Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con) I beg to move, That the Bill
be now read the Third time. Welcome to your place, Mr Deputy
Speaker. At the outset I want to thank all those who have
contributed to the debates and in Committee. I can report that we
have received broad support from colleagues across the House, from
those on the Government Benches, from the SNP and the Liberal
Democrats—although that is not apparent right now—and from our
colleagues on the Opposition...Request free trial
(Barrow and Furness) (Con)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Welcome to your place, Mr Deputy Speaker. At the outset I want to
thank all those who have contributed to the debates and in
Committee. I can report that we have received broad support from
colleagues across the House, from those on the Government
Benches, from the SNP and the Liberal Democrats—although that is
not apparent right now—and from our colleagues on the Opposition
Benches. I hope that approach will continue throughout the debate
today and, if we are successful, that it does so when the Bill
goes to the Lords.
Being released from prison on a Friday presents a unique
challenge for offenders who want to change their lives and turn
their back on crime. Friday releases can be fraught with
practical challenges that derail that goal. This Bill seeks to
change that. Approximately a third of all releases currently fall
on a Friday and, like on any other weekday, many of those
released will need to access essential support services such as
local authority housing, substance misuse support or even mental
health services. However, on a Friday there is a unique race
against the clock to get to these services before they close for
the day. Many of them close early on a Friday and are shut for
the weekend. Many people are released not that close to home, so
they have to navigate their way to the services within a very
narrow window of opportunity, with one eye on the clock, knowing
that the cliff edge of the weekend is present. That is a daunting
challenge.
If the House will indulge me, I will give an example of why this
matters. David Dunn is the director of a charity called Release
Mates, which is a group of prison leavers in long-term recovery
from addiction who recognise the need for support for men and
women in the immediate hours following their release from
custody. David wrote to me:
“Release Mates is waiting at the prison gate for a prison leaver,
ensuring they have food and clothes, taking them for a breakfast,
accompanying them to the mandatory day of release probation
appointment, then to the job centre to ensure he/she has funds to
survive. Often, we then accompany the prison leaver to their
local police station where they are required to report as part of
a court order, and wherever possible we try to link prison
leavers in with drug and alcohol services and/or mental health
support. Our work with female prisoners…is often more complex as
we are sometimes required to attend children’s services
appointments on the day of release.
Our experience is that the job we do with prison leavers is
significantly more difficult on a Friday. We are often required
to find emergency accommodation for prison leavers, which on
other days of the week is difficult but on Fridays is almost
impossible. The weekend closure of drug and alcohol services
regularly sees addicted prison leavers on opiate substitute
medication without a prescription after a Friday release,
inevitably leading to a relapse to Class A drugs. Without wishing
to be critical of the probation service, they can offer very
little help after noon on a Friday. Sometimes we are simply
unable to complete all the appointments which a prison leaver is
required to attend in one day. If that day is a Friday, a
vulnerable person is often left to fend for themselves for 3 days
before receiving help. I do not like to think of the chances a
prison leaver being released on a Friday has without the kind of
support which we offer.”
It is David’s final point that the Bill seeks to answer. Failure
to access vital support can increase an offender’s likelihood of
reoffending. We know that the reoffending rate for adults
released on a Friday is higher than for any other day of the
week, and that those without stable accommodation on release are
almost 50% more likely to reoffend.
By removing the barriers that a Friday release can bring, we can
ensure that prison leavers have a better chance to access the
support they need to reintegrate into the community so that
victims and the public are protected. The law currently mandates
that offenders due to be released on a Saturday or a Sunday, or
on a bank or public holiday, must be released on the preceding
day, provided it is a working day. Although this avoids releases
on days when services are completely closed, the result is a
bunching of releases on Fridays, with almost double the number of
any other day of the week.
This Bill will amend the law to provide the Secretary of State
for Justice with a discretionary power to bring forward an
offender’s release date by up to two eligible working days where
their release falls on a Friday, or to the day before a public or
bank holiday. In practical terms, the power will be given to a
prison governor, director or appropriate equivalent official in
the youth establishment to apply the policy to bring forward an
individual’s release date.
Evidence suggests that a Friday release has a disproport-ionate
impact on those with complex needs, those who may have greater
distances to travel once they are released and those with
substance misuse or mental health needs. Such a power will
promote a law-abiding reintegration into society by ensuring that
those leaving custody can access the support services they need
on release.
