Joining us now. Pleased to say that we have with us the Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire, Dame Diana Johnson. It's good to see you. Good morning. Thanks for taking the time. What are you doing about these unresolved cases? We've got this new... No longer ASBOs, are they? They're called respect orders. How are they different? How are they going to help?

We're going to introduce respect orders, and that's going to be another tool that's available available to the police. What it's going to do is it will have preventative measures, so it will stop some of the prolific offenders going into our town centers and causing disruption and antisocial behavior. But it will also have some positive measures attached. For example, it might be that they need to go on alcohol awareness training to understand or their anger management, things like that. It's preventative and also trying to deal with what the problem is, the a deep-rooted problem. That's a respect order that will be introduced. It's not in force yet.

What is the difference between a respect order and an ASVO?

Well, I think because it has that second limb to it of actually trying to tackle and deal with the problem that the person is exhibiting. So whether it's alcohol or drugs or anger, dealing with that. An ASBO order, as I understand it currently, can only deal with the bit of stopping them doing something. This will have an arrest attached to it as well.

Okay. And what about people that are finding themselves falling between two stools? As we just heard there in Nick's report, they don't know whether the council are going to help them or the police are going to help them. They ring the police, they say, I've got a motorbike on fire at the bottom of my garden, and they want you to contact the council. Surely that can't be right.

That can't be, no. And absolutely, I agree with that. And as a local MP, I've had this in my own surgery where people have come to me and said, We've tried them, we've tried the Council, we've tried the police. No one comes, nothing's done. And so that has to be part of bringing together, joining up the response to victims, because victims have to be at the heart of this, and services have to fit around the victim. So with antisocial behavior, we need to make sure if it's the council or it's the police, somebody does act and somebody comes and something is done.

Okay, but who decides whether it's the police or the council?

Well, I think that's for local areas to decide how they work this out. But clearly, as a minister, I want joined up services is I want the victim, the person who's suffering from antisocial behavior, not to feel they're pulled from pillar to post, but they get the service they need. And that hasn't happened in the past. And that's one of the things I'm going to be testing with councils and with the police to make sure there is that joined up approach.

I'm reading in the Times this morning that abuse victims are paying the price for jail crisis, is how they put it. Basically, up to 2,000 prisoners will be released early. Many of them are going to be domestic abusers. What does that mean for those that were the victims of those domestic abusers?

Well, first of all, nobody wants to be doing this. But you are. But we are because of what we've inherited. I think that's worth saying. Still doing it. I think the Home Secretary and the Minister for Safeguarding has been working with the Ministry of Justice to make sure that for domestic abuse perpetrators, that there is particular attention paid to them. Now, we know with domestic abuse, often the person who's serving the prison sentence might not be charged with one of the domestic abuse offenses like stalking or harassment. It might be something like assault, which doesn't necessarily flag that it's domestic abuse. There's been a real piece of work done to try and identify those individuals who will be released where there is a concern about domestic abuse. That means then there can be referrals into the local risk assessment conferences. If there's children involved, referrals to the council and Social Services. Also, there's Claire's Law where people can be, women, particularly, can be informed if there's a history of domestic abuse with a partner or a new partner. There's a whole range of steps that have been put in place to make sure that we try and minimize that risk.

But of course, it's wholly unsatisfactory that we're having to take these steps at this point.

Yeah, but the Justice Secretary said on a sky podcast that prisoners released early wouldn't be domestic abusers.

Well, first of all, there is a group of people who have been convicted of domestic abuse offenses like stalking and harassment. They will not be released. Neither will serious violent offenders or terrorist offenders. But what I'm saying to you is there are those who we know have carried out domestic abuse who may not be in prison for a domestic abuse offense that's flagged. What's happening, because of the work of Jess Phillips and the Home Secretary, there's been a real trawl through to try and identify where their primary offense isn't domestic abuse. We know there's a history, and that's where the steps have been put in to protect as best we can because we know, unfortunately, domestic abuse is so prevalent amongst the offending community. Okay.

