Moved by Lord Bird That the Bill be now read a second time. Lord
Bird (CB) My Lords, it is a great honour and pleasure for me to
move that the Bill be read a second time. It is also quite moving
because, when we deal with prisons, custodial sentences and
wrongdoers, we often have an enormous divide, but what is so great
about the Bill is that it has the blessing of the department, the
Government and most of us—it unites us all. It is a very simple
Bill. Simon...Request free trial
Moved by
That the Bill be now read a second time.
(CB)
My Lords, it is a great honour and pleasure for me to move that
the Bill be read a second time. It is also quite moving because,
when we deal with prisons, custodial sentences and wrongdoers, we
often have an enormous divide, but what is so great about the
Bill is that it has the blessing of the department, the
Government and most of us—it unites us all. It is a very simple
Bill. Simon Fell, whom I know and have worked with, is a very
committed Conservative MP up in Barrow-in-Furness. He has done
the heavy lifting on the Bill, backed up by Nacro, which I
praise: it has been banging away for decades and, if we have been
able to treat offenders better, that is often to do with Nacro’s
work. I would love to say that.
The Bill is very simple; there is no complexity to it. Let us
allow our governors to release people on a day that is not the
worst day of the week: Friday—or Saturday or Sunday. One-third of
people are currently released on that day, and it is possible
that over 50% of them need to find some form of support—to go to
the citizens advice bureau, to the local council, to the social
security office or to look for accommodation—because a very large
number of people still leave the custodial system with nowhere to
go. What happens if someone has nowhere to go? From personal
experience, I know that when you have nowhere to go and are
homeless, you tend to get into trouble.
First, you arrest someone for a crime and then you take them
before a court and spend a shedload of public money. If they are
found guilty, they are put away for a period of time, costing
hundreds of thousands of pounds on occasions, if it is a longer
sentence. You spend all this and then what do you do? You spoil
the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar. You let them out on a Friday
and, as they have no family relationships and nowhere to go, they
are lined up to fall down.
The Bill is really interesting to me. The greatest thing is that
I say to myself, “If we can work cross-party and cross-Chamber,
if we can bring in organisations such as Nacro to give us all the
background we need, and if we can get committed MPs to lead this
fight, why can’t we do this for so many other things?” Is it not
wonderful that we can do so for this small thing, which involves
an enormous amount of intelligence? If you have been away for two
years and then end up with nowhere to go and no one to guide,
lead and help you, as I say, you have a real problem. You might
as well have thrown those two years, 18 months or three years
away, and thrown away our tax money and opportunity to turn a
ne’er-do-well—a naughty boy—into someone other than a naughty
boy. Is it not extraordinary that we spend so much on keeping
people in prison but do not help them very well with their
exit?
I am pleased that there are some very good signs of the recovery
of rehabilitation—the noble and learned Lord, , and I discussed this. I know
this because I have been working with a group of businesspeople
in Brixton who go into the prison before the person leaves and
try to recruit them for a job. I have recommended this company to
a business which is deadly short of office workers and so on in
Brixton and elsewhere in south London. Why do we not look at the
pool of people leaving our prisons, who are leaving without a
stain on their reputation because they co-operated in their own
rejuvenation? These are the most wonderful things we can do, so I
am really glad to bless this Bill. I am hopeful that we do not
look at this as a one-off; I hope that it will lead to a
renaissance. I will not ask noble Lords to vote for a renaissance
in our relationship to justice, but would it not be wonderful if
we could invest in those wonderful things—rejuvenation and
helping people out of the sticky stuff?
After the most important part of my life inside, I left on a
Saturday—at another time, I left on a Tuesday. What was so
wonderful about leaving that custodial sentence was that I had
somewhere to go: I had family, friends and a social background,
and I even had the offer of a job. All those things made me; I am
here because some cleverness was practised on me when I was
inside in those good old days when life seemed a lot simpler and
the size of the prison population was a third of what it is now.
The magic of that thinking—of people, communities and the Church
coming together—was absolutely marvellous. I am the product of
some very clever thinking.
