Burnham pauses early prison release scheme

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0:37Thanks for downloading the World Tonight podcast for Thursday the 23rd of July. I'm Jane Hill. The new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has paused the early release scheme designed to ease prison overcrowding in England and Wales. He says he will review it after anger from victims of crime will have reaction and hear the view of prison officers. 120 millionaires based in the UK have written an open letter to the government asking to pay more tax. We discuss a possible wealth tax and ask how much it might add to the nation's coffers. And a slimmed down Commonwealth Games have opened in Glasgow. One South African athlete has been telling me why it's still an important event for her and her fellow competitors.

1:21As many as 700 prisoners would have been released this autumn under the government's early release scheme. Under the new Sentencing Act, some 6 ,000 criminals overall were set to be freed. The law was passed earlier this year in response to the pressure on prison places. But today, the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced he was pausing the early release scheme in the wake of criticism from the mother and widow of PC Andrew Harper, killed in the line of duty in 2019, after reports that two of his three killers could be let out halfway through their sentence. The Justice Secretary Alex Norris said tonight that a review of the scheme was being carried out at a great pace because, he said, ministers wanted to avoid leaving victims and survivors facing lots of uncertainty.

2:08Jade Belgrove is a survivor of sexual assault. She was horrified when she received a letter informing her that her attacker might be released early. She says the letter made her question whether it had even been worth reporting the assault. Following today's announcement, she said she feels thankful. It's just such a relief that we have been heard and I know it's just a pause, but it's just such a wait that it won't be an imminent thing. I'm just very relieved right now, to be honest, but I will continue to fight and I will continue to be heard of us, for all of us survivors, and victims of violent crimes and violent sexual assaults and rapes.

2:53I will continue until there is something put in place that these people aren't allowed back any earlier than they should be. I do understand there was an issue with our prisons and the overcrowding. I do understand that. But equally, we should never come second. Victims and survivors should never come second to that. We should be the priority and keeping people who have physically harmed and the violent offenders should stay behind bars where we have been promised they would be. Jade Belgrove with her reaction. Well, let's talk first tonight to our home and legal correspondent, Dominic Casciani.

3:29Evening to you, Dominic. Just talk us through exactly what is being paused here, because it's part of the Sentencing Act, isn't it? Yeah, sure. Hi, Jane. In essence, the Sentencing Act 2026 was the Starmer government's long-term strategic response to the crisis they inherited in 2024 when, put simply, England and Wales had run out of prison places. So when the government came in, they were weeks away from the prisons being completely filled. The consequences of that would have meant that the courts would have had to have stopped sentencing new criminals. And as a consequence of that, the police, thinking about the nightmare scenario, would have had to stop charging criminals who they were finding and tracking down so it was it was it was a perfect storm situation now and initially the the government had an emergency release scheme it wanted to replace it with something permanent and the 2026 act which was all of this was fully transparent before parliament and voted on by mps none of this was hidden made very clear that the plan was to start releasing most offenders who are on a fixed sentence a third way a third of way through their prison sentence so they spend two-thirds of it in the in the community uh under some kind of intense monitoring and rehabilitation program changing that from the point that would have been released which would be in the halfway point and then some more serious offenders who would have spent two-thirds of their sentence in a jail cell they'd be out of prison at the halfway point so effectively everybody gets out a little bit easier other than the most serious offenders who this didn't apply to.

5:05And in the case of Jade Belgrave's example there, I mean, that's a classic example where you had somebody who was convicted of a very serious offence and, you know, they would have been eligible for this scheme. PC Andrew Harper, two of the men convicted of his manslaughter were eligible for this scheme, although not until next June because they had very long sentences. So quite a lot of concern came with this, but it was quite clear for months what was going to happen. And you referenced prisons bursting at the seams, really. Is that something that is getting any better? It has been getting better.

5:45So in 2024, we hit this peak of about 87 ,500 and there were some weeks during that summer, not least because of the riots which followed, where literally the prisons were down to maybe 10 or 12 beds across the entire prison estate on particular days. It was absolutely desperate for prison governance. That also meant that literally all education and rehabilitation work was grinding to a halt. Today, there's a headroom of about 3 ,000 in the system, partly because of the emergency early release scheme, but also because more prison cells have been coming online as part of a prison programme, a building programme, that Labour inherited and has been trying to accelerate.

