Now you pay for prison parties: Tory minister says taxpayer must fund balls and comedy workshops for criminals



A Tory minister has provoked fury with an astonishing declaration that taxpayers should fund comedy workshops and party nights for prisoners.

Crispin Blunt also set out how he planned to scrap harsh indefinite sentences for the country's most depraved criminals.

The prisons minister was immediately accused of damaging the Conservatives' reputation as the party of law and order.









Mr Blunt revealed he had overturned a ban on publicly funded jollies for prisoners - brought in following condemnation of a horror-themed fancy dress party for women inmates, including seven convicted killers.

The restriction, which explicitly ruled out events likely to outrage the public, had also been a response to revelations that an Al Qaeda terrorist was given lessons on how to be a stand-up comic while at a high-security prison.

But Mr Blunt branded the guidance, introduced in 2008, 'damaging and daft' and revoked it.

He also indicated an end to sentences which allow judges to lock up indefinitely thousands of the country's worst offenders - including rapists, paedophiles and murderers.

Controversial: Crispin Blunt has overturned a ban on publicly funded jollies for prisoners

Known as Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection - or IPPs - they ensure the worst criminals are kept behind bars for life unless they prove that they are no longer a threat to the public.

However, Mr Blunt said too many IPP sentences, brought in under Labour, were handed out, adding that locking people up and throwing away the key was 'not the answer'.

The disturbing moves follow the announcement by Justice Secretary Ken Clarke that thousands of offenders will be given community sentences instead of short jail terms.

Former Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who introduced the ban on unacceptable events, condemned the impact on victims and said the law-abiding public would be 'incredulous'.

In a speech to prison reform groups, Mr Blunt, 50, also claimed - astonishingly - that in overturning the ban he was acting in the spirit of Winston Churchill.

He even quoted a speech the famous war leader gave 100 years ago, in which he advocated cultural events for inmates.

But Churchill, a noted prison reformer, was arguing simply that inmates should be able to hear performances from military bands or lectures from prominent public speakers.

Mr Blunt said: 'We recognise that arts activities can play a valuable role in helping offenders to address issues such as communication problems and low self-esteem and enabling them to engage in programmes that address their offending behaviour.

'I confess before getting this job I was not aware of Prison Service Instruction number 50 of 2008 [the guidance which banned inappropriate events], though was vaguely conscious of some row in the tabloids about offenders being recorded as enjoying themselves.

'As a measure it was typical of the last administration's flakiness under pressure.

PRISONS MINISTER & CHURCHILL Prisons minister Crispin Blunt cited Winston Churchill in support of his plans to stop indeterminate prison sentences.

He said the wartime leader showed 'humanity towards the offender' when he was Home Secretary a century ago.

Yet while some of Churchill's views were comparatively liberal by the standards of his time, his broader approach to crime and punishment hardly chimes with that of the current coalition.

Where the Government plans to cut sentences for many hardened criminals such as burglars, Churchill was mainly interested in ending the imprisonment of children. For adults, he was explicitly in favour of retaining solitary confinement and penal servitude.

For 'tramps and wastrels', he proposed 'proper Labour Colonies where they could be sent for considerable periods and made to realise their duty to the state'.

A supporter of eugenics, he was in favour of sterilising 'moral defectives'. in the same year as his prison reforms, Churchill authorised the dispatch of troops to quell striking miners, although the measure proved unnecessary.

A life-long supporter of the death penalty, he once remarked that 'the only capital decision with which i have been dissatisfied during my tenure was about a man I reprieved'.

'At the slightest whiff of criticism from the popular press, policy tended to get changed and the consequence of an absurd overreaction to offenders being exposed to comedy in prison was this deleterious, damaging and daft instruction.

‘I'm pleased to have marked the actual day of the 100th anniversary of Churchill's speech on Tuesday by rescinding it.'

Mr Blunt's proposed abolition of IPP sentences - which could come into effect in a matter of months - will be welcomed by Left-wing prison reform groups who have described them as 'ferocious and unjust'.

But it will raise concerns that killers and child abusers could be given softer punishments and be released earlier. Those currently serving IPP sentences include Tracey Connelly, the mother of Baby P.

Backbench Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: 'I think Tory ministers have to decide pretty quickly, are they there to run the Criminal Justice System in the interests of those who work for it or are they there to run it in the interests of the law abiding of the country?

'If they carry on running the Criminal Justice System in the interests of those who work in it and their leftist agenda then I do not think they can survive as the party of law and order for very much longer.'

The ban followed a party at Holloway Prison in 2008, reportedly funded by prison authorities with £500. The party-goers dressed in masks and fake blood.

When pictures were published, Tory frontbencher Edward Garnier said: 'Any family of a victim of one of these people is going to be appalled and disgusted.'

Just two months later it emerged Zia Ul Haq, a convicted terrorist, was sent on an eight-day 'comedy workshop'.

Emma Boon, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said lifting the ban on parties was an 'insult' to taxpayers.

'Prisoners are already detained at great expense and the last thing law-abiding taxpayers want is to hear about them enjoying parties, paid for from the public purse,' she said.



Tory who talks like a Left-winger

Famous niece: Crispin Blunt is Devil Wears Prada star Emily Blunt's uncle

By rachel quigley



Until now Crispin Blunt has been overshadowed in the fame stakes by his niece - Emily Blunt, the Golden Globe winning actress and star of the film The Devil Wears Prada.

But now he is making headlines himself, unkind observers might suggest he has been spending too much of his time with Emily's chums in the liberal arts establishment.

What else could explain the abrupt conversion of this apparently conventional Tory into a radical prison reformer, whose every speech is peppered with the language of the Left?



With sharply pressed suit and coiffed hairstyle, Mr Blunt is every inch the retired Army captain.



And his Tory credentials appear as impeccable as his appearance. He attended Wellington College, Durham University and Sandhurst, where he won the Queen's Medal.



After switching from the Army to politics, he pursued - until now - an unremarkable career on the Opposition front bench.



Even in the expenses scandal he was a moderate performer, claiming just £400 to repair a water wheel. The 50-year-old lives with wife Victoria, with whom he has two children, and is a keen cricketer, having played for the Lords and Commons team.



After attending the Royal Military Academy, he was commissioned into the 13th/18th Royal Hussars (Queen Mary's Own) in 1979 and served with distinction until 1990 as a troop leader, operations officer, and armoured reconnaissance squadron commander.



Following an unsuccessful bid for parliament in 1992 and a stint as a special adviser on Defence and Foreign Affairs, he finally entered the Commons in 1997.



As Reigate MP he holds one of the safest Conservative seats with a 13,000 majority.



The only hint of insurrection in his past was his resignation from the shadow cabinet in 2003 in protest at the then party leadership of Iain Duncan Smith.



All then went fairly quiet until the election, and his elevation to junior bag carrier in the Justice Department. From there on, it has been attention-seeking all the way.



Just weeks into the job he threw a bomb into sentencing policy by backing anonymity for men accused of rape.



Then yesterday, with apparent gusto, he lobbed more grenades in the direction of two key elements of criminal justice policy, then stood back and watched them explode.



By dropping a ban on prisoner parties and abolishing IPP sentences, he appears intent on antagonising both the public and members of his own party.



Is he polluted by the presence of so many Liberal Democrats in the Coalition?



Or is he just following the controversial lead set by his boss Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, who has set his face against the old Tory mantra that 'prison works'.



Mr Clarke has already enraged many on the Right with his stated desire to reduce the prison population, review the need for short sentences and his recent claim that locking up criminals has no link to the falling crime rate.