If we want to make this change, first let us sort out this Bill
and then look again at why we waste so much money. We spend £3
billion a year on keeping people banged up. The police bill is
enormous; I think it is up to £17 billion. If we were to spend
more—I would say that we vote for another £1 billion; it is not a
lot—then we would not have to spend it later on police cars,
courts or supporting children whose family members have ended up
in prison.
I will not go on any longer, because we are running out of time,
but I thank noble Lords very much for the opportunity to speak on
this very simple, clever, thoughtful, grown-up and real Bill. I
beg to move.
12.02pm
(LD)
Your Lordships will soon gather from my croaky voice that I
returned from a northerly cruise on Wednesday with something of a
cold. It was 10 days without responsibility. No money was used on
board; at mealtimes, all I had to do was sway my way into the
restaurant, and the food was there ready cooked. There was no
lock on my cabin door—but, with the North Sea all around me, I
was going nowhere. I could circulate on the top deck for as long
as I liked; a lot of exercise went on there, but, fortunately, it
was not compulsory.
Arriving back in Dover on Wednesday was a bit of a shock. I had
to check my wallet to see if I had any money. I had to get myself
to Dover railway station, pay for a ticket and find a platform
and a train. I had to make decisions, get used to traffic again
and rush to reach your Lordships’ House in time for a committee.
I was away only 10 days. The problems for a prisoner being
released after a lengthy period in prison are very serious. The
shock of being propelled through the prison door into the
community—into a world of decision-making—must be profound. I
strongly support the Bill as a very sensible means of reducing
that impact, and I congratulate the noble Lord, , and Mr Simon Fell on bringing
it forward.
The Bill gives us the opportunity to talk about the critical step
of release. I have spoken about Berwyn prison near my home in
Wrexham many times in this House in very negative terms—its
shortages of staff, the level of violence and the all-pervasive
problem of drugs—but it is largely successful on the issue of
release. The unannounced report of the prison inspectorate last
year found that an average of 140 prisoners were released each
month and that work to support resettlement was good. A workshop
area—a resettlement hub—had been set up in a large open space
with separate interview booths, bringing together all
resettlement staff. The inspectors found that this was an
excellent initiative,
“the best of its kind that we have seen recently”.
It was yielding promising early outcomes for prisoners nearing
release, including job offers and improved outcomes for
accommodation on release. In the hub, there are a range of
resettlement services: a job centre, work coaches and housing
support. Prisoners are supported in obtaining ID and in opening
bank accounts. Job fairs are a regular feature, attended by local
employers. The number of prisoners who gain employment on release
has risen from 6% to 20%, and employers including Greene King,
the Murphy construction group and Iceland are involved. An
employment adviser helps connect prisoners to job opportunities,
and a firm called Novus Cambria helps the men with their CVs, so
opportunities to secure a job are there before offenders even set
foot back into the community.
On accommodation, the prison is also successful. Currently, on
the day of release, 85% of men are getting into prepared
accommodation—the 15% who do not are referred to the local
authority. The prison joined a construction industry training
board pilot scheme, where offenders are trained in prison in
trades such as bricklaying, plastering, joinery and welding.
Components are manufactured in the workshops for affordable,
environmentally friendly houses being built for more than 130
families in Ruthin and Llangefni on behalf of Williams Homes, and
jobs are available with that firm on release. Next month,
DesignLSM, in collaboration with the actor Fred Sirieix, will
transform the food hall in the prison into a high-street business
run by prisoners to provide them with the opportunity to gain
qualifications and experience in hospitality.
Berwyn prison is the second-largest prison in Europe and the
largest in the UK. It started off with good intentions of
promoting rehabilitation. Cells were called “rooms” and wings
“communities”, and internet was provided. There have been some
appalling teething troubles, but the prison, its governor, Nick
Leader, and his staff must be given full credit for the
initiatives they have taken. I am sure that the Bill will be
welcomed in that community.
12.08pm
(GP)
My Lords, I was quite annoyed when I saw this Bill appear in
Forthcoming Business. I thought, “What? This hasn’t been fixed
yet?” We have talked about this issue for years. I was then even
more annoyed when I saw that the Government are supporting it.
Why could they not do so sooner? I simply do not understand why
we should accept throwing former prisoners out on to the street
without any sort of support network. We already put far too many
people in prison, and we do not concentrate enough on restorative
justice and on expecting people to find out how to improve their
lives and not get sent to prison—including, sometimes, for quite
minor and inconsequential crimes.
