look at the last week in American politics, the rumors that immigrants are now eating cats has actually spread. I’ve been given credibility by Twitter. So I’m just saying, maybe I’d also like I’m still on Twitter, maybe for my own benefit. Yeah, some prohibitions. All for our own benefit.

 

Coco Khan And welcome. Okay. I’ve got one. Here we go. I went to see the new Beetlejuice yesterday. Shouldn’t have been made. Bad reboots. What do you think?

 

Nish Kumar I don’t. I don’t mind biting reboots. Yeah, I don’t buy body reboots. I shouldn’t have. I don’t want to. I don’t. What about old reboots? Because that I would have got to say, James, I castaway Ghostbusters, and that was one of the most hilarious mothers of my life.

 

Coco Khan Some sort of board. The reboot board. And you submit to them why you’re rebooting it. And I think you have to sufficiently prove that you will add something.

 

Nish Kumar Well, I don’t want to split. I don’t want to get too in the weeds of the terminology here. But technically, Beetlejuice is not a reboot. It’s a sequel.

 

Coco Khan Okay. All right, fine.

 

Nish Kumar So you think sequels or reboots have to go in front of a board? Yes. I would say I’ll introduce a law because purely for my own amusement, I would say you have. I would agree with you. But you get a positive. You put a customer at it. If you could stick a customer at a reboot or a sequel, I definitely don’t want to say Schindler’s List starring James Castro. That’s all I’m saying, that that might be the line.

 

Coco Khan We I know we’ve been a bit silly here, but listeners, if you have an unpopular policy you think might make the UK a better place. Let us know. Email us at p.s. UK at Reduced Listening. Co.uk. And if you’ve not already, don’t forget to subscribe so that you can hear it in next week’s episode.

 

Nish Kumar And after break, we’re gonna be talking about some other potentially unpopular policies as we discuss the UK’s broken prison system with some very special guests. So Keir Starmer says he’s going to have to make unpopular decisions. And while the most unpopular this week may be taking winter fuel payments of millions of pensioners, releasing prisoners early is also something unlikely to get him a slap on the back. Arsenal matches.

 

Coco Khan This week. Over 1700 prisoners in England and Wales have been let out early after serving 40% of their sentence, as opposed to the usual 50% in an attempt to ease overcrowding in critically full prisons.

 

Nish Kumar Last week, the England and Wales prison population hit another record high of 88,521, leaving just 1.2% of available space.

 

Coco Khan The new temporary measure excludes people with sentences for violent crimes over four years sex offenses and certain domestic abuse related crimes.

 

Nish Kumar And if this all sounds a bit familiar, it’s because the last Tory government had the same problem. About a year ago. Faced with prisons almost running out of space, it brought in an emergency policy which saw 10,000 prisoners released up to 70 days early between October and June.

 

Coco Khan So how has our justice system become so broken? And could more radical and, dare we say it, unpopular changes help fix it? Pia Sinha is CEO of the Prison Reform Trust and a former prison governor. And David Navarro is host and producer of Delinquent Nation on YouTube in which he interviews fellow ex-prisoners. Welcome to you both.

 

Pia Sinha Thank you.

 

David Navarro Thank you for having us.

 

Nish Kumar Thanks for coming on. Pia, we’ve actually spoken to you on the show before. We spoke to you last October, just as the Tories rolling out their own early release scheme. Do you think this plan from Labour is going to work any better?

 

Pia Sinha No, I think is the short answer. I think the reason for that is, is as you’ve seen.

 

Nish Kumar Last year, I would really have respected it if you just said no, and that would have been the note and the conversation moved on.

 

Pia Sinha Shall I expand things? So yeah, we, we spoke last year, I think about I think it was just after Alex Chalke announced the early release scheme, which is a slightly different release scheme. But you’ve seen a year later we’re back to that same point. So it’s a very, very temporary measure. It buys you a bit of breathing space, but ultimately as a long term fix, you have to look at how you curb the demand coming into prison. And that is the only way that you can make this problem go away for longer than six months or a year, because we’ll be here again next year if we only do this.

 

Coco Khan I do just want to pick up on this early release, David. Actually, some of the people being released early have nowhere to go. Last month, prison inspectors found that a quarter of prisoners at Nottingham released under that scheme were homeless, leading some returning to the prison system. So what are some other challenges that people face when they get released?

 

David Navarro Reintegrated into society is a is a big one. Because when you’re in prison, I think I feel like you’re in a totally different world. Different rules, especially when you’ve done quite a long time. You come on and you have to reintegrate back into society. Then you’ve got like the housing relationships and then trying to take a different path rather than the path that you’ve been going down.

