Westminster Hall

Thursday 17 November 2005

[Mr. Edward O'Hara in the Chair]

Rehabilitation of Prisoners

[Relevant documents: First Report from the Home Affairs Committee Session 2004–05 HC193-I, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 6486.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Coaker.]

2.30 pm

Mr. John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab): I am pleased to initiate this debate on the Select Committee's report on the rehabilitation of prisoners. I should say at the outset that the Committee's interest in the topic was stimulated by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), who was a formidable prisons Minister in her time. She encouraged the Select Committee to take an interest in the topic but, for personal reasons, she had to leave the Committee shortly after the inquiry started. I hope that she feels that we have looked into the issues that she raised.

The report is lengthy and covers a large number of issues, so it might be helpful if I set out the main theme that I want to refer to in my opening comments. It is pleasing to see so many hon. Members here on a Thursday afternoon when there is a one-line Whip. It shows that the subject is of interest—[Interruption.] Some of my hon. Friends did not realise that there was a one-line Whip. I hope that they do not leave too soon.

The central issue in the report is that we know from many sources, including the social exclusion unit, that a released prisoner's ability to get a job, to have a home to go to and to maintain family ties is critical to the likelihood that they will not reoffend. Everyone accepts that the rate of reoffending by released prisoners is far too high. In simple terms, that means that far too much crime is committed in our communities by people who have already served a custodial sentence. We need to improve our ability to reduce reoffending.

Our report acknowledges the importance of the strands that I mentioned of work, housing and family ties—it also looks at other issues such as drug treatment—and we make recommendations on all three. I would like to acknowledge at the beginning—I will not deal with them in detail—the submissions that we have received for today's debate from Citizens Advice, Action for Prisoners' Families and the Local Government Association; they reinforce the importance of those issues.

There is important work to be done in all those areas, but the central theme of our report is how well or how badly the prison system prepares prisoners to get a job on their release. I shall concentrate most of my comments on that theme. Housing and family ties are extremely important and changes must be made; drug treatment needs to be improved; but it was on how well our prisons do in preparing people to work that we felt that the gap was largest between what is happening in our prisons today and what needs to be happening in the prison system in future.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 304WH

I know that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) shares my personal commitment to these issues. We both spoke recently at the launch of an Exodus project by South East England Development Agency which was aimed at prisoner rehabilitation. We both have an interest in the matter, but the gap between what the Committee found when going round prisons and taking evidence and the picture described in the Government's response to our report is uncomfortably wide. If this debate has one effect today, I hope that it will be to encourage her to look again at what is happening in our prisons and the way in which they are or are not preparing people for work. The Government's response does not reflect the very difficult reality that we found.

I want to make a few other background comments. Overcrowding was an issue that came up a lot during our inquiry and we describe some of the difficulties that arise from prison overcrowding. We acknowledge that the Government have put a new sentencing framework in place and we hope that if public confidence can be built up in that framework it will reduce the number of people who go to prison unnecessarily. We highlight our belief that a lot more should be done to reduce the number of people who go to prison on remand and do not ultimately serve a custodial sentence. We also highlight the large number of women going to prison for minor crimes. All those issues have an effect on prison overcrowding.

As far as we could see, on any reasonable projections prison overcrowding is with us for the foreseeable future. It is difficult to foresee in the next 10 years either the number of people sentenced falling rapidly or the number of prison places increasing quickly so that we will not be living with overcrowded prisons. A culture seems to have grown up in the Prison Service that we shall be able to deal with issues such as work when the prisons are less overcrowded. The Select Committee says that that view must be challenged. We must find ways in which to improve the ability of the prison system to help prisoners find work, even though for the foreseeable future prisons will be overcrowded.

Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con): I thought that the right hon. Gentleman would be interested in some figures. In March, when the Government wrote their response to the Select Committee, there were 75,187 prisoners. This month, the figure has increased to 77,683—a net increase of 2,496 prisoners. All the problems that existed when he investigated the system and when the Government replied in March have now increased by that amazing leap.

