in herfirst major speech on sentencing the justice secretary, liz truss, rejected calls to cut the number of inmates with what she calls "dangerous quick—fix solutions". our home affairs correspondent, danny shaw, was listening. the undercover investigation found widespread use of drugs, a lack of control and serious breaches of security. i want to see the prison population go down because the prison service has got better at reforming offenders. i want to see it go down because we've got better at a society at intervening earlier before people commit the crimes that lead them to prison. i want to see it go down because we've got better at managing the prison population inside ourjails. reductions by cap oi’ inside ourjails. reductions by cap or quota or by sweeping sentencing cuts are not a magic bullet, they area cuts are not a magic bullet, they are a dangerous attempt at a quick fix. liz truss to. george mcbride is

head of advocacy at volt face. the panorama programme talked about spies, the synthetic drug, that seemed to be pretty prevalent in this jail in northumberland. is it something that is prevalent in other prisons? yes, it's an epidemic. it's not just one prisons? yes, it's an epidemic. it's notjust one drug which is what makes it such a challenge. this is a group of drugs of which there are about 200 that we know that the moment, with wildly different symptoms and issues surrounding those drugs. how are these drugs getting jail? prisons are very stretched at the moment. a lot of the security procedures you would hope to see an able to be conducted. staff are able to walk in and out of

prison without searches. prisons are a lot busier than people expect. the focus on trains has been a bit misplaced —— the focus on drones. focus on trains has been a bit misplaced —— the focus on dronesm ita simple misplaced —— the focus on dronesm it a simple saying, if we had more prison officers being able to search people going in and out, then you would cut the problem? it's not that simple but it is as simple as saying if we had more officers we would have less of a drug problem. what we need is dynamic security which is securing the environment within the prison, not trying to ensure a com pletely prison, not trying to ensure a completely hermetically sealed environment but trying to ensure that once people within prisons, that once people within prisons, that there are people constantly monitoring them. which is what we don't have at the moment. better systems within the jail to deal with whatever problems may occur? that's right. so that boils down to numbers? it boils down to staff numbers? it boils down to staff numbers and prison numbers. i think

what liz truss has said about reducing prison numbers is irresponsible in the extreme. she, better than anybody, knows that the biggest danger to our society at the moment is the environment prisons. they are creating a situation which is fuelling violence and drug use, and these people are going to come out at some point. so we are creating a situation in which people are being made worse criminals and given less of an opportunity to make their lives successful. by putting more people in prison we are exacerbating the problem and not protecting the public. the prison population has risen and crime has gone down. yes, the latest statistics from the office of national statistics slightly changed that because there has been an increase in cybercrime. general crime has been going down. and yet we've got these big prison populations, due to politicising sentencing, and giving people

mandate to re—sentences for crimes, in an attempt to try and convince the public they are safer. when in fa ct the public they are safer. when in fact they are creating a huge tax burden that in large part makes people more dangerous, and not say first. the prison population is growing up, crime is going down but you say there's no correlation? crime isn't going down because more criminals are injail? certainly not. so what's the answer? what a lot of people have been calling for isa lot of people have been calling for is a reduction in the prison population. we have a range of new options, we are living in a new world with a whole variety of options of punishing people within the community and giving them options for rehabilitation. we need to ta ke options for rehabilitation. we need to take these options because they are considerably cheaper than keeping people within prisons. people's idea about people being excluded from society by being put ina excluded from society by being put in a prison is not the reality. in reality those people are going to

leave at some point. if they'd been in an environment where they've been meeting more dangerous criminals, building links, given no opportunity, the situation is going to get worse. we need less people in prison and more officers. it's a vicious cycle, once you going to jail, have the resources, once you get out your going to offend again? pa rt get out your going to offend again? part of it is we aren't tackling the drug market in prisons. people are spending money on drugs in prison and then leaving prison with a huge debt to dangerous men. if they were a burglar before, they'll have to resort to burgling straightaway because they've got people they owe a huge sum of money. it's a very dangerous situation we are creating which will lead to more crime, not less. a very interesting point. george mcbride from volte face, good to talk to you. you can watch that panorama behind bars in full tonight

at 8:30pm on bbc one. their headlines. the ministry of justice says it is urgently investigating claims made in a bbc panorama programme of security failings at a privately run prison in northumberland. the canadian prime ministerjustin trudeau has been holding talks with president trump at the white house. four people have died in an avalanche in the french alps. the group was buried after a wall of snow swept across an area off piste. an update on the markets. this is how the ftse and the dax ended the day. for the first time, pensioners are on average better off than those of working age. that's according to new research by the think—tank, the resolution foundation. it says a new wave of pensioners

are more likely than previous generations to own their home, have generous private pensions and still be working. our personal finance correspondent simon gompertz reports. pensioners' incomes rolling ahead with company pensions, their own homes, even above—inflation increases in the state pension. these pensioners in harrow say money can still be tight. when you retire, you're fine. seven years down the line, everything's gone up. my husband and i had company pensions and got the state pension and we have paid more for our house, so quite comfortable. if i didn't have a private pension, no way could i be bowling. going back to 2001 and after paying housing costs like rent and mortgage, pensioner households had £70 a week less on average to spend than working families. then there was a big switchover four years ago so now pensioner householders are £20 a week better off. more cash in their pockets especially if they have paid off the mortgage. what's pushing up pensioner incomes

is this younger generation of pensioners born after the war who are now retiring with good company pension schemes, owning their own home, often with the mortgage paid off, and the challenge is if you look 20 years ahead that could be a real problem for younger generations who will not retire with the same advantages. so if it's current pensioners who are winning, some say levels the playing field by being less generous about increases in the state pension, but that would mean when today's younger people retire they would be up against it. fewer own a home or have a quality private pension. it's important they have better pensions and find it easier to buy into the housing market. on the pension side of things they are saving much less than older generations. we think they need to save more. government has a role in this because they set the default rate for savings. we're asking government to increase that over the next decade. even today there is a growing

divide among the elderly. ma gyjée‘ilhgt‘ifflfi firefighters in australia are still tackling dozens of different blazes in the state of new south wales, after a record—breaking heatwave triggered bushfires across a large area. homes and livestock have been lost to the raging wildfires but there has been no reported human death. hywel griffith has more from sydney. only from the sky can you grasp the scale of a scorched, scarred landscapes which burned over the weekend. more than 200 fires spread over hundreds of thousands of acres, crews a re over hundreds of thousands of acres, crews are still working at 60 different sites. at some villages and farms, they've started the task of checking how much has been

destroyed, and what if anything can be salvaged. the community has been heavily impacted by fire, and i would suggest most buildings in the community are damaged and destroyed. at the height of the bushfire, 2500 crew members were called into action. two were injured, but it's remarkable the heat wave passed without the loss of human life. a combination of record temperatures, dry land and high wind made for unprecedented, catastrophic level conditions few firefighters had ever experienced before. m conditions few firefighters had ever experienced befo| you i gaunt g conditions few firefighters had ever experienced befo| you i5 do. i g $— have dropped, ”77 $— have dropped. the —— , $— isn't have dropped. the —— , over. name i rigid (hissed peg-pie hairs been rema i fled dfleed pee-pie. hgfe been to seek shelter if a