6:28the real issue going forward though and I think this is this is the real fundamental political choice that the new prime minister now faces prime ministers have to make choices is that if this scheme is now paused and fundamentally re-revised to prevent certain serious offenders coming out then the prison population is going to grow again and depending on the projections it could mean that they hit another crisis point maybe six months or nine months from now so it's it's a really, really quite serious set of decisions he will have to take. Dominic, thanks so much, Dominic Casciani there. Well, let's talk now to Steve Gillen because he's General Secretary of the POA, the Prison Officers Association.

7:07Very good evening to you. And good evening to you. Your response, first of all, to this pause announced today. Well, I think Dominic explained the background very well. So I won't go into that because he's explained it very, very fundamentally. I actually think that the Prime Minister and the Justice Secretary, Alex Norris, who both came into being and appointed on Monday, have done the right thing, quite frankly. Because for months now, people have been raising issues. We raised it initially that this was unlike any other release scheme that had happened under the Conservative Party or indeed when Labour first took power because there were clear exemptions for real serious crimes such as rapists, paedophiles and those violence and domestic offences against women and girls and indeed offences against children.

8:15This is different. And obviously the terrible death of PC Harper and the family are quite right in coming forward to highlight that. So I think the Prime Minister's got this right in pausing it to reflect, to look at it going forward. Sorry to interrupt you, but in terms of getting to the essence of, you will have also heard Dominic talk about the overcrowding and your members are at the absolute cutting edge of that. So how is that situation then to be tackled? My members have been at the cutting edge for the last 15 years of what I can only describe as financial vandalism of the prison service with the austerity measures and cuts and overcrowding just didn't creep up overnight.

9:10Overcrowding has been with us for a couple of decades, quite frankly. So my members are well used to this. So what I want to see happen is a clear criteria written to the Prime Minister this morning saying that he has done the right thing in pausing because no issue is insurmountable. And I think there's plenty of people that are in prison, actually, that could be diverted away from prison, that aren't violent, aren't sex offenders, and that are law-level criminals. We get 19 ,000 people on remand. Now, surely there should be assessments in relation to them to determine whether they still need to be on remand.

9:50A proportion of them will need to be on remand because of the potential charges that they may be facing until they get to trial. But the reality is there'll be some that will probably walk free from court anyway. So they could be dealt with in the community. And so are you arguing that it is the most, that prisons will and should become a place for the most violent prisoners, for violent crimes. That is absolutely correct. And that's what we've been advocating for some time. We cannot sustain the amount of people that have been imprisoned in this country. And you can't build your way out of a crisis by building more and more prisons and budding in the taxpayer.

10:35Right, but it's not a good look, is it, either, to allow shoplifters to never pay for their crimes, for example? I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that at all. There will always be a case where a magistrate or a judge in a Crown Court may well have to imprison someone. But the reality is prisons should be for those people who are an absolute danger to society. Other people, maybe such as shoplifters, can be dealt with severely in the community. All right. There are people with mental health issues that should not be in prison, that should be diverted away from prison. So if there's a will, there is a way.

11:18But the reality is, unfortunately, for decades now, prisons has been treated as a bygone era. Nobody seems to care. Steve Gillum, thanks very much for joining us tonight from the Prison Officers Association. Thank you. Now let's turn to the news today that Iran's Revolutionary Guard has issued a warning to the UK. It says any British bases used to launch US strikes on its country will be legitimate targets for attack. In a statement, Tehran claimed that US B-1 bombers had flown from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. Earlier this week, it was reported that Andy Burnham had opted to continue Keir Starmer's policy of allowing UK bases to be used by the Americans for what it called defensive strikes against Iran.

12:06As of this month, the Revolutionary Guard has officially designated a terrorist organisation under British law. A government statement tonight said, Our armed forces are ready to keep the UK safe from any kind of attacks, whether on our soil or from abroad. The UK stands ready to defend itself 24-7. Well, our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, is with me in the studio tonight. How serious is this threat from Iran, Jeremy? Well, it's been taken seriously, and they would be foolish not to take any threat from Iran seriously. Iran has been up to all kinds of stuff in the shadows in this country already, going after dissidents and other incidents as well.