Mr. Denham : Fluctuations will happen from month to month. We said in the report that the Government's longer-term projection shows the prison population stabilising at about 80,000, which will be the maximum capacity of the prison system. That depends on some fairly optimistic assumptions about sentencing patterns. Even that would represent a prison system that was functionally overcrowded. The message from our report is that, unfortunately, we must assume that that will be part of the backdrop for the next five or 10 years. We must then consider what we need to do to make the system work better.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 305WH

We acknowledge the importance of drug treatment. I hope that hon. Members will speak on that issue during the debate. We must be careful not to create a situation in which the quality of drug treatment on offer to offenders in the prison system is of lower quality than the drug treatment that is offered to those who are entering the criminal justice system for the first time. There has been a substantial investment in drug treatment in some high-crime areas. I welcome that, but it is odd to have an apparent improvement in the quality of drug treatment available to newer offenders when we are failing to deal effectively with drug treatment for those who are already in the prison system.

At least three offenders out of five reoffend within two years. The number is often more for young offenders, which has a high cost for the individuals and society. Let us consider three strands that concern work. First, what do prisoners do when they are in prison? Secondly, what links can prisoners maintain with work outside, while they are in prison? Thirdly, how can they secure jobs on their release from prison? The Select Committee asked many prisoners to complete a prison diary. We carried out that innovative research because we considered that the average information on purposeful activity that was available from the Home Office did not reflect the many individual stories that we heard from prisoners about the activities that were available to them, the amount of time that they spent locked in their cells, and so on.

The Government can reasonably say that our exercise was not entirely valid statistically, but it highlighted the fact that substantial numbers of prisoners do not have access to purposeful activity and spend much of their time not gainfully employed. A lot of activity that is described as purposeful may be necessary within a prison such as cleaning the floors, but it does not equip them to obtain a job when they are released. The averages in respect of such activity tend to blur the way in which the system is failing a substantial number of prisoners. As the Government acknowledge, that may be worse for short-term prisoners and remand prisoners, who none the less are equally likely to reoffend and whom we should not write off within the prison system. If there were weaknesses in the Select Committee's prison diaries approach, I hope that the Home Office can rectify them by making sure that it is monitoring individual prison lives and not looking only at the overall averages.

We found that little in the prison regime equipped prisoners directly with the discipline or skills that were likely to improve their employability on release. That is a somewhat harsh statement because significant improvements have been made, for example in adult basic education in prisons. We acknowledge that in the report, and it is important. There is a big gap between providing that and giving individuals the confidence and the skills to get a job on release. We found that the nature of the prison regime does little to prepare people for the world of work.

The report is called "Rehabilitation of Prisoners", but many prisoners have never been habilitated in the first place—I hope that that is not an appalling use of the English language. They have never had steady skilled jobs, brought in regular money and all the rest of it. It

17 Nov 2005 : Column 306WH

may be that their time in prison is one of the first opportunities to bring some discipline and work-related learning into their lives.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): My right hon. Friend is talking about the rehabilitation of offenders and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. In 2002, the Home Office produced a report entitled "Breaking the Circle: A report of the review of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act", which made proposals to improve the chances of those who had offended. The report's recommendations have yet to be implemented or turned to by the Government. Is that not the case?

Mr. Denham : As we say throughout our report, a number of good policy and strategy papers have been produced by the Government: by the policy unit at No. 10; by the Home Office; and by the Prison Service. If they were put together as a policy framework on paper, they would add up to a pretty good picture of what ought to be done. The difficulty is that many of them have not been fully or energetically implemented.

I remember going to one young offenders institution. There was a clear awareness among the young people we talked to about what type of skills would enable them to make an honest living when they went out. They could see the difference between those courses that enabled the boxes to be ticked and the national vocational qualifiations gained, and the sorts of skills that would enable them to get work, given that they had a criminal record. There is too little tailoring of the courses and training available to what would genuinely make prisoners employable.

