Labour warns justice system 'in crisis' as they urge Rishi Sunak to turn on the spending taps
3 min read
There has been a "huge human cost" attached to the Conservatives' decade of running the justice system, Labour has claimed ahead of the Budget.
In a new dossier published before next month's set-piece fiscal event, the Shadow Treasury team accused the Government of leaving people "less safe than in 2010".
And they urged ministers to prioritise "investment in the justice system" and weigh up the impact of cuts to other Whitehall departments in a bid to stave off a crisis in prisons, probation and the country's courts.
The report is the first in a series of pre-Budget documents launched by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell ahead of Chancellor Rishi Sunak's first Budget in March.
Labour said the Ministry of Justice had faced "some of the most significant cuts of any part of the civil service" over the past decade, with a 25% smaller day-to-day budget in 2019-20 than at the start of the decade.
Capital spending, the party said, had meanwhile tumbled by "an extraordinary 80% in real terms" between 2010 and 2015.
Mr McDonnell said: "Ten years of austerity have cut jobs, undermined morale, and harmed the quality of the services we all rely on.
"What our latest analysis shows is that cuts in justice have also made us all less safe.
"The Tories have torn apart our social fabric, and the upcoming Budget looks likely to risk another five years of decline and disappointment."
Labour highlighted a sharp rise in prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in the UK's jails, with the number of incidents more than doubling from 11,892 in 2009/10 to 24,541 in 2018/19.
Levels of self-harm in prisons have also more than doubled, according to the party's research, from 24,964 in 2009/10 to 57,968.
Meanwhile Labour says access to justice has been "decimated", with 2012 reforms curbing access to legal aid in many civil cases alongisde a five-year programme of court closures.
The party is also warning that Conservative plans to end automatic halfway release for serious crimes and add 10,000 more prison places will continue to see policy that is "reliant on incarceration as a response to social harm" - despite "limited evidence that this will make the public safer".
"The Government’s own evidence shows that there would be tens of thousands fewer crimes committed each year if ineffective short prison sentences for less serious offences were replaced with proven community sentences," the report warns.
"However, with both prisons and proven effective alternatives to custody under-resourced, it appears that the Government is intent on ignoring the evidence of what works when it comes to public safety."
Labour is promising to publish a string of reports "on the state of Britain's public services" ahead of the March 11 Budget, including documents on climate change, local government and housing.
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