12:49I mean, I don't know if they can actually attack an air base in somewhere near Swindon, probably doubtful. But it does show that Britain's method of trying to keep the Americans happy while keeping a distance from America's war is basically wearing thin. because this idea of a defensive strike, I mean, it's inherently a rather vaguely worded and ambiguous concept because, you know, in warfare, what is the difference between a defensive strike where you drop a bomb or an offensive strike when you drop a bomb? So that was always going to be a bit of a thin argument. And meanwhile, out in the Gulf, things are happening all over the place, not just those strikes in Iran itself.

13:37there's this new front opening up in the southern part of the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab, which is the narrow strait. And that means that the Saudis who have been funneling their oil exports to Asia through the southern part of the Red Sea, because they've got a pipeline coming over from the east, if they block this, the Houthis, that means that the Saudis can't get their oil out through the Strait of Hormuz, and they might not be able to get it out through Bab al-Mandab. And so that means that that's going to have a big impact on oil prices. And also it may well mean that the Saudis go back to war with the Houthis after four years.

14:14So you're talking then about a spread of what's happening. And is Tehran's threat, I mean, do we assume, do we believe it's limited to military installations? I don't think we really know. I mean, that's the whole point. There's a sense of deliberate mystery probably about the whole thing. But it is interesting that they have chosen this moment to ratchet things up because the explanation that it's only defensive strikes. I mean, that goes back to the first week or two of the war that came out, I think, at the beginning of March, that formulation. And quite frankly, the Iranians could have seized on it earlier.

14:52So why are they doing it now? Perhaps because things are, you know, they're under a lot of pressure. It's very intense. But if you look around everything that's happening in the region, everything seems to be going on now. There's Babel Mandab, Strait of Form Moose, there's more bombing. Trump is threatening even more bombing. He's standing up in Washington saying, we sank the Navy. We've destroyed so much. those are tactical successes and he's struggling and you can see his frustration struggling to justify and trying to struggling to find a hard argument that answers the the the the evidential case that his bid to have a quick victory over Iran has in fact led to a strategic defeat for the United States and the evidence for that is pretty overwhelming.

15:42Jeremy as ever thank you very much, Jeremy Bowen, our international editor. Now, what do the filmmaker Richard Curtis, crime novelist Val McDermid and presenter Gary Lineker have in common? They are among 120 wealthy people based in the UK who've written an open letter to the new Prime Minister asking to pay more tax. The letter was organised by the group Patriotic Millionaires, which supports a 2 % tax on assets over£10 million, saying it wants to create a more equal society. The group says that plan could raise£24 billion every year. Well, another signatory to that letter is the music producer Brian Eno.

16:23He told PM on Radio 4 why he wanted to be involved. Like a lot of people, I've been noticing that the things that we used to depend on, like a good NHS, like a good legal system, like good schools, are deteriorating. A lot of us think I would rather pay for those things by increasing my taxes and live in a more civilised society than be wealthy in an uncivilised society. So if the wealthiest in the country did pay more tax, what difference could that make? We brought together Dan Needle, the founder of the think tank Tax Policy Associates, and Professor Josh Ryan Collins, Professor in Economics and Finance at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

17:07First to Dan, is this a sensible idea? It's something no other country has done. There's no country that has a wealth tax of the type they suggest. There's no country anywhere in the developed world that has a wealth tax and an inheritance tax. And the reason is these taxes raise less than you think they will and they risk doing economic damage. If you tax income or if you tax a gain, you know what you're taxing. You can see it, you can measure it, you can calculate, you can tax it. God knows people still fight about it and sue about it, but it's relatively straightforward. Valuing an asset that isn't currently being sold is hard.

17:43That means complexity for the tax authority, complexity for taxpayers. It means avoidance. It means complication. These are all bad things. And that's the main reason why historic wealth taxes have been abandoned. That's the main reason why the Wealth Tax Commission, a bunch of somewhat left-leaning academics and others set up to investigate a wealth tax, concluded against an annual wealth tax. Josh Ryan Collins, there's a reason that no other country does this. Yeah, I mean, I think that's not entirely fair. My understanding is countries like Norway and Switzerland have implemented wealth taxes of various sorts, maybe not exactly the type that's being proposed here.