More fundamentally, very few prisons offer the discipline of what the report calls a nine-to-five working day. We were impressed by what we saw at Coldingley in Surrey and by what we saw in prisons in Sweden and in Germany, which had what in the jargon is usually called "an industrial style of prison work". Such examples are very much the exception in our prison system and although there is a prisons industry strategy, which is supposedly being implemented, we found no real sense of energy, urgency or drive to put that type of widespread change in the prison regime into place.

We suggested that there could be new innovations; an agency could be set up to develop public-private partnerships for prison industries. That was given a half-hearted welcome in the Government's response; I hope that the Minister will be able to say more about the likelihood of its happening. The first core message is that unless we have a way of changing the fundamental regime in most of our prisons so that they offer a real work-like experience, it will be difficult to equip people with the disciplines and skills to find work outside.

I say in passing that we recommended that the economic potential of higher employment among people who are released from prison should be investigated. That was rejected by the Government, which is a shame. We said at the time of writing our report that it was slightly odd to be producing large numbers of unemployable people out of our prisons to be unemployed at the same time as attracting significant numbers of economic migrants from eastern European accession states or from around the world. We might

17 Nov 2005 : Column 307WH

win more resources for prisons if the full economic potential of making greater use of our prison population was fully taken into account.

There have been missed opportunities. I am told by people in business that 18 months ago one could make a good business case to an employer for employing ex-offenders because there was a labour shortage. Not enough was done at that time, and today people tend to say, "Well, there's a pretty large pool of people from the eastern European accession states, with skills, who can come here quite cheaply." The business case is now moving against the Government. However, even at this late stage, it would make sense for the Government to make a full economic assessment of the advantages to the British economy of ensuring higher employment rates among ex-offenders.

Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): The right hon. Gentleman made an important point when he outlined one of the economic benefits of training prisoners. Is there not another economic benefit, in that, according to all the evidence, prisoners are much less likely to reoffend if they find employment after leaving prison? That reduces all the costs associated with their offending.

Mr. Denham : The hon. Gentleman, who is a very constructive member of the Committee, is absolutely right; there is something about the economics of the entire system that strikes one as decidedly odd. It costs an enormous amount of money to run the prison system—the cost is well over £30,000 per individual in the system per year—yet we do not do half enough to ensure that offenders are not likely to be equally expensive when they come out because they reoffend. So, my first point is that the prison regime needs to change, not bit by bit, but starting with a fundamental rethink by the Government and a real drive to change the nature of the prison regime.

My second point is about the links between work and prisons while prisoners are serving their sentence. When we went to Germany, we saw the Tegel prison in Berlin. Committee members of all parties were impressed by the extensive system of day release for work in Berlin. It was at a level of security clearance that would not be allowed in this country. In other words, day release for work is not restricted to the category D prisoners whom we are used to going to work from our open prisons.

This is a difficult issue for Governments and Oppositions, because if a prisoner offended while out of prison, it would guarantee tabloid headlines, widespread criticism and all the rest of it. None the less, in Germany we were told that Tegel prison managed to operate the system with remarkably low offending rates by prisoners, even though those prisoners had a higher level of security risk than those whom we allow to go out of prisons. That is something that the Government should seriously explore.

One gets the impression—the Minister may be able to help us on this—that the Government have given a pretty blanket no to other than category D prisoners going to work outside prison, unless it is a prisoner on one of the new short sentences. I hope that that is not the case, because innovative thinking is necessary. Not everybody can be accommodated within ideas such as

17 Nov 2005 : Column 308WH

weekend prisons, which are now being piloted. Prisoners who are able to sustain a job while serving their prison sentence are much less likely to offend.

My final point is about securing employment at the end of the prison sentence. The evidence seems to be pretty clear that if prisoners know that they have a job to go to and can work towards it, they are more likely not only to go into that job but to be in that job in a year or two's time. The innovative work by National Grid Transco has demonstrated that beyond reasonable doubt. That model needs to be extended more generally.