 

Nish Kumar There’s been some reports of victims not being informed of upcoming releases with the exclusion from early release, not applying to all domestic abusers as well as probation officers not having enough time to prepare for these releases. Is this now going to create a new separate raft of problems?

 

Pia Sinha I think potentially, yeah. And I think you were talking about reintegration and and planning for release. One of the key functions of prisons is, is that as you’re technically or in theory, as you’re coming towards the end of your release date, you should have people who work in the prisons and outside the prison helping you with your employment needs, your housing needs, your treatment needs, informing victims. You know, all of that planning needs to take place. If you move that forward, then that planning time gets squashed. So the efficiency of all of that drops. And one of the things that came out in the reports is that victims are not being informed of the fact that their perpetrators are getting released early. And that can feel, you know, very traumatic for them. I think that people know that eventually people need to get out. But when you know that’s happening and you’ve had time to prepare for it, you’re you’re mentally more equipped for it. And that’s the bit that’s not happening. So that’s one problem in terms of how it impacts victims. But the other is that probation generally when you come out, you come out on license conditions. And one of the things that recalls you back to prisons is not necessarily that you’ve committed another offense, but that you’ve breached your license conditions. And those could be something as straightforward as you’ve not maintained your tenancy or you’ve made yourself homeless because you’ve got kicked out of your flat or you’re not living in suitable accommodation and those.

 

Nish Kumar Then you’re essentially punished for.

 

Pia Sinha That. You’re punished for that. Yeah. And especially when there’s no accommodation that’s suitable anyway, you know, you might be sofa surfing. And for some people, that’s the only option that they might have. And so you so the kind of fallacy in all of this is, is. That you’ll recall rates then increases. So if you’re setting people out early, but then they’re coming back in before their original release day anyway, you’re just making it a kind of a really unworkable strategy to release pressure in prisons. And we had we had a number of prisoners getting interviewed yesterday as they were coming out of prisons. And so many of them were just resigned to the fact that they’re going to come back in a few weeks time. So it just feels like a very short term approach to dealing with the problem.

 

Coco Khan Obviously, David, you interview ex-offenders on your YouTube channel. That resignation that Peter talked about there, is that something you’ve encountered as well?

 

David Navarro I think that I can’t say for certain certain prisoners, obviously, at the prison, between 20 and 30% of prisoners get recorded anyways. And I think some of the people may have said, you know, I’m going to be back in a day, might be like drug addicts that haven’t sorted out their addiction water in the. And I think they probably would have got recalled anyways for the people that actually want to change or feel like they want to change their life. We take this as an opportunity.

 

Coco Khan So in general, the sense I get from you is that the early release scheme you think is good is positive.

 

David Navarro Yeah, I think it’s I think it’s positive, as in because the prisons are full. Yeah, obviously. And I don’t I think we’re kind of making a big deal out of it maybe. I think some of it’s political. You know, trying to get out Labour a bit. You know, I mean, but I feel like. For the people that qualify for it. And I think the maximum time is five years. The earliest they can go is three months early, which before this day was schemes like HTC Tag, which was like three months early. You go.

 

Nish Kumar Well, is that so? We do it because.

 

David Navarro I hate to see home detention curfew tag. And if you’re well behaved in prison, you kind of you get eligible to get a tag and come out three months early. But I think that was if I’m not wrong, I think that was under four years at the time. Yeah. So now this is like five years and under sort of changed it a little bit. But there’s been loads of schemes for people to come out three months early. I think we’re making such a big deal out of this, you know, because so much people were released at one time. I think we’re making such a big deal out of it for political reasons. I think the actual thing is, you know, prisoners of war going to get released anyways. Yeah, before Christmas.

 

Pia Sinha Yeah. And he’s right. If you were if you got sentenced to under four years, you were released to your 50% mark anyway, so halfway point. So you’re, you’re getting 10%, 10% earlier. There’s not actually a lot in the scheme of things.

 

David Navarro And also I’m still a license, by the way, it runs out next year. But my probation told me that they have to they get an extended license. So if they did 40% in prison, they do 60% outside her. So they’ve come out of prison early, but a sentence sentence hasn’t been shortened. So in that 60% of time, they can still get a record. And, you know, you can.

 

Pia Sinha They do.

 

David Navarro Yeah. And it’s like I said, it could be anything. You know, I’ve known people to like miss an appointment or like, you know, be in the wrong call without telling them I’m going to be in this car or I didn’t tell that person that I’m going to be in New Castle today or like another part of country. And then they get stopped and it’s like, you’re cool. You didn’t tell us you was going to. It’s very strict probation and.