A report was released today about a farmer who has been sent to
prison for 12 months because he absolutely destroyed two sides of
a riverbank which was extremely precious from an environmental
point of view. Quite honestly, I would not have sent him to
prison; I would have put him into community service for as many
years as it took him to recover every single blade of grass and
leaf that he destroyed. I think that we could do more of
this.
This kind of incident happens quite differently in Scotland, as
Scotland does not release people on Friday, when they do not have
any support network left. Why, if Scotland does it, have we not
done it sooner?
I welcome this Bill, although I am still angry that it has taken
this long—but I am glad that it is happening at last.
12.10pm
of Hardington Mandeville
(LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, , for his enthusiastic
introduction to this Bill, and it is a great pleasure to follow
the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I agree with all
her comments. I feel certain that all the speakers today will be
singing from the same hymn sheet. I am grateful to the House of
Lords Library for its briefing.
During a prison sentence, especially if it is a long one,
offenders lose touch with reality and often lose touch with their
families and friends. Depending on their offence, their families
may have decided to sever all contact, or they may have lived
alone in rented accommodation. During their sentence, this
accommodation will have been let to others. Many offenders,
therefore, have no home to return to and no alternative
accommodation on their release. With no accommodation, their
ability to apply for work is limited, and they have nowhere to
sleep. If they have nowhere to go, especially over a weekend, the
risk of their reoffending is considerable.
Statistics show that adult offenders without stable accommodation
on release are 50% more likely to reoffend, and the noble Lord,
, has referred to this. They need
support and help, which is rarely available on a Friday
afternoon. Those who are lucky enough to have retained contact
with, and the support of, their families, may be many miles away
from their home. That has an impact on their children. Some 15%
of offenders are held more than 100 miles from their homes, and
41% are more than 50 miles away. When that offender is a young
person, this can be very challenging for them to cope with. When
offenders are released on a Friday, away from their natural base,
they are effectively being set up to fail. I fully support
proposed new subsections (3C) and (3D) of the Bill. Offenders
should be released with at least one working day ahead of the day
of their release, so that as much support as possible is
available to them.
I turn to the issue of young offenders. I am pleased that there
is specific mention in the Bill of young offender institutions
and secure children’s homes. Statistics show that children looked
after and those who are care leavers are overrepresented in
prison populations. They may have had a bad start in life and
have made mistakes and be paying the price for it, but this can
be remedied if help and support are available at the most crucial
and vulnerable point in their lives—the day when they are
released back to society. It is, therefore, vital for help to be
available and not clocked off because it is a Friday afternoon or
the day before a bank holiday, when local authority housing
departments are likely to be closed.
Of those offenders released, some will choose to reoffend as a
life choice; others will have found the prison experience
extremely sobering and be determined to alter their lifestyle and
make a fresh start. Providing immediate help and support on the
day of release is critical to ensuring success in preventing
reoffending. If they have nowhere to stay and no support, it is
not surprising that two-thirds of people released without access
to accommodation reoffend within a year. The system has let those
people down. There will be offenders who may have undiagnosed
special needs, and their educational skills can be low. They may
not have received the necessary help so far in their lives; those
people need extra help and support to enable them to stay clear
of the reoffending cycle.
This Bill is short, but it could have a dramatic effect on the
lives of our most vulnerable citizens. Adults and young people,
especially the 16 to 19 year-olds, along with children in secure
accommodation, who should be released into the care of their
relevant local authority, are unlikely to find a placement on a
Friday. A day’s grace is all that is needed to ensure success,
along with the early notification for local authorities to enable
them fully to play their part in rehabilitation. Given that the
Bill has the support of the Government, I look forward to the
Minister’s response.
12.14pm
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to rise in the gap to
sing from the same hymn sheet and welcome this Bill. I
congratulate the noble Lord, , on his inspirational work and
commitment to these matters. We need an urgent change in practice
for those who leave prison. I know that my friend the right
reverend Prelate the , who is not able to be
here today but leads for the Church of England on prisons, also
welcomes this Bill.