(Buckingham) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and I entirely agree
with him on the necessity of this Bill. Seeing the shadow
Minister, the hon. Member for Hammersmith (), in his place reminds me of
many moons ago, when I chaired the crime and disorder reduction
partnership in Hammersmith and Fulham where, on a weekly basis,
we saw the problem of prisoners released from all over the
country, but particularly from Wormwood Scrubs, not being able to
access housing and finding themselves in a very difficult
place.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness
() on introducing the Bill. Does
he agree that housing is key to ensuring that those leaving
prison are able to go straight back into a good pattern, as
opposed to potentially falling back into whichever crime got them
into prison in the first place?
My hon. Friend is right: accommodation is key. I know from
speaking to my right hon. Friend the Minister that it is part of
the puzzle that the Ministry of Justice is trying to bear down
on. Ending Friday releases for vulnerable people is part of the
challenge that we face, but stable accommodation, with the
ability to gain access to bank accounts and mobile phones in
order to register for services such as universal credit, is
essential to helping people as they are released.
Like adults, children are more likely to be released on a Friday
than on any other day. In addition to their inherent
vulnerability as children, under-18s leaving custody have
multiple and often complex needs, and a Friday release may mean
going for two or even three days without meaningful contact with
support services when they are at their most vulnerable. That is
why the Bill applies to both adults and children sentenced to
detention, and ensures that the same provisions exist across the
youth estate.
Evidence shows that those who have the basics that they need on
resettlement are far less likely to reoffend. The House has an
opportunity to give offenders vital extra time in which to meet
their probation officer or youth justice worker and gain access
to support services such as healthcare ahead of the weekend, will
which help to cut crime and ultimately make our streets safer.
The fact is that many people released from prison, especially on
Fridays, are almost set up to fail from the moment they step off
the prison estate. If we support people as they come out of
prison, we can play a key role in reducing the significant
societal and individual costs of reoffending, leading to fewer
victims of crime and fewer communities dealing with its
impact.
The Bill is an important step towards doing that, and I sincerely
hope the House will agree that by making the simple change that
it proposes—varying the date of release for vulnerable people by
up to 48 hours—we can relieve the time pressure, take away the
cliff edge, and give people the best opportunity to make a fresh
start. If we are serious about justice, if we are serious about
helping people to rebuild stable and rewarding lives, and if we
are interested in relieving prison capacity to improve outcomes
and in reducing reoffending, passing the Bill is an important
step in the right direction.
Sometimes it seems as if we in this place speak a different
language from the one spoken in the world outside—a language that
seems very different to the people we represent—but the Bill has
reminded me that that is not the case. After Second Reading, my
office in Barrow received a phone call from a serving prisoner,
Gary, who had watched the proceedings on parliamentlive.tv. He
had done better than many of the staff in my office! He is due
for release on a Friday in August preceding a bank holiday
weekend. Understandably, he is concerned about exactly the issue
that the Bill seeks to address: being stranded without support or
the ability to help himself for three days. It is no exaggeration
to say that there are hundreds of Garys out there, all with the
same concern, all wanting a fair chance to stand on their own two
feet and to start a new life on release. I hope that by passing
the Bill we will give them that chance: it is the very least that
we can do.
I also hope that I have addressed, as fully as possible, the aims
of the Bill and the positive impact that it will have, and I am
proud to present it to the House for its Third Reading. In many
respects it offers just a small change, but it is a change that
will have a great and lasting impact for many people on leaving
custody. I firmly believe that this is the right thing for us to
do, and I hope that the House will join me in supporting it.
12.58pm
(Aylesbury) (Con)
I support the Bill wholeheartedly. I congratulate both my hon.
Friend the Member for Workington () on introducing it before
he entered the Government, and my hon. Friend the Member for
Barrow and Furness () on guiding it through the
legislative process so thoroughly and well.
As many Members will know, I have a strong and passionate
interest in reducing the number of victims of crime by improving
the rehabilitation of offenders, having been a non-executive
director of HM Prison and Probation Service and, for a very short
time, the Minister responsible for prisons and probation. I was
released very early; I am not sure that it was for entirely good
behaviour. [Laughter.] I am very pleased that my successor has
embraced the Bill and is doing such a fantastic job across the
whole portfolio.
Prisons play an important part in the process of rehabilitation,
with a wide range of classes, training courses and programmes
that are designed to help people acquire the skills and habits
they need to live a life free of crime once they are released. I
praise the fantastic work that is done by teachers, tutors and
coaches in our prisons. The job is not easy, but it can be
extremely rewarding, and I am pleased that the Government are
investing much more in prison education services and recruiting
more staff to these vital positions.
However good the rehabilitation efforts are when somebody is in
custody, one of the riskiest moments for reoffending is
immediately after a prisoner is released. The order and structure
of the prison environment suddenly disappear, and instead there
is the potential for anxiety, confusion and temptation. This is
the time when it is essential to get support in place to ensure
that there is somewhere to live, something constructive to do and
someone to go to for help and advice. What matters most when
someone is released from jail is for them to be able to go
immediately to a probation office, to sign up with a doctor, to
go to their new accommodation and perhaps to visit the jobcentre.