Reports that prisoners are going to be sent to Estonia to free up places in our jails. Is that the case?

Not to my knowledge, no.

Okay, so Estonia's law crime rate is significantly lower. We were speaking to the Justice Minister, and she said that it had been discussed with the UK Justice Secretary.

I have no knowledge of that. I really can't help you on that. But what I do know is we need to get a grip of our own prison estate in this country. We need to make sure that we are putting into prison those people who need to be locked up. We are dealing, as I'm sure you will know, the new prisons ministries, looking at the prison population, looking at those prisoners with mental health issues or addiction issues, and seeing what more can be done to address those problems.Do you think it's a good idea? Build enough estates in this country to take people to Estonia. I've not been involved in that discussion at all. I think it's a good idea. I think we need to have a prison estate in this country that works for what we need in this country. Okay.

Do you think removing winter fuel payments from some pensioners is a good idea.

I think it's a really difficult decision and not one that any of us want to take. If I just refer to the Home Office, we found a 6.4 billion black hole in our budget. I know the Chancellor is having to look across government and make really difficult decisions. I think alongside, if we do that tomorrow and there's a vote in Parliament, we need to make sure that the pension credit, the application for that perhaps is improved, and we encourage people to make that application because we know some of the poorest and most vulnerable are not getting everything they're entitled to. If they apply for pension credit, that will be a gateway through to receiving winter fuel allowance. There's more we can do around insulating homes. There's more we can do around energy bills, but it is a really difficult It's a difficult decision, and I know many of my colleagues are really concerned about it, as I am.

You're going to vote in favor of it then?

I am because I recognize the really difficult decision that the chancellors had to make, looking across government and the economic inheritance that we've got.

The leader of the TUC, I was asking him about it this morning, and he said it's the wrong thing to do.

I think it's a really tough decision. Nobody wants to make this. You think it's the right thing to do? I think in government, one of the things you have to do is make tough decisions. Unfortunately, this is one of the the first ones that we're having to deal with. But we know that we are also committed to the triple lock on pensions, and we've got the budget coming up in October. So I think all the options are being looked at by government as to how to make sure the poorest and most vulnerable do not suffer.

Labor government voting in favor of taking money off pensioners.

Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to do that. But we also have to recognize this £22 million black hole that's been identified.

£22 billion. And in the great scheme of things, given the amount of money that the government spends every year, I think it's 1.6 trillion. I think I'm right in saying that. It's not a lot of money. I'm trying to fill that hole by taking money off pensioners.

Well, it's one of the difficult decisions that the Prime Minister has talked about that this government will be making. We don't want to shy away, as previous governments have done, from making tough decisions. It's a hard one. I fully appreciate that. My inbox is full of emails about this, so I'm not pretending this isn't hard, but it That is one of the tough decisions that we are going to have to take to get the finances back on track.

New coalition on knife crime. Tell me about it.

Well, this is a very positive story in light of the decades long increase that we've seen in knife crime. This is bringing together activists and families with the Prime Minister today to set up a body that will work with government to make sure that we've got evidence-based policy and that we are being held to account for our manifesto promise, which is to halve knife crime over the next decade. We're already We're doing practical steps as well. The zombie knife ban comes into place in a couple of weeks time. We're working on the Ninja sword ban, again, a promise in our manifesto after the horrific case in Wolverhampton in 2022, where a young person was able to go online and buy a Ninja sword, collect it from the post office, no checks at all, and then went on to kill. We know the family in that case have campaigned for that ban, and we will be bringing that in. We've got a senior police officer looking at where the gaps are in the online sales of knives, what more we can do about that for the under-18s to stop it happening. So practical steps, but today is about the establishment of this coalition, which will be an important part in holding us to account.

I know you've got a busy morning, so I must let you go. It's good to talk to you.Thank you very much indeed.Thank you.Thank you.