Nigel Farage has failed to commit to banning trans women from female prisons after his new justice adviser said they should not be automatically barred.
Vanessa Frake, a former prison governor who oversaw the detention of Rose West, said decisions on where to house inmates should be made on an ‘individual basis’.
Asked for his views on her comments yesterday, the Reform UK leader told the Daily Mail: ‘I’ve personally never worked in a prison so I can’t answer [the question] but I think you’ll find that the answer that you’ll get from somebody who has worked in prisons at the highest possible level is, I think, basically it’s about risk assessment, isn’t it?
‘But in terms of the problems in prisons, it’s a relatively small one.’
A Reform spokesman later added of Ms Frake: ‘An ex-prison governor… has a different opinion. That does not constitute party policy.’
In an interview to mark her appointment, Ms Frake said decisions about trans prisoners should be made on a case-by-case basis. But she told The Times that sexual offenders may need to be held in male prisons.
‘It’s all about the risk assessments for me, and each has to be done on an individual basis,’ she said.
Ms Frake said trans prisoners she had overseen were ‘accepted’ by other inmates and added: ‘People who want to just say a blanket ban clearly have never stepped foot in a prison and seen how prison runs and how risk assessments on individuals happen.’
But Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Reform’s ‘law and order’ plan was ‘hiding a complete betrayal of women’s safety’.
‘Nigel Farage promised a major crime announcement but instead delivered an adviser who thinks men belong in women’s prisons.
‘Farage calls that a ‘small’ issue – tell that to the women who’ve been sexually assaulted and terrorised behind bars.’
Mr Farage criticised ‘transgender indoctrination’ in Britain earlier this year but has also defended his record on trans rights.
This year the Supreme Court ruled trans women can be excluded from women-only spaces, including prisons.
Labour has continued with the Tories’ policy of not housing trans women inmates convicted of violent or sexual crimes in women’s prisons.