Those immediate first positive steps can make all the difference
between going straight and going swiftly back behind bars.
Unfortunately, those crucial and relatively simple steps are
impossible when someone is released on a Friday afternoon, has to
travel for several hours to get home and then finds that all the
services they need have closed for the weekend. As my hon. Friend
the Member for Barrow and Furness said, the impact can be
particularly severe for women, because they are frequently
imprisoned even further from home than men are. It is a race
against time that is rarely won by the person who has been newly
freed from prison.
With a third of all releases taking place on a Friday, a
significant number of people are at risk. This matters, because
80% of crime is committed by reoffenders, and reoffending overall
costs the taxpayer £18 billion a year. If we in this place truly
want to support people as they come out of prison and reduce that
cost, we can play a role in doing so today by making the simple
change of ending Friday releases, which will relieve the time
pressure to access services, helping to ensure that newly
released prisoners can have a fresh start.
While I accept that this is not a magic bullet to end
reoffending, it will go some way to reduce the burden on the
taxpayer, and it boils down to a simple administrative change, as
my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness outlined
admirably. The move is supported by charities, the voluntary
sector, those working within the prison system, the probation
service and ex-offenders themselves.
I draw particular attention to the work done by the charity
Nacro, which has long campaigned for this change. Its 2021 report
entitled “Friday Prison Releases: Collective Voices” says
that
“Friday prison releases are needlessly setting people up to
fail”.
It is hard to disagree. The report quotes a prison leaver as
saying:
“I had to sleep at a fishing pit until the Monday because that
was the next day the person [at the council] was back in her seat
at work.”
There are other quotes in Nacro’s report that are worth
highlighting, including from a prison:
“We have lots of issues with Friday releases, which are
particularly problematic for people with substance misuse support
needs”;
from the police:
“The police often have to pick up the pieces where people fall
through the gaps, and this happens more often when people are
released from prison on a Friday”;
from a council accommodation officer:
“People who leave prison on a Friday do not get the early
intervention… which is unfair and is more likely to lead to
further offending”;
and from the charity itself:
“I would say that most people who are released from prison on a
Friday and need to report to the council for housing end up being
homeless as they didn’t have the time”.
Nacro’s chief executive has said that ending Friday releases
“will give people the best chance at a second chance”.
I completely agree.
At a time of challenging public finances, this is a policy that
will cost the taxpayer virtually nothing—perhaps just a bit of
administration to update working practices and procedures. I am
delighted that the Minister has confirmed on multiple occasions
that the Government support this important Bill. I congratulate
everybody who has been involved in getting it to this stage,
including the officials from the Ministry of Justice, some of
whom I recognise well, and especially my hon. Friend the Member
for Barrow and Furness.
1.04pm
(Loughborough) (Con)
Today is an excellent day for this Chamber and the House of
Commons, because we have some fantastic Bills coming through, and
none more so than this one. I am delighted to speak in favour of
the Bill.
The estimated economic and social cost of reoffending to this
country is £18.1 billion a year. Researchers found that those who
have chaotic experiences in the community before or after
custody, such as insecure accommodation, employment needs or
substance misuse, are more likely to reoffend. In 2018-19,
approximately 40% of adult prisoners were released to unsettled
accommodation, rough sleeping or homelessness, or their
accommodation status was unknown on the first night of release.
Around 42% of prisoners have either an alcohol or a drugs need,
or both. The prisons strategy White Paper has set out a number of
ways to improve the situation, including education services,
dealing with dependency on drugs and help to get people into work
following release, all of which are excellent ideas. They all
cost money, though, and that money could be wasted if an
ex-offender is leaving prison on a Friday with a few pounds in
their pocket and potentially nowhere to go, with no agencies open
to offer support over the weekend.
As a councillor on Charnwood Borough Council— I refer Members to
my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because
I am still a councillor—I was lucky enough to chair a series of
panels on reducing reoffending. I met not only ex-offenders,
police and housing support officers, but local charities that
work to support ex-offenders, which Loughborough simply could not
do without. Charities such as Exaireo, Carpenters Arms, The
Bridge and Futures Unlocked all offer outstanding service to
ex-offenders and others from across the country, helping them to
turn their life around. I have seen the work of those charities,
which is exemplary, and I continue to support them in all they
do.
As part of the panel’s work, we took evidence and made a series
of recommendations. There are six pages of recommendations; I
promise not to refer to all six pages right now, but I will refer
to one, which states that
“the Panel makes representations to the local MPs, in respect of
the day of the week prisoners are released from prison and
highlighting the issues surrounding Friday release”.