 

Pia Sinha The probation crisis now, because you’re moving the prison crisis into probation to probation crisis, you’ve got now suddenly got huge numbers of early released prisoners that are going to be on the case, loads of probation who are completely stretched as well.

 

Coco Khan I think that’s sort of what we really want to get to the heart of in this episode is like, how do you decouple the politicking from like, actually what is the issues and how can we make them better? So I’ve got a quote here from the chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor. He welcomed the early release scheme in his annual report that was released this week. But he also said they are not in themselves a solution to decades of under-investment and inertia in a vital public protection service. So his report draws on 72 reports also covering prisons, young offenders, institutions, court custody and immigration detention centers. I’m going to play you a clip, actually. Here he is speaking to BBC Breakfast.

 

Clip Far too many people are spending their time locked in their cells, not doing anything productive during their prison sentence. Many of them, sadly, are taking drugs partly because they’re bored, partly because they already have drug habits. And what that means is people are coming out from prison without having reduced the risk of reoffending, and that has to be a concern for us.

 

Coco Khan David, what do you make of that? Do you agree with that assessment? And just generally, what are your thoughts on the state of prisons as they are now?

 

David Navarro Yeah, the state of prisons is obviously a shambles. I agree with what you say. And I feel like if you want to deal with the crisis that’s going on, you need to put more into. And rehabilitation rather than just locking people up and and kind of what they’re doing. And I mean, Peter was speaking about this earlier, that if you look at places like Norway, Holland and these places that put a lot into rehabilitation, the re-offending rate is the least in Europe. But then if you look at England, I think we have the highest re-offending rates. We have the highest like life lifers and stuff like that in this country. Like we love to lock people up. And if you look at like America, they love to do it as well. And they’re such a big country and they give big sentences are like more than your lifetime. They’ll give out them sentences. But that hasn’t stopped the offending or the re-offending. But and if you look at countries where it’s working, I feel like we should follow those countries rather than follow in America, you know, I mean, or like the old way of doing things.

 

Nish Kumar I think that that’s such an interesting point. And it brings me actually back to something that you said when we last spoke here that I would say haunts me on a daily basis. And it was something it was a conversation specifically about the prisons. But the question your posing, David, is why can’t we have an evidence based policy around this? And Peter, last time you were on the show, you said part of the problem is we can’t in your time in government. The question is often asked, what will the Daily Mail think about this and does this put do do these policies past the Daily Mail test? And I have to tell you that I think about that every day. My God.

 

Pia Sinha I’m so sorry.

 

Nish Kumar No, no, Because I think whenever I look at when we look across the various different problems that we face it as a society, it does seem to me to be the key question. How much of a sense of that in responding to what David is saying, which is such a reasonable question, why are we not following more successful works and what works? Yeah. Is it’s as simple as it does not pass the Daily Mail test.

 

Pia Sinha It’s partly that and it’s a it’s a big part and I think so we visited Holland a few months ago, a group of us, and we were looking at what they had done. They have successfully managed to reduce that prison population to such a point that they’re having to they’ve got empty prisons. Wow. And one of the things that they said is that that they and they’ve got a right wing government recently appointed. They were concerned about what the implications of that would be. And they said but in the way that the relationship between the politicians and the civil servants work is that the politicians don’t interfere with the with with civil service duties. They respect their neutrality and their independence, and they don’t tell them what they need to do. Whereas here you’ve got a lot of political interference and that then starts, you know, the tail wagging the dog. And so and then when you play into it, the populism factor or the Daily Mail test, the driving force for why politicians might interfere in civil service business is because of of how it might appear to voters.

 

Nish Kumar The right wing or the right that the sections of the press will become inflamed or upset.

 

Pia Sinha Yes. And then and that the impact that will have on their future careers. So it’s not it’s using the wrong optics, but that certainly seems to play a part. You know.

 

Coco Khan One of the things you mentioned earlier, you talked about that, you know, in America, they give these really long sentences longer than a lifetime where all sentences are going up younger. I think there’s a public perception that that must put people off committing crimes.

 

David Navarro No. So my answer today is like, you have different types of people, but the person that’s most prone to going to prison, you know, someone that doesn’t read like a furry, they and while they’re younger, they don’t respond well to punishment, if that makes sense. You know, as a child, I used to get, you know, slapped or whatever, and I never, ever responded well to that. You know, I didn’t I didn’t stop doing what I was doing because I would get a slap kind of thing. I just I just tried to be smart or try to, you know. And some people do get that smack and then they’re just like, I don’t want to get smacked again, you know? But I think a lot of people that are prone to go in prison, you know, and more troubled kids, they don’t respond well to punishment. Furthermore, like they’ll be sat in prison and they’ll be even more angry at society, even more like, you know, and they’re making more links. It’s like university or crime prison. So they’re coming out even worse.