Others have already referred to the impact of releasing people
from prison on a Friday, particularly in relation to access to
services, including housing and healthcare. This affects men and
women leaving prison, but for women it can be acutely dangerous,
due to particular risks they face. A report published in 2020,
Safe Homes for Women Leaving Prison, found that late releases,
and releases on a Friday, are known to jeopardise a woman’s
chances of securing accommodation. Due to the configuration of
the prison estate, women are often imprisoned far from home,
leading to isolation and presenting further challenges to
securing housing. Risks from perpetrators of domestic abuse are
very real for prison leavers, particularly women. A recent
Independent Monitoring Board report on HMP Bronzefield found that
65% of women face homelessness on release. I join others in
hoping that changing the practice of releasing prison leavers on
a Friday will go a long way to helping address this.
Finally, I shall touch on how this fits into the wider picture of
resettlement and reintegration into society. We know that links
to community and home help prevent reoffending, and we have many
examples of good practice within the faith-based sector. The
Welcome Directory is an organisation that signposts prison
leavers to churches and worshipping communities of other faiths,
aiming to “unlock the second prison” of the community. Prison
chaplains do valuable work through the gate with external
organisations to transition those in prison back into the
community. Under the new probation model, the Church of England
has been working at a national and regional level with the
probation service to link up with faith communities, which do so
much good in their localities.
In conclusion, I welcome this Bill and consider that it will make
a significant change to the chances of prison leavers resettling
well into communities and reducing the chances of recidivism.
12.17pm
(Lab)
My Lords, if I may, I shall also speak in the gap. In doing so, I
ask the Minister to recall his young days at the Bar—and I shall
do the same. One of the depressing features of my young days at
the Bar—and I am sure that it was the same for the Minister—was
the repeated offender. Time and again, you had convicted for
further crimes those who had already been convicted and had spent
time in prison. I do not know how far this measure will help, but
it is one well worth taking, and I give full support to the
Bill.
12.19pm
(LD)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the right reverend Prelate the
for his intervention,
reminding us of the important work that the faith sector does in
this area, and to the noble Lord, , for pointing out that at the
heart of this system is a horrible cycle of reoffending that is
costly in financial terms and in personal terms for those who
have to suffer from the reoffenders’ work. So I congratulate
and the noble Lord, , for bringing the Bill thus far
with such impressive cross-party support—I always think that
“Bird on bird” is worth listening to. I also congratulate, as did
the noble Lord, , the National Association for
the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, NACRO, on the success of
its campaign highlighting the problems of Friday release. One of
my mentors in the criminal justice system was my colleague and
noble friend , who cannot be here today but
was for a long time the president of NACRO.
As a non-lawyer, I am a little surprised that we need an Act of
Parliament to micromanage the handling of prisoners: perhaps the
distinguished Minister can say. We are talking about amending an
Act that is 60 years old. Perhaps it is a sign of how important
we consider the restriction of freedom in our criminal justice
system, but it does seem odd that we need the full panoply of an
Act of Parliament in order to manage prisoners’ release. I share
the plea of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for all of us to work
for alternatives to prison: it is an extremely expensive and in
many ways not effective and not cost-effective way of protecting
society. I also share my noble friend Lady Bakewell’s worry about
a system that is set up to fail.
I was seven years at the Ministry of Justice, both as Minister
and as chair of the Youth Justice Board. I will detain the House
only a short time with just two things that struck me during that
time. First, just over 10 years ago I went to Birmingham to see
the new public library being built. There was a scheme of
ex-offenders being employed on its construction and I met a young
man in his 30s who talked about his experience. He used the words
that my noble friend Lord Thomas used. He said “Lord McNally, you
can’t imagine the shock when the prison doors shut behind you and
you’re leaving prison. You don’t know where you’re going, you
don’t know how you’re gonna make a living and you’ve got 40-odd
quid in your pocket. It’s a very lonely place”. I think that
that, sadly, is still going on.
The second thing is something else that has come through this
debate, which is that there is another way. I was chair of the
Youth Justice Board for three years and we see in the record of
the Youth Justice Board, which is now coming up to its 25th
anniversary, the attention of cross-disciplinary expertise in
both diversion and resettlement which does bring results. We see
in the report of Professor Rosie Meek of Royal Holloway College,
University of London, the impact of sport on rehabilitation. I
have some personal knowledge, because she is local, of a young
lady called Jules Rowan, who gained qualifications in prison and
then used them outside to help others meet the challenges of
release. She now works with a fellow ex-inmate, Zak Addae-Kodua,
on a programme of advice on national prison radio.