The reason for that recommendation was that,
“Support for offenders was not readily available on a Friday or
over the weekend. Therefore, a release earlier in the week
provides officers with greater opportunities to divert offenders
away from previous habits and friends towards services to provide
support in respect of housing, benefits and health related
issues.”
That work was done in 2011, so it has taken us some time, but I
believe we are achieving such a great goal today.
If Members will indulge me for a moment, the BBC has today
published an article on its website by Helen Catt, entitled “My
Friday prison release led to a disastrous mistake”. I will read a
passage, if I may:
“Prisoners vulnerable to addiction, mental health issues or
homelessness will no longer be released on Fridays under new
plans to cut reoffending. One prisoner who breached parole after
being released on a Friday says he felt let down by the system.
He told the BBC his story and what it says about prisoners at
risk of lapsing back into a life of crime.
‘By the time I got to the housing department, it was a Friday
afternoon and there was no-one there to see me. I knew the
offices wouldn’t be open again until the Monday. I was quite
fearful of where I was going to stay that night—I didn’t want to
stay on the streets.’
Marc Conway was 17 years old when he was released, on a Friday,
after three months in HMP Feltham young offenders’ institution in
London. Without anywhere to go, he made what he describes as a
‘disastrous mistake’ and stayed with a ‘known associate’. In
doing so, he broke his licence conditions and was recalled to
prison to serve out the remaining three months of his sentence.
‘I felt like I had let people down, first and foremost, that I’d
been recalled back to prison so soon,’ he said. ‘I was angry, I
was resentful of the system. I felt the system had let me down
again and I dread to think what I would have done that night if I
didn’t have somewhere to stay.’
Marc has served a number of sentences for a range of serious
offences, last leaving prison four-and-a-half years ago.”
However, in 2019 he was one of the people who pinned down the
convicted terrorist on London bridge, after that person had
fatally stabbed two people. That is a person we want in society;
that is a person I believe we should help. Hopefully, by not
releasing people on a Friday, we will be able to assist them much
earlier on in the process after their initial crime, rather than
having them spending four and half years in prison, as Mark
did.
In conclusion, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for
Workington (), who originally introduced
the Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness
(), who has taken up the
challenge. With one small Bill, they are going to make a huge
difference to people’s lives. I thank them for doing so.
1.10pm
(North West Norfolk) (Con)
I join in congratulating my hon. Friends the Members for Barrow
and Furness () and for Workington (), and all those involved in
bringing forward this important piece of legislation. I look
forward to it completing its passage today.
I am pleased to support the Bill, and the Government’s work in
tackling reoffending rates, which have decreased over the last
decade. The kernel of the Bill is to avoid the release of an
offender on a Friday or the day preceding a bank holiday, by
bringing their release date forward by one or two working days.
Currently, the Criminal Justice Act 1961 provides that offenders
who would otherwise be released on weekends, bank holidays or
public holidays, are to be released the preceding day. That is
meant to ensure that offenders can access services and
accommodation on their day of release. As we have heard with
stark examples, in reality, getting that timely support on a
Friday is simply not practical due to early closing hours and the
number of prisoners who are released.
The status quo is clearly self-defeating, as failure to access
services can increase the risk of reoffending, which is something
that we all want to reduce. We have heard about the importance of
access to accommodation, which, in turn, is vital in helping
people to access employment and training to support their
rehabilitation. I am pleased that the Bill delivers on a key
Government commitment in the prisons White Paper from 2021. The
White Paper also set out how the Government want to rehabilitate
criminals and reduce offending through work and training.
In particular, I support the partnerships that the Government are
requiring prisons to have with businesses, to help train people
and offer jobs on release. Prisons in the east of England have
partnered with well-known businesses, such as Lotus and Bernard
Matthews, as well as the manufacturing and construction sectors,
to do precisely that. We know how important that is; offenders
who get a job after coming out of prison are less likely to
reoffend, but only 17% manage to get a job within a year of
release. We need to put a lot more effort into increasing that
number. I also welcome the Government’s progress on subsistence
payments. In 2021, following a 26-year freeze, the Government
increased the amount that is given to people on release for
immediate essentials; that was increased in line with inflation
last year, although it is still only £82.39.
We should recognise that the Bill involves people being released
earlier than they would otherwise from their prison sentences.
Our constituents are rightly concerned to see people serve the
sentence they have been given, which is why I was pleased to
support Government legislation to ensure that people serving the
longest for the most serious offences serve more of their
sentence. Clearly, on balance, there is a clear benefit to our
constituents in releasing people a day or two earlier, although
we need to have robust policy guidance and eligibility criteria
to ensure public protection. I warmly welcome the Bill and look
forward to it completing its passage.