 

Nish Kumar Jesus.

 

David Navarro Yeah, I reckon.

 

Nish Kumar In terms of I mean, if we look at this current situation that we’re in, the prisons are in, you know, overfilled. There’s been a lot of talk about the last government stalled prison building program. And they they built an extra 6000 prison places after promising 20,000. There’s huge numbers of court backlogs as well, which is obviously not helping the situation because, again, whenever we start to talk about one problem, we realize it’s interconnected to five other things. And the. This sort of defunding of the court system and the various funding issues we’ve got there is creating another separate backlog, which means that the number of people awaiting trial in jail has also skyrocketed. It doesn’t feel like prison building is the issue. It feels like building more prisons and creating more prison spaces, not actually dealing with the sort of ceaseless demand we seem to have.

 

David Navarro Like it’s just giving you more time. I guess if you build another prison, it’ll give you just enough time until it gets filled up. Yeah, yeah. You know.

 

Pia Sinha It does. And it’s kind of hugely expensive due to build more prisons, I think at the rate of the prison population the way it’s going, I think that some clever statistician has worked out, you’ve got to build a new prison every two and a half years, which you can’t do, which is crazy. And I think that at the moment, the position that they’ve found themselves in, you know, you’ve you’ve got experience. I’ve experience, you know, being in Victorian prisons, I mean, they’re awful and crumbling and they are disgusting. And the squalor that Charlie Taylor talks about is true. So you do need to build new prisons, but it needs to be new prisons to close the old ones. And that makes sense. Or reroll some of the prisons, you know, the women population, you know, reducing the women’s population significantly. 60% of women are in there for nonviolent offenses. Decriminalize some of that. Give them the early intervention that they need to address those issues and reroll some of the women’s prisons. So they are much more creative ways of getting you the capacity that you need without the expense. And I think that the taxpayers need to kind of start asking those searching questions How much is this costing them for something that’s not effective?

 

Coco Khan Because I think it’s also worth saying and forgive me if this is a bit obvious, but when you hear the prisons are full, you might think there’s more crime, but there isn’t. Correct. Less crime. I’ve got a note here that a report for the Howard League for Penal Reform pointed out that the prison population in 1991 was about 14,000. That’s less than half of today’s numbers. So what’s going on? There’s less crime, but more. I mean, what’s the.

 

David Navarro Reason? What’s going on there is you’ve got like there’s something called IP. This was a law that was made. And then the person that made the law is now campaigning against it.

 

Nish Kumar Wow.

 

Pia Sinha Yeah. David Blunkett.

 

David Navarro Yeah. And it got it got stopped. I don’t know the word for it, but I got stopped in 2012. But the peep it was originally sent as an IP are still in.

 

Coco Khan Do you know what it stands for?

 

Pia Sinha IP in imprisonment for public protection.

 

David Navarro Yeah.

 

Nish Kumar I remember this. The new Labour government. Like it’s like. Yeah.

 

David Navarro And it was like basically this people I know you know are in for stayed in like capital back. Yeah but they’ve been in for 16 years because they haven’t been able to get a parole. A lot of them don’t get parole on their first time, you know, and then and then because you don’t have a release date, what people are not realizing these prisoners that don’t have a release date, the stress that they end up on drugs in prison or they might hold phones or you know what I’m saying? And then these prisoners that are in a long license because IP is life license. So these prisoners that are there for a long time are just trapped in a cycle because they’re getting in trouble in prison, not getting their parole. And then it just happens over and over again, you know, and and I feel like there’s less crime, like you said. But is prison is still doing that sentence when it should have been a long time ago, you know especially IPS I think.

 

Nish Kumar Look, you’re saying that longer sentencing in some ways instead of being a deterrent is actually something that is.

 

David Navarro Clogging up, is clogging up by.

 

Pia Sinha Clogging up the system. Yeah. So sentence inflation, some of it is because of perception of of, you know, showing overtly that you’re tough on crime. So when I started the prison service 25 years ago, an average life sentence tariff would be something like 12 years. If you got even if you got a life sentence, it’d be 12 years tariff and then you’d be eligible for parole. It’s now pushing 20 years. And in that 20 years, as you say, David, is that unless you’re doing something meaningful, purposeful, that’s helping you feel hope and working towards all of those issues that might have got you into prison in the first place, the prison sentence itself becomes a source of deteriorating your wellbeing and your mental health. So with the IPI sentence, it’s described as one of the biggest stains on the justice system and people who are part of their have developed really poor mental health. As a result of that, it’s tantamount to torture.