So, what I am basically saying is that there are other ways for
society to go. Release on any day of the week should be part of a
resettlement plan that offers the best hope of success. The
mantra repeated to me time and again when I was at the MoJ was
that, on release, prisoners need a place to live, a job and, if
possible, a meaningful relationship, and if you could get those
three things, you had the best ingredients for a successful
non-offending future.
We are fortunate today that we have speakers on the Opposition
and Government Front Benches with first-hand experience of where
our prison system works and where it fails. In the noble Lord,
Lord Ponsonby, we have someone with vast experience of the system
from his long service has a magistrate. In the Minister, we have
someone who has served in the criminal justice system at the
highest levels of the judiciary and the Bar. So I pass this Bill,
with confidence, into their hands. I also join with the noble
Lord, , in his calls for a cross-party
initiative to cut crime by having in place—both before and after
release—breaks in the circle of offending that costs so much in
human, social and financial terms. I support this Bill.
12.26pm
(Lab)
My Lords, we on this side of the House support this Bill and
congratulate the noble Lord, , on piloting it through this
House. Noble Lords will be aware that the proposal to avoid
Friday releases has been around for a number of years, and a
number of political parties and advocacy groups have tried to
introduce it in previous criminal justice Bills. However, for
various reasons, it was resisted by the Government. Nevertheless,
I welcome the Government’s support for this Bill.
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 serious about cutting
reoffending, they could look at reducing the use of shorter
sentences for non-violent offences. One answer to that lies in
effective community sentencing for those who commit non-violent
offences. That would help ease overcrowding and allow prisons to
get their education programmes back up and running.
My hope is that this Bill will have a positive effect on
reoffending rates, along with reducing the number 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
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”.
I have always found it ironic—but understandable—that when sex
offenders are released from custody, they have a guaranteed
address because the police need to know what that address is,
whereas other prisoners do not get that guarantee.
To state the obvious, when a prisoner leaves custody there is a
huge contrast in their life—the point made by the noble Lord,
, about his interaction with
the prison leaver in Birmingham. Until their day of release,
prisoners have all their housing, meals and medication needs
under one roof. Then, on a Friday, they are out—maybe with only
the number of a probation officer in their pocket, a little bit
of money and the address of a pharmacist. It is then a race
against time to find a roof over their head, to apply for
benefits, to buy food and to visit their GP or pharmacist if they
are part of a drug treatment programme. If all these elements are
not in place, there is a much higher chance of relapse and
reoffending and a return to custody. 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 this Bill can go some way to rectifying
that, but we are realistic in understanding that it is only part
of the picture.
I took the trouble to revisit the arguments used by the
Government against this proposal in the PCSC Bill. First, the
noble and learned Lord, of Dirleton, spoke of the
Scottish experience, where there has been direct early release
for some time, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to. At
that time, only 20 prisoners had been released under this scheme,
so the argument was that there was insufficient data to draw any
conclusions from the Scottish experience. Is the Minister able to
update us on the Scottish experience of early release?
Secondly, in a separate debate, the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson—the
then Minister—argued against the proposal and said that it was
deficient in three ways. His first point was that efforts to
avoid Friday bunching should be focused on where the chances of
rehabilitation of the offender were greatest. The second was that
a five-day release period was too long. I understand that in this
Bill it is two days; nevertheless, the point is made. His third
point was about the impact on short custodial sentences if there
was a two-day early release. How has the Minister’s department’s
system evolved from these previous oppositions to the Bill? Of
course, I welcome it, but I would be interested to hear the
department’s thinking.
Turning to some of the speeches we have heard this afternoon,
first, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, got back from
his cruise relatively unscathed—I say “relatively”, given that he
is coughing right at this moment. I also thought that the
examples he gave of Berwyn prison were very good ones, and they
should inspire other prisons to work in a similar way. Of course,
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the importance
of alternatives to prison.