1.13pm
(Harrow East) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North
West Norfolk (). I thank my hon. Friend the
Member for Barrow and Furness () for bringing the Bill to the
House. As far as I am concerned, people who end up in prison have
gone through our process, they have been rightly convicted of
offences, and they will serve their time. It is vital we give
them the opportunity to rebuild their lives when they have served
their sentence and come out.
When I brought forward the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, one
of the areas I insisted on was ensuring that ex-offenders leaving
prison were encouraged to rebuild their lives, that prison
governors had a statutory duty to ensure they did so, and that
they were referred to local housing authorities to be offered
suitable accommodation. It is fair to say that I have harassed a
number of Ministry of Justice Ministers over the past six years
to ensure that prison governors carry out their statutory duties,
so it is a great shame that is not happening as it should.
As has been said, one in three prisoners are released on a Friday
at present. Housing authorities close their doors at 5 o’clock
and unless the ex-offender is there in time, they are likely to
have a choice of either sleeping rough or, worse still, returning
to the area in which their crimes were originally committed and
then mixing and mingling with the same people who got them into
trouble in the first place. They are often left with £50 in their
pocket and told, “Go away and don’t reoffend.” That is
unacceptable today, particularly for people who have committed to
rebuilding their lives and end up literally on the streets.
The support services people need are not there. I declare my
interest as the co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group
for ending homelessness. We have a clear indication and evidence
from local authorities that there is no support over the weekends
for prison leavers to obtain accommodation. They approach the
housing authority and find it closed or unable to provide
accommodation on an emergency basis, so that leaves them on the
streets or with the alternative I have mentioned.
As has been said, other services are needed. GPs, jobcentres and
advice centres all close at the end of Friday and do not open
again until Monday. That leaves people in a desperate position
that they should not have to face. They have frequently lost
contact with their friends and family because of the fact they
have been in imprisoned, and they literally have nowhere to go
over the weekend. For many, the stability of prison, despite the
conditions, and a roof and food is potentially better than being
on the streets, because then they face a choice. Do they spend
their money on a hotel room? Do they reoffend? What do they do?
That is the key challenge. We have to prevent people from getting
to that unacceptable position.
Given the weather, people will be being released today in
freezing conditions and then facing that desperate choice. They
have no stable living place to end up in, so the temptation to
return to a life of crime is always there, and they may have
people who will support them to return to that life of crime,
rather than supporting them to rebuild their lives. It is clearly
not in the interests of anyone that people are placed in that
position.
This is a very simple Bill, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member
for Barrow and Furness for bringing it forward. We should be
releasing prisoners during the week, allowing them to access
services and to rebuild their lives. We do not want to see people
returning to prison. We do not want people to reoffend; we want
them to be good citizens. If we do send them back to prison, we
should remember that it costs, on average, £43,000 to host a
prisoner each year. In the public purse’s interests, this Bill is
a sensible move.
In conclusion, I strongly support the Bill. It can lead to fewer
crimes, fewer reoffending individuals and safer streets for us
all, and that has to be in the interests of every single one of
our constituents. What opposition could there be to such a Bill?
It is good news, of course, that the Bill is welcomed on all
sides. Finally, I would just say that prison governors and the
people in the prison support service need to be thinking about
how we support people to rebuild their lives, and to plan for it
as they are coming up to their release dates, rather than it
coming up as a sudden rush with people literally being put on the
streets and told, “Go away and don’t reoffend.” That cannot be
acceptable in today’s society. The Bill has to be in the
interests of us all, and I commend it to the House.
1.19pm
(Stoke-on-Trent North)
(Con)
I am aware through my office that I have gone viral on Twitter
for the fact that, unfortunately, we have criminals who blight
the great constituency of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and
Talke. I referred to the scumbags who fly-tip, the scrotes who
deal drugs and the savages who create their antisocial behaviour.
I am not apologetic for calling out this wrong behaviour and for
launching a safer streets petition for Tunstall, Cobridge and
Smallthorne to get additional CCTV, new alley gates and better
street lighting to help make our streets safer.
Despite some of the glares that my hon. Friend the Member for
Aylesbury () has been giving me throughout
this debate to ensure that I stay on message, and the pressure
that I can feel from my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and
Furness (), I am proud to stand up and
say that I am in full support of the Bill in front of us today,
because, despite my rough exterior at times, I am a pragmatist at
heart. Ultimately, the overriding evidence is clear that
something is not working and that that is undermining the very
thing that we want to achieve, which is reducing reoffending,
helping people to restart their lives and bringing crime down in
our local communities. The Bill is a very simple, very basic
mechanism that provides some help with that process. I would find
it bizarre if anybody had any opposition to the Bill. My hon.