 

David Navarro A lot of people that haven’t been in the system or don’t understand it, they think like criminals are just monsters and they’re just bad people. But a lot of time when you’re actually in there, you’re like, well, his mum and dad were both like drug users and he didn’t really have a right upbringing. He didn’t or she didn’t know how to navigate through life. And, you know, and these people need intervention. And, you know, we should look at the circumstances of what led up to this, you know, if. My pod, cause I always ask, like, what led up to the crime? You know, And it’s good to look at what were the factors that led up to you going to prison. If you can change that, then you probably won’t be going to prison anymore, you know?

 

Pia Sinha Yeah, 100%. And so the presumption against short sentences is a is a really effective way of of reshaping the criminal justice system, because also, if you pair that up, if you say, well, we won’t send you to prison, but we’ll give you a non non-custodial sentence, we’ll make it a suspended sentence. So there is a bit of deterrence there. We’ll put in a treatment order. So if it’s about drugs, we’ll get you some drug intervention, treatment, etc., etc.. Evidence shows that they’re much more effective in reducing reoffending.

 

David Navarro That’s. That’s a good shot because let’s say it was going to be like a five year sentence if it was five years suspended. Then while you’re outside, you know, one mistake, I’m in jail for five years, you know, I mean, rather than just let’s put them put them in the if you feel like there’s something you can do to kind of help this person, put them on a draw, I think that’s what it’s called and put them in a draw like a drug rehabilitation thing and then get them to kind of change before they slip up again and go away. You know, I feel like there should be more a lot more intervention. Yeah, the.

 

Pia Sinha 900%. But also there needs to be a bit more tolerance as well. Do these some some individuals it takes more than one go for it to be successful. So, you know, you you might get all of those things and you mess up. But you know, that happens in life. You know, you don’t just kind of go, that’s it, that’s it. You only get one chance at it. So there has to be some tolerance of of risk as well.

 

Nish Kumar This is exactly the place we want to leave this conversation, I think, and get this is the place that we want to get to, which is making actual recommendations for evidence based changes that could improve and actually get better outcomes in terms of stopping re-offending.

 

David Navarro If we can get some of these people straight into work earning money and, you know, that could that could be good because I never I was going to prison for about ten years in total, and I never really fought. I didn’t think I wasn’t qualified. So I never got university qualifications or anything like that, so forth. I’m just it’s going to be so hard to get a job. And then when I came out, I couldn’t even do like a six course, which is like the most basic, easiest thing to do. They didn’t let me do it because of my crime. So, yeah, I guess. A lot of people don’t realize that, you know, there’s jobs you can do and this will take you away from having to make money in other ways, because obviously poverty breeds crime, you know. So I feel like if you just kind of helped in that department and made them feel like somebody’s responsible, then that’s the person they’re going to be.

 

Nish Kumar Well, on.

 

Coco Khan That. Yeah.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So go.

 

Coco Khan Ahead. No, I’m just curious, you know, about so, you know, the Prisons Minister, James Timson, there was a lot of hope around his appointment because his company did employ ex-offenders and it was essentially providing a model for a better way to rehabilitate prisoners. I did have some questions about, though I’ve recently discovered that like as part of the scheme, you wouldn’t take anyone under 25. And I just wanted to get your thoughts on that.

 

David Navarro I have immediate force. I don’t know if you’re in a silo. So my immediate force was like like I said, I’ve I’ve, I’ve spent like ten years of my life in prison. And it wasn’t until I came out when I was 30. So it wasn’t until I was a lot older. And I think men develop their frontal brain layer and say, you know.

 

Nish Kumar I didn’t even realize that that was an involuntary response. Even may not even realize. I didn’t even realize how much I agreed with that.

 

Coco Khan I honestly, I every time my 21 year old mates. Yes, I have them. I I’m going on Sunday. Some like, I’m dating some children. What would be hard for you? Right.

 

David Navarro But this is it. Like I. I never had consequential thinking and stuff. I used to think I knew about the consequences, but I really didn’t. Like, now I’ve come. I’m a father of two now. You know, I’m. I’m going forward in my life. And now I think about sometimes I walk past. I walk past like, you know, the places where I’ve committed crimes. And I’m just like, I can’t believe I did that. I was like a different person. You know? I mean, cause I hadn’t developed that. If I do this, I’m going to lose so much in my life. And then when I came out this time, my license was going to run out when I was 35. So I was like, I can go to prison. All my 20s. I’ve never had a 20th birthday, you know? And I was like, If I don’t change this now, I’m going to be an old man coming out of 85 with nothing, no kids, nothing. And I was just in a cycle of going back to prison until I quote, like a quite big sentence. And then while I was sitting down, I then was able to realize there’s consequences to this stuff.

