Sadiq Khan now wants prisoners to cut housing queue to 'stop committing crimes'
Despite rampant homelessness, the Mayor of London wants to let criminals jump the queue and get their own homes.
Sadiq Khan has sparked outrage by suggesting that prisoners should be able to jump the queue for housing, in order to prevent them reoffending.
The Mayor of London said that irrespective “a big shortage of housing in London”, some prisoners ought to “jump in the queue to get housing to avoid them reoffending again”.
This comes as the Labour government released 1750 prisoners early on Tuesday, as part of an early release scheme.
Under the scheme, convicts are allowed out after just 40 percent of their sentence.
The comments from the capital's mayor come with the city in a housing crisis, as homelessness spirals; one in fifty Londonders are homeless.
Speaking at The Times’s Crime and Justice Commission, Mr Khan said: “For us the big challenge is there is no housing in London, a big shortage of housing in London.”
He called for “an honest conversation with our constituents about the reasons why people who have offended and come out of prison may need to jump in the queue to get housing to avoid them reoffending again”.
When it was put to him whether prisoners should be able to “jump the queue” and be housed before those on waiting lists, he said: “A certain percentage. Yeah, it’s the honest conversation we’ve got to have with people across our respective cities and stuff to explain the reason we’re doing this.”
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The decision to release prisoners early was met with scorn from opposition MPs. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage drew the ire of many on the grovernment benches, when he referred to "a two-tier justice system" in reference to imprisonment of some who said "unpleasant things" on social media.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Farage said: “This to make way for, yes, rioters, but equally those who have said unpleasant things on Facebook and elsewhere on social media.
“Does the Prime Minister understand there is a growing feeling of anger in this country that we are living through two-tier policing and a two-tier justice system?”
Sir Keir hit back, telling MPs: “I’m angry to be put in a position of having to release people who should be in prison because the last government broke the prison system.
“The prime minister was repeatedly warned that he had to adopt the scheme that we put in place.”