Friend the Member for Workington (), who initiated the Bill,
is certainly no wet; in fact he is very dry. Even though his
neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness, is a
little damp, he is obviously very sound on these issues, so it is
absolutely correct that we stand up and support him.
It seems very wrong to me that someone is not able to access any
support services within a matter of hours of leaving prison,
which could be hundreds of miles away from where they call home
and from their support network of family and friends, who are
good and trusted people who could guide them on the right path.
It is completely abhorrent that someone should be left in such a
vulnerable state. We are talking about people who will be
suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. Their crime will have
fed into those habits. Ultimately, these are people who need the
right support and guidance, which links in with the fantastic
legislation introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow
East () that supports some of the most vulnerable people in
our society. It is right, as he said earlier, that prison
governors should use the discretion that they will be given to
plan someone’s release, to plan support and to engage with the
Probation Service much earlier in order to ensure that the said
individual will be able to leave for a caring and nurturing
environment.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury said, if we can
achieve even a small reduction in reoffending, it will mean a lot
less crime on our streets and a lot less police time being wasted
on, in some cases, small and minor crimes. The police have major
matters to deal with, such as those involving county lines
gangs—those at the top end who are making the real money—and
grooming gangs, who are difficult to catch, requiring hundreds of
police to work thousands of hours to find out who is operating in
our areas. There is also organised criminal activity such as
theft and burglaries, white collar crime and online scams. All
those things take an awful lot of police expertise and it is
absolutely right, therefore, that we try to find a way to help
people who have come out of prison. As my hon. Friend the Member
for Barrow and Furness said earlier, it is perfectly reasonable,
and common sense at its best, to release someone a day or two
earlier than scheduled—we are not talking about weeks or
months—so that we avoid the things that we have been talking
about. I would like to believe, Mr Deputy Speaker, that common
sense always prevails in this place, although my mother says that
I lack that at the best of times.
Overall, this is a strong piece of legislation. I am glad that it
has cross-party support. I hope that it will go through speedily
and unamended in the other place: the quicker that we can get
this on the statute books, the quicker that we can act.
I thought that the article that my hon. Friend the Member for
Loughborough () read out was incredibly
powerful. I am not known for openly praising the BBC, but, still,
let me give credit where credit is due. That story was of a
17-year-old boy—he is a boy at 17 years old—who was clearly
vulnerable, who clearly felt alone, and who had no support
network. He had fallen in with the nearest person he could find,
but, sadly, that person was someone who should have been avoided.
Therefore, through no fault of his own, that young man ended up
back in prison for three months.
Let us not forget that it costs an awful lot of taxpayers’ money
to look after an individual sitting in a prison cell day in, day
out, when they could be out contributing to society and getting
the education they deserve or a job with a salary that pays back
into the system, giving them the self-confidence, self-worth and
self-belief that they can go on to achieve many great things. It
is frightfully important for us to remember that. The article
made it plain and clear that this is a good Bill. I am grateful
to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness and I wish
him all success in getting it passed.
1.24pm
(Hammersmith) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness () on getting the Bill this
far.
On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South
East () expressed Labour’s support
for the Bill. That support remains. In fact, the Opposition
support it so much that we tried to bring the legislation in
first with an amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for
Stockton North () to the Police, Crime,
Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Given the cross-party support and
the common-sense thinking behind the legislation, it was a
surprise that the Government did not support Labour’s amendment
on that occasion, and nor have they sought to bring forward
similar legislation themselves. However, it seems—[Interruption.]
The Minister chunters from a sedentary position. It seems that
they are now on board, so we can all be grateful for that.
As I said, we think this is a sensible Bill, one that we hope
will have a positive effect on reoffending rates, along with
reducing the numbers of recently released prisoners who become
homeless. Only 45% of people released from prison in 2021-22 had
settled accommodation on their release. That means over half were
released from prison with nowhere to go and had to use their
first hours of freedom desperately searching for a safe and
suitable place to sleep. Sadly, 11% of those people ended up
homeless or sleeping rough. Studies have shown that safe and
secure housing is key to stopping the cycle of reoffending. His
Majesty’s inspectorate of probation found that
“the proportion of service users recalled or resentenced to
custody within 12 months of release was almost double for those
without settled accommodation.”