 

Pia Sinha And, well, one of the biggest things that reduces it factor in resistance is just simply maturity, you know? So as you get older, you do that alone or you think about consequences a lot more.

 

Coco Khan Yeah. And what did I I’ll be honest, when I heard that, that the Timson model, which I was thought was brilliant, excluded men under 25, I just thought, well, what will happen to them? What would we do with with them? If you got any solutions for younger men.

 

Nish Kumar The lock all men up by ten for.

 

Pia Sinha All men, not just people. I mean, I think that there’s this, you know, when when I’ve worked in prisons that have younger, younger people in there, I think that they’re much more excited by interesting education schemes, interesting training schemes that, you know, that stimulate them rather than necessarily a job that, you know, they might not be ready for it. And I think Tim since got a I mean, he’s a savvy businessman, amongst other things, and he wants a model that will succeed.

 

Coco Khan And you used to work with James Simpson, didn’t he? Yes.

 

Pia Sinha He was the chair of the Prison Reform Trust just before he became minister. So putting the age limit there is probably quite sensible. He wants people to come in when they’re ready and they’re able to do the job well so that they succeed at it rather than fail it.

 

Coco Khan Well, that pass the Daily Mail test because I recall reading in the Daily Mail test some outrage about women prisoners who would be released for a day to go and work in MacDonalds. Fair enough. They want to earn some money. They want to get some skills, get some job experience when they come out. The Daily Mail seem to be livid about this. The idea you’d be served your Big Mac by someone who was an offender seemed to really upset them. Do you really think it could happen?

 

Nish Kumar Yeah. Listen, if you eat a Big Mac, you go big a problem. Your digestive system is going to be affected by who hands you that Big Mac.

 

Pia Sinha Well, I mean, I think that we know we need to change the narrative on the Daily Mail test. You know, why aren’t people saying to us this passed the Guardian test, You know, why don’t we want to live in a world that doesn’t get done as it is.

 

Nish Kumar Is this an opportunity, given that the prisons are. I mean, I, I hate the cycle that we seem to be in in so many different facets of our lives where we have to let things get to a crisis point before we actually have a proper conversation about how we need to change things. But given we are that regardless of what newspaper you read or who you voted for, everybody looks at this and goes, We’ve got a crisis. Is this now genuinely an opportunity for us to have a proper grown up conversation about prison?

 

Pia Sinha I think it’s the it’s the best time. You’ve got a new Labour government in. If they’ve got massive majority. Keira said, You know, he’s willing to go there with those unpopular decisions. I mean, I want to know who he’d be unpopular towards as he kind of pandering to the right or the left. But do it, you know, this is the time to have courage. And it is. We were talking the last time we were here is the worst kept secret that these are the things that that, you know, make rehabilitation better and stop kind of make safer communities. And if people are not swayed by the conditions in prisons argument, I think the bigger, more compelling argument is the economic argument. It costs so much to put someone in prison for something to not work. So if you look at the concept of justice reinvestment, you know you’re spending billions in the criminal justice industry. Take a portion of that and invested in early intervention, the kinds of things that David was talking about. And you will see that not only do you have safer communities, you have smaller sized prisons. And then when you have smaller size prisons with people who genuinely do need to be there, you can resource them to have the interventions they need so that people, when they come out at the other end, you can you can have people who are better citizens and will create fewer victims. And I know that some of this sounds very sort of naive, but you have to start somewhere. And I think you’re right. I think it’s the absolute perfect timing. And you’ve got Timson in as a as a prison. When the states signal something doesn’t, it’s signaling something that that we’re wanting to make bold decisions. So let’s let’s bring it on.

 

Nish Kumar Thank you both so much for being here. This sort of conversation is exactly why we think this podcast exists like that, because it’s I think it’s really interesting because when you propose these kind of liberal prison reforms, you are deemed naive and out of touch. And actually what YouTube I’m saying is reversing that and saying, actually, if you’re not making evidence based comments about incarceration, actually you are the ones that are being naive.

 

David Navarro Obviously, if you if you want to know more in depth about prisons, I’m going to check out my documentary on Channel four Secrets of UK Prisons Untold Secrets of UK Prisons. Yeah.

 

Pia Sinha Yeah. Look forward to.

 

Coco Khan Absolutely. Thanks for the.

