Steve Reed appeared on Good Morning Britain with the intention of discussing Labour’s housing investment
Good Morning Britain’s Adil Ray and Kate Garraway questioned Labour’s Steve Reed (Image: ITV)
Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Steve Reed appeared nonplussed about the hundreds of mistaken prison releases, which have been hitting the headlines as he appeared on Good Morning Britain. The Government is under growing pressure over its handling of the prison system following a disastrous fortnight in which two convicted migrant sex offenders were mistakenly freed. Ostensibly on the show to talk about Labour’s housing plans, host Adil Ray put to him that Justice Minister David Lammy, “hasn’t come on Good Morning Britain this morning to give his position… he’s put you up this morning.” He asked directly: “So like the prime minister. Are you frustrated with that?”
However Reed, who had given a lengthy explanation about why the releases happened seemed to shrug it off. “Well, I’m okay, because I’m hoping to talk about the billions of pounds of investment we’ve investment we’re doing in building more social and council housing,” he said.
He then defended Lammy, telling the hosts: “I think that the justice secretary is right not to comment on something when he doesn’t have the full details of.
“What he’s done, though is… he had the prison governors called together yesterday to talk to them about what was going wrong and what more the government could do to support them while we invest in digitising the system.
“That is the right thing to do, that is getting a grip on the problem. Because the primary thing to answer is, how are we going to stop accidental releases of offenders from prison?
“That’s what we have to stop – 800 times this happened under the previous government. It’s still happening now, because we haven’t had enough time to digitise the system. They left, they left in a state of disrepair. But we will do it. We will take responsibility,” he said.
Adil Ray and Kate Garraway asked Steve Reed ab out the mistaken prisoner releases (Image: ITV )
Dissatisfied with the answer Ray further probed: “I think a lot of people say, ‘Well, why couldn’t he have said just that?
“‘Look, you know that he hasn’t got all the facts at that time, but he’s looking into it, and he’ll come back to Parliament’. But he never did that.”
Reed insisted this is in fact what is happening responding: “Just on that point, he’s coming back on Tuesday, that’s the next day that Parliament is sitting, and he’s going to be there with that first opportunity.”
Latest figures show a shocking rise in accidental prison releases while under Labour’s watch. The number of releases in error shot up by 128% to an alarming 262 prisoners in the year ending March 2025.