18:23And I think in general, it's a good thing to consider taxing wealth more highly, in particular, if that means we can perhaps reduce some of the tax on income and even corporate profits or consumption. At the moment, most tax in the UK is on these than on wealth. And what you have to remember as well is that not all wealth is equal. OK, so some wealth comes from businessmen investing in factories or new services and innovative new products. But actually, the majority of wealth is simply ownership claims on existing assets, whether that's property or financial assets and the trading of those assets.

19:07And there's a pretty strong case, actually, that raising the tax on those sorts of financial assets that aren't necessarily contributing to economic growth or productivity is actually quite an efficient thing to do. What about the specific of what patriotic millionaires are suggesting, the actual specific that that simple measure could raise 24 billion every year? Is there a point to that? I mean, 24 billion is a considerable sum of money. And so, you know, I think there's definitely a point to it. Now, we can argue about whether the real figure is closer to 10 billion or 30 billion. But I think, you know, it's it's not small fry.

19:49Now, this question around tax avoidance that Dan mentions and valuation being difficult, I'm not entirely convinced about this. It's very hard to avoid tax on property, actually. You need to hold property offshore, but I think the UK government is now requiring that the owners publish where the ownership ultimately resides in regard to property. on the valuation. I mean, you've got to remember that a lot of these assets are valued on quite a regular basis for insurance purposes. You know, if you want to get a mortgage on your house, you have to get it valued. If you want to get your house insured, you've got to get it.

20:27This is 24 billion. This is 24 billion you're raising from people with wealth of 10 million plus. It's not houses. In the main, this isn't houses. This is going to be significantly private shareholdings, which are notoriously hard to value. And that was the issue that the Wealth Tax Commission spent three large documents trying to work out how to do it, concluded it was essentially too hard. So this is a real issue. We're seeing an increasing divide, aren't we, between the wealthy and the not so? Isn't there socially, isn't there something positive to be gained by trying to even that out, to to try to get a more stable political culture.

21:08These grand claims are sometimes made. But again, this is a tax which would raise a twelfth as much as income tax, less than 1 % of GDP. If you think the situation is so apocalyptic, only a wealth tax can save you, then it's not going to help. The amounts are just too small. If you think there is a problem with perceived fairness, with billionaires not paying enough tax, fix the system, make them pay more tax. It'll be a lot quicker, a lot easier, a lot less dangerous than a wealth tax. So what would you say to the 120 people who signed the letter? OK, you want to pay more, give that money to charity, would you say, for example?

21:41If they want to pay more tax, go ahead, pay more tax. Some of them have famously not paid tax and avoided tax in the past. But celebrities signing letters is a pretty bad way to decide policy on any matter and certainly on tax. I don't think the proposition from the wealth tax campaign is we do this 2 % tax on income over 10 million and we don't do the rest. I don't think they're arguing that at all. They're arguing this can be one part of a broader tax reform. And I think we should be doing all of it. Right. I think we should be doing property tax reform and we should be making sure that the unrealised capital gains are captured, which is what this wealth tax actually addresses to some extent.

22:22But it's an obsession. It's all you get from these celebrities writing their letters. never talk about land value tax, never talking about other tax reforms. All they talk about is wealth tax, which I'm fairly sure won't happen because governments know that it's a risk. They know that there's no developed country that is a wealth tax and an inheritance tax, and they don't want to be the first to do it. So it's sucking all the oxygen out of the tax debate to call for something which isn't very significant in macro terms and is not going to happen. I don't think I agree. I think this letter has generated a lot of debate that otherwise wouldn't be happening.

22:52I probably wouldn't be talking to Dan about this right now on Radio 4. I would agree that there should be more focus on things like property tax reform in the general discussion. But no, broadly, I think the more debate, the better. And obviously, celebrities are very good at generating debate. Professor Josh Ryan-Collins and Dan Needle. And Sir Chris Hoy welcoming two of the most special of guests.