 

David Navarro Plug myself, Ingrid.

 

Coco Khan Good luck. Yeah, because I’m going to do. Yeah, we.

 

Nish Kumar Were supposed to do it. Yeah. So I think. Yeah, I think. I think you’ve made more. Come before.

 

Coco Khan Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I know. Thank you as well. Please, please look out for the prison reform trust in the work you’re doing.

 

Pia Sinha Thank you very much.

 

Coco Khan Great.

 

Nish Kumar Thanks so much.

 

David Navarro Thank you.

 

Coco Khan Okay. So it’s that time again. Tory, leadership, since we spoke to you last, we’ve had two eliminations. The best known but least popular candidate, Priti Patel, was eliminated last Wednesday, and the least known and least likely candidate Mel Stride was knocked out on Tuesday afternoon.

 

Nish Kumar Somehow, Robert Jenrick has pulled ahead of the pack, presumably taking on the majority of Patel’s votes, while Kevin Bacon looks close behind with Tom Tugendhat and James cleverly bringing up the rear.

 

Coco Khan And the briefing against each other has begun. So Stephen Swinford of the Times writes that supporters of Bacon claimed at the weekend that she was the victim of a dirty tricks campaign designed to push her out of the leadership contest. They suggested that some right wing MPs who want to see Jenrick elected had lent their votes to cleverly in the first round of voting in a bid to undermine badenoch. This was emphatically rejected by the Jenrick camp, who said that the claims were, and we quote, pathetic and desperate.

 

Nish Kumar I’m sorry. I know it’s my job to advise that it’s all good, but fucking hell, I’ve not been paying any attention to this.

 

Coco Khan What is it about it that makes you zone out so strongly and quickly?

 

Nish Kumar I think it’s just I think it’s just a sort of mental pressure of having to live out the Conservative Party intensely. I think I’m just sort of I don’t know. I think I’d just like to sort of have a holiday from them. And as I said also, Robert Jenrick does sort of look like someone typed Tory man into chat, like he does look like an exaggerated conservative.

 

Coco Khan Have, you know, found that he’s looking a little American at the moment.

 

Nish Kumar What do you mean?

 

Coco Khan Well, he seems to be releasing all these photos with these signs of people holding up signs behind him, like Jenrick, the leader of what I call. Yeah, quite well. It’s America. It sounds American.

 

Nish Kumar I know, but I think it’s a dangerous game to play personality politics when you have no personality.

 

Coco Khan So it’s it’s hard to shake the. Well, this is pointless feeling because we know what the conservatives are like. If you become leader, I give you 18 months before someone stabs straight in the back and then they spin around and straight in the hall. That’s how it works. I mean, look on the bright side. You will get a bit of a Tory break now because, I mean, they’ve sort of said everything they need to say. The next we’ll hear from them is at the party conference. That’s where the leaders will sequentially give speeches to Conservative Party members. I’m sure we’ll cover that. But until then, you can have a little rest of a little sit down.

 

Nish Kumar Yes. And a more potentially more consequential leadership contest is going on in America. Last night, as we record on the Wednesday, the first presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump took place. And if you’re interested, there’s some fantastic analysis and reaction to the debate on our sister show, our much more qualified older sister who definitely knows how to wash her hair better than we do. Pod Save America. There’s an episode there right now that explores what this debate might mean for the rest of the US election campaign. And while we’re on the subject, from Russian prisoner exchanges to US presidential nominee Kamala Harris is foreign policy to international elections. It can be hard to keep up on all the news happening everywhere around the world.

 

Coco Khan So introducing Crooked’s new social media channel where we put real news back in your feed. So Doomscrolling just got a little bit healthier.

 

Nish Kumar Check out our real cookie news on Instagram threads or formally tweets of 100% correct. News and Analysis.

 

Coco Khan Now, last week we updated you all on the results of the Grenfell Inquiry. Please do go back and check it out if you haven’t already. But to keep it brief, it found that decades of failure and systematic dishonesty were the root causes of the disaster. Never one to avoid a chance at airbrushing his legacy, the former PM Lord David Cameron took to writing the report is clear that fire safety and building safety regulations were explicitly excluded from the Coalition Government’s greatly needed red tape reviews. Given the importance we place on safety and build quality, Indeed, the Coalition and Post 2015 Government took steps to increase fire safety regulation.