It is a stark contrast that a person who, until their day of
release, had their housing, meals and medicine provided under one
roof, is then left on a Friday afternoon with only the number of
a probation officer and the address of a pharmacist. Many
recently released prisoners then have a race against time to find
a roof over their head, to apply for benefits to pay for food,
housing and other necessities, and to visit their GP or
pharmacist if they are part of a drug treatment programme. If a
prisoner has willingly and successfully engaged in a drug
treatment programme, then not ensuring enough time to get to a
pharmacist upon release is tantamount to derailing that treatment
programme.
When a prisoner is released it should be seen as a new start,
where opportunities are presented and support is readily
available, but all too often the opposite is true. We hope the
Bill can go some way to rectifying that, but it is only a part of
the picture. The rehabilitation of offenders starts within
prisons, with better conditions, better education and training,
support for mental health, help to repair broken family
relationships, and more drug treatment programmes. If the
Government are really serious about cutting reoffending, they
could look at reducing the use of shorter sentences for
non-violent offences. Research tells us that short sentences do
not work, with 63% of those who serve a sentence of 12 months or
less going on to reoffend within a year. One answer to that lies
in effective community sentencing for those who commit
non-violent offences. That would help to ease overcrowding and
allow prisons to get their education programmes back up and
running.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I feel I am digressing on to wider issues. Let
me conclude by saying that the Opposition support the Bill. We
think it is the right and sensible thing to do. We just add that
it would be a missed opportunity for it to be thought the only
thing that needs to be done to help cut reoffending.
1.29pm
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice ()
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and
Furness () for his excellent work
bringing this important Bill to the House and navigating it
through to this stage. It is a great credit to him that there is
such support for this legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for
Workington () has played an important
role in this Bill to date. I thank my hon. Friends the Members
for Aylesbury (), for Loughborough (), for North West Norfolk (), for Harrow East () and for Stoke-on-Trent North (), who spoke passionately
about their local communities and the great work carried out by
the voluntary and charitable sector, and with particular insight
as local representatives. I also thank the hon. Member for
Hammersmith (), who speaks for the
Opposition, for the manner and content of his remarks in
welcoming the Bill. It is a good and positive thing when we have
legislation coming forward with wide support from different
parties in the House and different perspectives and traditions to
do something sensible in the interests of our society.
As the House has heard, the Bill ensures that offenders who have
resettlement needs will no longer need to be released on a Friday
or the day before a bank or public holiday. It will do that by
enabling a release date to be brought forward by up to two
eligible working days, so these offenders will be released
earlier in the week. In practice, this means that offenders with
resettlement needs will no longer face that race against the
clock, which my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness set
out, to find accommodation, access medication and access finance
support all before services close for the weekend. As he
outlined, that is particularly challenging for people with more
complex needs, of whom there are many, such as drug dependency or
mental health illness, and, crucially, for those with a long
distance to travel before they can access those services. The
Bill will achieve that by tackling the practical challenges that
Friday releases can create. It will address the issues that can
lead to an increased risk of reoffending by ensuring that custody
leavers have a better chance to access the support they need to
reintegrate into the community and to turn their back on a life
of crime.
As my hon. Friend said, the Bill also applies to children
sentenced to detention. It will ensure that the release
provisions relating to Friday, bank and public holiday, and
weekend releases exist in respect of all youth settings,
including the recently created secure 16 to 19 school. Despite
the various safeguards and legal duties that exist for children
leaving custody, being released on a Friday still means that a
child would go for at least two days with no meaningful contact
with their youth justice worker exactly when they are at their
most vulnerable.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the impact on young people
and children is accentuated by the tremendous success there has
been in reducing the number of children in custody from around
3,000 in 2007 to around 400 today? That means there are fewer
secure settings for children, so they are frequently further from
home and it takes them much longer on the day they are released
to get to where they need to be.
My hon. Friend is spot on and speaks from great personal
experience and expertise. It is true that far fewer children are
being locked up than in 2010. We know that being incarcerated at
a young age means people risk becoming more criminal and it
exposes them to a whole range of different risks. Of course,
sometimes that is exactly what we have to do—we must be able to
imprison people where necessary—but where it is possible to avoid
it, that is often better for the individual and for wider
society. An effect of that, and this exists for women prisoners
as well, is that a person is much more likely to be far away from
home. Because there are fewer of these institutions, they are
more spread out, so access to services, which my hon. Friend
identifies is an issue, can be particularly acute for younger
people.
In practice, it will be for heads of establishments to apply the
power in bringing forward an offender’s release data. Aided by
policy guidance, they can allow an offender additional time to
resettle where it will support their reintegration into the
community and reduce their risk of reoffending. As the House will
be aware, the Government have made significant progress in
tackling the £18 billion annual cost of reoffending and
protecting the public.