I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and the right
reverend Prelate the for talking about
particular cases. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, talked about
young prisoners, many of whom have been in care. It must be said
that many young prisoners have committed much more serious
offences than their adult counterparts—nevertheless, there is an
extremely high reoffending rate for young prisoners. The right
reverend Prelate the made a good point when
talking about the particular problems of women when they leave
prison, not least because they are far further away from their
home—or very likely to be—because of the nature of the prison
estate.
The noble Lord, , who has a lot of experience
in this area, as the House will be aware, spoke about the key
ingredients for release. Of course, they are the same key
ingredients: accommodation, stable relationships and something to
do with your time—namely, education, a job or something like
that. That is a truism in trying to promote rehabilitation and
reduce reoffending. I support the Bill, because I think it goes
one step along the road to achieving that. However, there is a
lot more to do to try to rectify the current situation.
12.33pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice
() (Con)
My Lords, first, I warmly thank the noble Lord, , for a characteristically
compelling and very moving speech on this issue. I also thank him
for the work he is doing—in particular, in encouraging his
contacts in Brixton to work with prisoners to obtain jobs on
their release, particularly from Brixton prison. This is a very
positive development, and it has been a great pleasure to work
with him on this issue. I am grateful for the very broad support
the Bill has received, both in the other place and in this House,
and to all those who have worked on it, particularly . I am also grateful for the
input of Nacro and other interested parties. It is a great
pleasure, for once, to be able to say that we are all more or
less on the same page, working in the same direction.
As far as the Government are concerned, the direction of travel
is indeed towards rejuvenation, to use the word of the noble
Lord, , and rehabilitation generally. I
was particularly pleased about and grateful to the noble Lord,
Lord Thomas, for recounting the positive developments at Berwyn
prison in particular, which seems to be setting a good example of
the work that can be done and what can be achieved with targeted
resettlement and rehabilitation efforts, particularly
concentrating on employment—local possibilities with local
employers—and accommodation and related matters. I take the
opportunity to say that that was very much driven by my right
honourable friend the late Secretary of State for Justice, who
resigned today but who has very much led the direction of travel
for rehabilitation and resettlement of prisoners.
The importance of the Bill is shown by the widespread and
consistent support it has received. It is a simple measure, as
has been said, but it is likely to have a strong and positive
impact on the rehabilitation of offenders leaving custody and it
is clear that it commands widespread public support. I am sure
that it will particularly help the repeat offenders referred to
by the noble Lord, , and I hope that it will
reduce that “very lonely place” to which the noble Lord, , rightly referred. It will be
particularly important, as has been mentioned, for youth
offenders, who were underlined by the noble Baroness, Lady
Bakewell. Because we now have relatively fewer youth offenders in
custody, youth offending establishments can be quite far away
from home, so youth offenders who are released face enormous
difficulties if they do not have a support system. This will
enable much better support for that particular category of
prisoners, including those who have been in the recently created
secure 16 to 19 year-old schools, and will mean that they will
experience no delay in contacting their youth justice worker and
can be properly protected. I compliment and thank the Youth
Justice Board for all its work in this general area.
I fully accept the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, that
there is a great deal more to be done, but I venture to suggest
that we are beginning to make progress in these areas with the
various initiatives that have rightly been mentioned. In that
connection, the noble Lord asked what has changed since the
Government’s previous position. As I understand it, there was a
consultation on the Prisons Strategy White Paper which produced a
lot of responses. It enabled further discussion to be had,
particularly with policy officials, prison staff and third
parties in the community as to how we should manage all this. The
Secretary of State will now delegate the decision to prison
governors and the equivalent but will give some guidance as to
how it is going to work, so that you give priority to certain
people and make sure that, as it were, it is staged down through
Wednesday and Thursday as well as Friday. There will still be
some residual prisoners who are released on Friday; there is no
particular reason why those who have homes to go to, such as the
white collar offender, should have particular priority, but that
enables you to give priority to the people who need it most.
The noble Lord, , asked why we need an Act of
Parliament. We need one because—I think I am right about this; I
will write to the noble Lord if I am wrong—if Parliament says you
should serve a sentence of so much, you have to serve that
sentence. Only Parliament can authorise people to be released
just short—in this case, a couple of days short—of serving that
sentence. Although it is only a couple of days, one needs
legislative authority to do it. I think that is the answer, but I
will check in case I have it wrong.
