Public Protection

In principle, the hon. Gentleman is correct. However, the practicality is a matter of concern, which the Secretary of State for Health, other colleagues and I are discussing carefully to ascertain how we can improve matters. The relationship has not always been as smooth as it needs to be, as the hon. Gentleman said. We are considering how we can deal with such issues more profoundly in the context of our departmental work, the new proposed legislation that the Department of Health will introduce and the comprehensive spending review. That is one of the reasons why simple statements about the prison population are not necessarily especially helpful. A large proportion of the prison population has mental health needs, and the Secretary of State for Health and I agree that there is a good argument for perhaps dealing with that in better ways, if we could find such ways and have a proper assessment regime. The hon. Gentleman is therefore right in principle, but, in saying that, I do not want to imply that there is not much difficulty in practice.