Will James Timpson be a radical prisons minister?

The most interesting and unexpected appointment in Keir Starmer’s government is that of James Timpson, the CEO of Timpson, who is now becoming prisons minister. He’s respected across the political spectrum for his work not just in his family-owned key-cutting chain but for his work finding jobs for ex-prisoners. He started off hiring them after visiting a prison, says he ‘got carried away’ to the extent where one in nine of Timpson’s staff are ex-offenders. He has worked hard to encourage other employers to do more.

His work in the field led him to believe that many people are being wrongfully imprisoned. He has been appointed as the UK has a full-blown prisons crisis, with the system close to 100 per cent capacity and early releases being authorised simply to make room. Yet the forecasts are for thousands more prisoners to be sent to non-existent cells. Make no mistake: this is one of the potential summer crises that the Tories had been worried about.