23:26Two extremely special time travellers. Their majesties, the King and the Queen. Time travellers because the King and Queen were stepping out of a TARDIS as part of the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this evening. described there on TNT Sports. More than 3 ,000 athletes are taking part over 10 days of competition from 74 nations and territories. But this is still a slimmed-down event, only 10 sports this year, down from 20 at the last Games. I've been speaking to Marianne Fouri. She's a 100-metre hurdler from South Africa who's preparing to fly to Glasgow shortly for her competition next week.

24:06I'm really excited just to represent my country and I had no figures back in Birmingham. The vibe in the stadium was so nice. Is it an important component part of your competition schedule? So for South Africa, it is a very important part. But for example, for Europeans, it is not because they do not compete. But this year, we don't have a lot of big competitions. So I think this would then be perfect to have Commonwealth and then maybe Ultimate Championships at the end of the season. So I really see Commonwealth Games as a really big event because there's a lot of great athletes running. South African hurdler Marianne Fouri on her way to Glasgow soon.

24:50Well, let's now go to another Commonwealth country where the Games have been a major part of the sporting calendar. That is Australia. Dr Steve Jojakis is a sports studies expert based at the University of Sydney, where it's now, I think, around about half past seven in the morning. So a very good morning to you. And I gather you got up early, Steve, to watch the opening ceremony. So what did you make of it? Look, I loved the opening ceremony. We had the Flower of Scotland, the TARDIS, the Loch Ness Monster, the bagpipes. Yes, sir, I can boogie. I don't know the name of the song. The athletes themselves.

25:30And, of course, the speeches were short. They were sharp. Glasgow came to the rescue. and of course for those of us who know our history in Australia, the Scots were very, very important to the spread of sport in Australia. So it was a wonderful opening ceremony. Well, they came to the rescue because Victoria, Australia, pulled out, didn't it, because of escalating costs. I mean, was that a decision that the prestige of the Commonwealth Games has diminished? Look, it reflects a couple of points. The first point is that we're very embarrassed about what transpired and what occurred in Victoria with, you know, letting the Commonwealth Games go.

26:22As you probably know, sports, this great uniting institution, has been from the colonial days and is still a very, very important part of who we are. So there'll be a bit of embarrassment this morning. I suspect there'll be some regret as well. And as we always do, we're going to jump on the Commonwealth Games bandwagon and support our athletes who obviously always do very well. Well, yes, you do do very well generally. So actually, that's interesting. Is it still going to be popular as a spectator sport, even though Melbourne is not hosting? look we grew up in an era when where success at the commonwealth games was an important part of our demonstration of australian nationalism um it was this institution where we were able to beat the home country so for many of us it was always it always sell uh always held a central feature of growing up.

27:30It's lost a bit of its interest here in Australia. There's probably three reasons for that. People view it a little bit differently, and there are probably three reasons for that. The first reason was that in recent years, there was an acknowledgement of the negative impacts of colonisation on the Indigenous population, and of course the Commonwealth Games were seen as a symbol of the enduring impact of colonisation. Of course another reason is that we always did very well in the Commonwealth Games and it was clear that we were more interested in success at, you know, higher level games such as the Olympic Games.

28:20So in many ways, that was a reason why the Commonwealth Games diminished a little as well. OK, I'm so sorry to cut you off because I know you have a third point, but we're really, really grateful. Thank you so much. I'll let you get back to watching on the TV for now. Thank you so much, Dr. Steve Drogiakis there in Sydney. Many thanks for joining us. The issue of surrogacy, particularly international surrogacy, has been in the news again recently after a leading member of Germany's CDU party was forced to resign his parliamentary role following the revelation that he and his husband had had a child through a surrogate in the US.

28:58The practice is banned inside Germany, although it isn't illegal to raise a child born to a surrogate mother abroad. The global surrogacy market has been valued at nearly$15 billion and official data shows the number of surrogate babies being brought to the UK from abroad has more than doubled in four years. Well, I've been discussing the issue with Reem Al-Salam, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls. She wrote a report for the UN last year about the global surrogacy market and started by explaining why her study didn't call for an outright ban on the practice. I called for a system of abolishing surrogacy.