I hope I have covered the various points that were made. This is
perhaps not the occasion to discuss sentencing policy. I entirely
accept the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, and
the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, that these matters, including
whether we should use prison in a slightly different way and
whether we should avoid shorter sentences, need to be reviewed
continually. These are important issues but I venture to suggest
that they are not for today.
I thank the right reverend Prelate the for his contribution, in
particular in relation to the female estate. I know that the
right reverend Prelate the is particularly
concerned about that. As has been pointed out, we have the same
problem with the female estate because it has relatively few
offenders so there are not that many female establishments,
meaning that offenders are often far from home; they can also be
very vulnerable when they are released. This problem needs
particular planning; I hope this Bill will give us an opportunity
to ameliorate it.
Following what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, was kind enough to
tell us, I can say that the Government have taken significant
steps in improving prison leavers’ accommodation; in building
stronger links with employers through dedicated prison employment
leads, so that there are now people in the prisons who are
responsible for finding employment and prison employment advisory
boards through which, as the noble Lord illustrated, local
business leaders can come into local prisons; in offering more
work within prison; in delivering and improving a prisoner
education service; in increasing access to drugs rehabilitation;
and in other actions.
The reoffending rate is slowly coming down, from 31% in 2009-10
to 25.6% in 2019-20, and the Government are further investing in
driving it down. These are important interventions. The Bill will
be an important support for all the things that are going on and
will ensure that the offenders most in need of help will be given
a full opportunity to access support before a service is in
effect closed for the weekend. We will develop policy guidelines
to help heads of establishment or the appropriate officials in
youth establishments to target exactly the offenders most in need
and support them to make decisions that allow offenders who need
it time to resettle and reintegrate into their community.
This is a simple and proportionate Bill. I think I have covered
most of the points that were raised. I can only reiterate my
thanks to the noble Lord, , and everyone who has helped to
support the Bill. I commend it to the House.
12.43pm
(CB)
I thank noble Lords for that wonderful discussion, which added to
things to underline the importance of this issue. I am glad that
we broadened the argument out. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones,
asked why we have not done it before. It is a wonderful thing to
be reminded of that. I agree with the noble Lord, , that you need a job,
somewhere to go, a relationship and a place to live and that, if
those things are not there, woe betide you when you enter the
real world that lives out there.
When I left my custodial sentences behind me, the most
interesting thing was the fear. I did not quite know what I was
doing, even though I had a family and friends. It was a sense of
loss of order and structure. We should never forget that a lot of
people who commit crime come from shambolic backgrounds, with
enormous stress and emotional and psychological damage. I was a
very damaged boy. When you go into a custodial sentence, there
are many minuses—you lose your freedom and your
decision-making—but sometimes there is the building of
comradeship. If you have good screws—sorry, prison officers—who
are interested in what you are doing, you almost have a
replacement for your family.
I am all for restorative justice. I would have put that farmer on
a little boat and made him do it 24 hours a day. It is great to
talk about restorative things, but you are dealing with damaged
children, and they are our damaged children; 90% of them will be
the inheritors of poverty, not people who come from the top
drawer. Occasionally you would meet an old Etonian when you were
banged up, but it was largely “sex and drugs and rock & roll”
that got them there, and we were all very jealous of them. Let us
make the prisons work by a process of triangulation. There is the
justice system, the education system and the health system. They
should all be brought together to make the most of that
experience for those troubled children. When a man points a knife
at you or throws a brick at you, it is not because he was born
with a knife or a brick in his hand. It is because of what has
happened to him because of the adult world that we live in. One
of the greatest things we can do is to say, “Okay, your life has
been bad, but let’s try to make changes”.
When I was in the custodial system as a boy and a young man,
quite a lot of people there were looking out for us. They were
not great psychologists, but they were looking out for us. I
would like to see ordinary people encouraged to come into the
custodial system to help and support. I would like to see not
just psychiatrists but nurses and teachers in there. I would like
to see the people saying, “You are special enough to be locked
up, but you are also special enough to assist, so that when you
leave, you are special enough to rejoin the rest of the
world”.
Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole
House.
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