 

Nish Kumar I have to say, reading this made me physically sick. I. I thought it was an absolute disgrace that Cameron. Deliberately misinterpreted the content of the report as a way of exonerating him and his legacy. I think it’s really important that when we write the history of the last 14 years, David Cameron’s failure as Prime Minister is placed on the same pedestal as people like Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, whose failures were. The snow was shrouded in, I would say, greater theatricality. So they received more focus. In some ways, Cameron is the architect of so many problems in this country, and he is the author of So Much Human Misery that has been vested on this country in the last 14 years. And in terms of his involvement or his culpability in Grenfell. There’s no point in me saying something that Peter Apse has already said because we drop’s former guest on the show and author of Show Me the Bodies How We Let Grenfell Happen. He went took two acts formally to it and said what we just read from David Cameron and this is a direct quote from Peter is demonstrably and very clearly total bullshit. The report quite firmly found the opposite.

 

Coco Khan Sadly, Lord Cameron is not the only former PM to be saying some really just awful egregious things on this. Tony Blair, who we’ve previously referred to on this show as being in his second Villon era, was also out and about.

 

Clip However good your system is and and however well-intentioned it is and however hard people work, they’re going to make mistakes. And and it’s important you hold people accountable for those mistakes, of course. But I don’t I don’t think you’re ever going to get a situation where, you know, decisions are perfectly taken in perfect circumstances and there aren’t accidents or tragedies that occur. It’s just important every time they do occur to try and learn the lessons of them.

 

Nish Kumar I mean, that is total horseshit. In regards to the conversation around Grenfell, the inquiry and all of the journalism that’s been done into this has found that the whole point here is that no lessons were learned. There were so many warnings that were ignored and Blair’s analysis here is completely at odds with the findings of the inquiry and the journalism that has been done around this subject. Although I suppose if there’s one thing Tony Blair is an expert in, it’s coming off badly in the fucking public inquiry.

 

Coco Khan And finally this weekend I had a joyous Saturday reading an excerpt from Diane Abbott’s memoir, A Woman Like Me, published in The Guardian, which explores her life story, including her relationship with the independent MP and former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. I mean, the book sounds amazing. I’ve just bought a copy. It has not yet arrived. I’m really excited to read about this, this iconic politician, but I am going to spoil a little bit. I want to read you some of the quotes about her relationship with Jeremy Corbyn. You know, as I say, please do read it in full. I was gripped from the first word and it says Around that time I began to realize that realistically, as was not a match made in heaven, we were too different. Abbott writes Once, after I lamented our lack of social activity as a couple. He pondered it for a few days and told me we were going out feeling excited. I dressed up nicely and we bundled into the car. I had no idea where we were going. Perhaps a nice wine bar. It turned out Jeremy’s idea of a social outing was to drive me to Highgate Sarah Cemetery and proudly show me the tomb of Karl Marx.

 

Nish Kumar Wow. God, is that is. That is beyond parody.

 

Coco Khan I’m not. It’s not about the choice of date for me. Literally, this year on Valentine’s, I went to an exhibition exploring the exploitation of women’s Labour in the home. And the main exhibit was just a woman screaming on a loop. I considered that romantic. That’s my love language. Let’s talk about equal distribution of household Labour. But so it’s not it’s not a judgment on the day. It’s more the surprise element. At what point was she like, this is a cemetery? Know, when I was thinking social, I was thinking, I want to be around alive. People didn’t know. I needed to say alive. I didn’t know that was you know, I just thought that’s the bit. I absolutely love.

 

Nish Kumar This. A lot of left wing plays, museum exhibits, films you could go and see is even within the context of a social activity purely dictated by your political allegiance. Visiting Marx’s tomb feels even for that a bit.

 

Coco Khan But she dressed up in stilettos. It’s just a it’s a beautiful scene and I’m sure the book is going to be full of great anecdotes, so I’m looking forward to reading it and that’s it. Thanks for listening to Pod Save the UK and we want to hear your thoughts. Email us at PSUK@ReducedListening.co.uk or drop us a voice vote on WhatsApp. Our number is 07494 933444 internationally that’s +44 7494 933444.

 

Nish Kumar We want to hear about your unpopular policies. And we also want to hear about your most painfully left wing dates. You’re most truly, painfully left wing date. That’s well, that’s what we’re interested in hearing about this week. Very, very interested. And don’t forget to follow Pod Save the UK on Instagram, tik-tok and Twitter. And if you want more of us, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel.

 

Coco Khan Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.

 

Nish Kumar Thanks to senior producer James Tindale and digital producer Alex Bishop.

 

Coco Khan Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.

 

Nish Kumar Our thanks to engineer Ryan Macbeth.

 

Coco Khan The executive produces are Anoushka Sharma, Dan Jackson and Madeleine Herringer. With additional support from Ari Schwartz.

 

Nish Kumar Remember to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays on Amazon, Spotify, or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.