Alex Norris addresses party conference for the first time as Justice Secretary – his speech in full

Thank you, Conference. Thank you, friends.

It is an honour to stand up here and address you as the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. Now, I’ve been coming to these conferences all my adult life; a good couple of decades. But this is the first time I have ever seen Conference from this angle. I’ve never spoken from this podium. But I’m not going to make the name and CLP joke because I understand that’s been done a bit so far.

Now you know I’ve had quite a busy summer to say the least, but I know that the movement has been with me all the way and I appreciate that. And what a team I have around me to tackle this brilliant job. Sarah Sackman, Catherine McKinnell, Jake Richards, Alex Davies-Jones, and Gerard Lemos.

Conference, when we came into government, more than two years ago, the criminal justice system was on its knees: jails were at 99% capacity; record crown court backlogs; probation broken by botched reforms; justice delayed and justice denied for far too many, forced to wait year upon year, agonisingly, for their day in court.

And I pay tribute to my predecessors, David Lammy and Shabana Mahmood, who set in motion the major reforms we needed and began to undo the rot left by 14 years of Tory austerity, Tory mismanagement and Tory weakness.

And, Conference, the changes that we are bringing to our courts will bring down the crown court backlog and ensure we are transforming the experience for victims of violence against women and girls. We will be fulfilling our manifesto commitment and implementing specialist rape courts at every crown court in the country.

Conference, I want to pay tribute to my colleague, and friend, Charlotte Nichols who showed such immense strength and bravery in speaking publicly about her horrific ordeal and made this change a reality. Thank you, Charlotte.

Now, this summer we took steps to ensure the most dangerous offenders will stay in prison for longer. That was the right decision. But we cannot shy away from the difficult action needed to fix our prisons. Because a world where dangerous offenders cannot be locked up is the worst of all possible worlds for victims. So, we are delivering the largest prison build programme since the Victorian era,a so we never run out of places.

But capacity is only part of the problem. Prisons must be places of punishment, yes, of course they must be, but also of rehabilitation. They cannot be colleges of crime which build better criminals.

So, Conference, today I can announce the launch of a new ‘challenge’ to industry to ensure we have cutting-edge tech in our prisons to tackle drones. The public sector working with private enterprise and innovation to keep the public safe in a rapidly changing world. And protecting and championing our frontline staff in prisons who do such outstanding work.

But, Conference, my plan to tackle overcrowding in our prisons will be driven by our values.  And that’s why we are taking action to end the deep injustice of IPP sentences. And there will be challenges to this. But this is a grotesque spectacle, let’s be clear, of people serving a tariff of 18 months still in prison 18 years later, with no certainty of ever being released. A reality that one of my predecessors, a Conservative predecessor, called a ‘stain’ on our system. I agree. But where governments gone-by have only offered words we will act.

And Conference, we are also acting to ensure that punishment in the community is worthy of its name. People sometimes believe that criminals are either locked behind bars or they are living a free life on the outside. I reject that false binary. It isn’t true and never will be true under this Government.

We have given probation officers – those unsung heroes of our criminal justice system – the toughest set of tools ever to manage offenders: curfews, tags, exclusion zones, and world-first new restriction zones to ‘lock in’ offenders to a small area.

And I am going further. I will prioritise unpaid work which is tough and visible. Because punishment must be seen to be done. Offenders in the community must reckon with their crimes, they must give back. And today I can also announce we will work to strengthen the rehabilitative value of community payback by equipping offenders with skills and routes into employment. Tough work, yes, but work with purpose too.

And, Conference, this is all necessary so that offenders can be locked up and the public safeguarded. But we must go further. I, like David, like Shabana, who inherited permanent crises in courts and prisons. We inherited that endless roundabout of despair and re-offending.

We instead build in its place a system with crime prevention at its heart. Because, Conference – the statistics are staggering, shameful. 80% of all offending in this country is reoffending. So many of those criminals – those who have broken the social contract, who have failed to live up to the standards that we expect as a society have themselves been failed – by the state, by schooling, by health care, by the circumstances of their lives.

So, this Labour Government, like the Labour Governments that have gone before us, will once again re-gear our system so that it tackles the drivers of offending and gives a hand to those who truly want a second chance and gives them the skills to have another chance in life.

And there will be people who criticise this as happy-clappy, as wishy-washy. It is anything but that. It is recognition that the status quo is broken and does not protect the public or cut crime.

And, Conference, I say this with a degree of reservation. I will confess to practicing a little bit in front of the mirror earlier, but there is a reason why, three decades later, no one has ever come up with a better phrase than ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’. That’s because it was right then and it is right now.

And the purpose, because we know, our movement knows, and the public knows that the purpose, of a justice system must be crime reduction. That is what the public wants and expects. And what we will always fight for. And thanks to our work in government and two difficult years of turning the system round we now have a platform on which to build it.

And today I can announce further measures to give those in prison a chance to rehabilitate themselves to offer a shot at redemption. We will kickstart a major expansion of incentivised drug-free living wings to crack down on the demand for drugs in prison that ruins lives and threatens the safety of brave prison officers, who when we go to bed put their uniforms and go to work.

And give offenders the support they need to get onto that straight and narrow. And we will expand our skills programme in prisons to offer construction training – as well as building new workshops and construction academies to help us grow the workforce needed to build homes and give prisoners a trade.

But cutting reoffending doesn’t just happen within the prison walls. We have already committed to halve the number of offenders who are homeless on their first night out of prison. Those early days are crucial to getting them back on the track to become law-abiding members of society. We know that offenders leaving prison homeless go on to reoffend at almost twice the rate of those with somewhere to live.

So today I can announce that we’re modernising the methods prison and probation services use to identify and secure accommodation with the creation of a single digital service that finds the right accommodation and support for people leaving prison. And, Conference, we know and we are talking about this week at this conference, our Prime Minister’s ambition to end rough sleeping for good is the right one, a noble one, a Labour one. And we and my department will do our bit to make it a reality.

Conference, I want to take this moment, here, as the first time as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice to make some important commitments. Here in the city of Liverpool to restate our commitment, my commitment, to the Hillsborough Law. That is the difference that having Labour in Government makes. That’s why we go out there in the rain, that’s why we go out there in our workplaces to fight for change. Because only a Labour Government will ever deliver. And today I restate my commitment to those who have campaigned so hard. I will deliver.

And Conference, this coming Thursday, I will swear my oath as Lord Chancellor. And I want to, ahead of that, make a commitment publicly here to today. Because as part of that vital role I will pledge to uphold the independence of the judiciary which is more important than ever at a time when the rule of law is increasingly under threat around the world. That is a constitutional duty that I commit to take on with the utmost seriousness.

Conference, the justice system must again be made to work for the people of this country who must believe justice is being done. We have a duty to victims of crime to provide a system which punishes offenders swiftly, effectively, fairly, and offers those who want a chance to turn their lives around that chance.

So, Conference, in conclusion, I commit this to you: to those living in fear of crime, waiting for their court date to the communities let down by the scourge of antisocial behaviour to the women and girls still facing  an epidemic of violence I will break down barriers and ensure the police, the CPS, the courts, probation staff, and the prison service, along with their Government all work together, seamlessly to deliver for the public.

Because only then will we rebuild our system and fulfil our solemn duty as a government to protect the people of this nation.

Thank you, Conference.

READ MORE: Labour Party Conference 2026: Full LabourList events programme, revealed

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