Richard Burgon MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of
State for Justice, responding to the latest Ministry of
Justice statistics, said:

“The crisis in our prisons is a stark example of
failure by the Conservative government. Violence and assaults on staff are now
at record levels. This has resulted in a failure to rehabilitate prisoners,
meaning the system is failing to keep the public safe.

“We have also seen record numbers of prisoners
being released by mistake.  With staff over worked and underpaid it is
hardly surprising that our prisons are in such a desperate state.

“The public and those who work in our prisons
deserve better.”

Labour
today publishes analysis of overcrowding in English primary schools with more
than half a million pupils being taught in super-size classes. It reveals:

●      542,679 children are now in
super-size classes in primary school, as class-sizes continue to rise

●      39,000 primary pupils are in
classes of over 36 pupils and 16,571 are now in class sizes of at least 40

●      The mounting pressure on school
places is now starting to hit secondary schools, with figures showing an
increase in the number of pupils in very large classes in the last year

●      The South East and North West are
the two worst hit areas with latest figures showing over 90,000 primary school
pupils in classes over 30

●      The number of infant school
children (between the age of 5 and 7 years) in classes over 30 has almost
trebled since 2010

Commenting
on the figures, Shadow Schools Minister, Mike Kane, said:

“These
figures expose seven years of Tory failure in our schools. The number of pupils
being taught in super-sized classes is skyrocketing while schools face the
first real terms cuts to their budgets in a generation.

“This
situation is unsustainable. If the Tories wanted to give every child the
education they deserve they would ensure that children were not crammed into
super-sized classes.

“A Labour
Government would ensure that schools are built where they are needed, and cap
class sizes at 30 for all primary school pupils.”

Diane Abbott MP, Labour’s Shadow Home
Secretary welcomed
the Government’s commissioning of a report on the role of EU nationals in the UK economy and society and said:

“There is
far too much heat and not enough light about immigration, so any truly
objective and well-informed analysis must be welcome.

"We
already know that immigrants, both EU and non-EU, make a huge contribution to
the economy and to wider society. They occupy both high-skilled, high-wage jobs
and lower-skilled, lower paid ones, adding value across a wide range of
economic sectors. They help make the UK more internationally competitive, and
sectors with staff shortages, such as the NHS, social care and agriculture,
would be in serious difficulty without them.

"The report should be published. There
must be no repeat of the buried Home Office reports into international
students, or the Saudi funding of terrorism. And there should be no attempt to
reform the immigration system until the report has been published and
debated.”

Ends

Keir Starmer MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, speaking at a Labour in the City event this evening, said:

“Labour’s objective is tariff free access to the single market, no new red tape at customs and a deal that works for services as well as goods. It is vital that we retain the benefits of the single market and the customs union. How we achieve that  is secondary to the outcome and should be part of the negotiations. We need to be flexible in our approach and not sweep options off the table.”

Ends

Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s Shadow Social
Care Minister, commenting
on the Government’s decision to temporarily suspend HMRC enforcement action and
waive historical penalties for sleep-in shifts, said:

“This announcement does little to
help sort out the issue of pay for sleep-in shifts.

“Care providers still face a £400 million
bill and care workers still have no idea when they will get the money they
have rightfully earned. Delaying enforcement action for a few weeks does
nothing to address the issue and is a dangerous and retrograde step that risks
undermining the very principle of a statutory minimum wage. If an exemption is
granted in this case, it will not be long before other employers start pleading
poverty to get out of their duty to properly pay their workforce.

"This Tory Government needs to stop
burying its head in the sand about the problems in social care and put the
funding of social care on a long-term sustainable footing.”