Data show that the overall proven reoffending rate for adults
decreased from 30.9% in 2009-10 to 25.6% in 2019-20, which is
truly significant. The rate is still too high, however, and we
have to do all we can to bring it down further. We are investing
substantial sums to achieve that, including in prison leavers’
access to accommodation, about which several hon. Members on both
sides of the House have spoken; and in building stronger links
with employers through dedicated prison employment leads and
prison employment advisory boards where business leaders can
interface with their local prisons.
We have also seen encouraging improvements in employment rates
for prisoners on release, which is an area where hon. Members can
play an important role through their discussions with local
employers by putting them in touch with this opportunity. We are
also investing in offering more prisoners the chance to work
while inside prison; developing the prison education service to
raise the skills of offenders, about which my hon. Friend the
Member for Aylesbury also spoke; and increasing access to drugs
rehabilitation through the recruitment of health and justice
partnership co-ordinators to better link up services for
offenders inside and beyond the prison perimeter. The hon. Member
for Hammersmith was exactly right to identify that we need to
think of it as a holistic process that starts inside and
continues outside; it must be as linked up as possible.
We are also making large investments into youth justice to tackle
offending by children. As my hon. Friend the Member for
Loughborough said, there is a lot that the Government and the
Prison Service can do, but charities and voluntary organisations,
including the four that she mentioned in her constituency, are an
absolutely irreplaceable and fundamental part of that fabric.
Those interventions should improve resettlement opportunities for
all offenders and help to reduce reoffending, but they cannot
fully address all the practicalities that are presented by being
released on a Friday. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East
vividly illustrated that journey to the House. This common-sense
Bill will help to achieve that. I reiterate my thanks to my hon.
Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness for bringing this
important Bill before the House and I confirm again, with great
pleasure, that the Government support it. I wish it all the best
in its progress through the other place.
1.37pm
With the leave of the House, I am incredibly grateful to
friends—hon. Members on both sides of the House—for their support
and valued contributions on the issue. Many have contributed on
Second Reading, in Committee and on Third Reading, so I thank
them all for the insight and passion that they brought to the
debates. As constituency MPs, we all know people who have been
affected by the issue, as has come out time and again.
I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Workington
(), who passed responsibility
for the Bill to me on his elevation to the Whips Office. He also
kindly led the Committee stage ably and with real insight. My
hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury () has been a supporter of the
cause in and out of office and I am grateful for his presence
today—his passion for the subject is clear.
My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough () is similarly passionate and
experienced on the issue. In fact, she may be the only MP—this
may be a parliamentary first—to have lobbied to be on a Bill
Committee. I am incredibly grateful for that. My hon. Friend the
Member for North West Norfolk () made a thoughtful speech about
the importance of giving people on release access to employment.
His point was well made and, I hope, well heard.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East () spoke powerfully about the challenges offenders
face on release and the injustice of people being given the
opportunity to stand on their own two feet again but not being
able to take that opportunity because structural barriers are in
their way. I think one of the reasons my hon. Friend the Member
for Stoke-on-Trent North (), who I look down on from
here, is so dry is the amount of hot air that emanates from him.
[Laughter.] However, he made some serious points about why the
Bill will make a difference on reoffending, which is what we all
want.
Turning to those on the Opposition Benches, I greatly appreciate
the thoughtful and contributory approach of the hon. Member for
Hammersmith () and hope that when the Bill
reaches the Lords it will be considered in a similar way. I
should also thank the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member
for East Hampshire (), who has been incredibly
supportive through this process. His presence at the Dispatch Box
is a real comfort. I know he is passionate not just about this
part of dealing with the challenges faced by those being
released, but about trying to get to the bottom of and improving
the wider structural issues which my hon. Friend the Member for
Harrow East mentioned. I also thank his incredible team at the
Ministry—not least Robyn, who has been a huge support to me and
my hon. Friend the Member for Workington—and the Clerks in the
Public Bill Office, whose guidance has been a great help.
I also thank my constituents who have spoken to me about this
issue, as well as charities—not least Sam Julius and the team at
Nacro who have campaigned so much on this issue—chaplains, faith
groups, and third sector organisations including Switchback, the
Community Chaplain Association, Release Mates and the Well
Communities in Barrow, all of which have supplied case studies,
and, more importantly, work day in, day out with offenders to get
them on their feet following release against incredibly difficult
odds. I hope the passing of this Bill will make those odds just a
little bit better.
Finally, I thank my good friend , who has agreed to shepherd this
Bill through the other place if—or when—it passes here today. He
is the founder of The Big Issue and a passionate supporter and
campaigner for social justice, and he knows more than most why
this issue matters. The Bill is in good hands.
This small Bill will, I hope, make a very big difference. I thank
Members from across the House for their support.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
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