Mr. Ian Taylor (Esher and Walton) (Con): I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for not being able to stay for the rest of the debate for constituency reasons. Will he comment further on the National Grid young offender programme? If reoffending is reduced to about 7 per cent.—a massive reduction on the average for young offenders—surely the scheme could be self-funding, if it were rolled out across more than the 15 prisons that are now part of the National Grid scheme. Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the Prison Service has taken that to heart? Although it responded to his report, the right hon. Gentleman's comments in that report were quite worrying to those of us who hoped that the scheme would be fully embraced by the Prison Service.

Mr. Denham : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I am sorry to say that I am not satisfied with where we are with National Grid Transco, despite its proven track record, despite its ability to produce some remarkably low reoffending rates—among young offenders, who have a higher recidivism rate than adult offenders—and despite being financed entirely by the private sector, to the tune of about £10,000 per prisoner. The Committee was not convinced at the time, and I have not been since, that the Prison Service has taken on what is necessary to make the model spread.

There is not, to be fair, an absence of warm words about National Grid Transco from Ministers—from the Home Secretary and everybody else—but at the moment everything is being done other than the provision of funding or listening to National Grid Transco to find out how the model could be replicated. The private sector initiative is an odyssey, developed among the business community of our country. The problems seem not just to be an absence of Government funding for the programme but a desire in the Prison Service to invent a different way of doing a similar thing, involving the learning and skills councils, Jobcentre Plus and the whole panoply of state institutions. They may work perfectly well outside prisons, with different objectives, but are less likely to be able to engage with the private sector and make sure that the Transco model works.

The model probably only works for major corporate employers, and is not so easy for small and medium-sized enterprises to adopt. A quick and fundamental reassessment of the relationship between the Prison Service and the Transco approach to employment is needed if the benefits of the scheme are not to be lost. We found no hostility in our evidence sessions. Everybody

17 Nov 2005 : Column 309WH

we spoke to from the Prison Service was positive about the initiative, but nothing seems to be happening. We need some central drive to make sure the model is spread.

I made a point earlier about the business environment becoming more unfavourable, largely because of EU expansion and the ability to attract people into jobs that could not be filled a couple of years ago. For an employer to employ an ex-offender is less obviously sound business than it was a couple of years ago. It is important that we move quickly to embed the Transco model in the rehabilitation programme in this country before the opportunity slips away.

I will not give more details about the Transco scheme. It is familiar to some Members and it is described in the report, and I suspect that others wish to speak about it this afternoon. It is perhaps symptomatic of a slightly "not-invented-here" response, which came up on a number of occasions during our inquiry when we were putting radical and innovative proposals and ideas to officials. I hope that the Minister will lend her considerable authority to an urgent review of what is happening.

In my remarks to my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), I referred to the various reports that have been produced over the years—the social exclusion unit report on reducing reoffending or, now, a national action plan on reducing reoffending. Those are not being driven through the system with great energy. Many have the right aspirations but no time scale, ill-defined resources and unclear delivery mechanisms. We will have to move faster if we are going to reduce reoffending rates.

When we were doing our report, we were in the early stages of the establishment of the National Offender Management Service, which is still working its way through the pipeline. As a Committee, we took the view that the principle behind NOMS was right—a system that starts from the assessment of the needs of the individual prisoner or offender and goes right through to rehabilitation. I would make the point that NOMS cannot easily be effective unless we are able to change the regime within the prisons and the arrangements that are available to get prisoners into work. NOMS will only be able to work with what it is given; at the moment those tools look inadequate.

David Taylor : My right hon. Friend has reached the important section of the report that deals with end-to-end sentence management. Does he not agree that until about 10 years ago probation officers expected to be closely involved in routine contact and sentence management? They would also write to, ring and visit prisoners, and that greatly helped the rehabilitation process. However, budgetary restrictions and overheads associated with the setting up of NOMS seem to be preventing them from doing that currently. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is not a new idea, but it needs to be reintroduced with proper resourcing?

17 Nov 2005 : Column 310WH

Mr. Denham : Of course, there has been a dramatic expansion in the number of probation officers over the past few years, but of course that goes with a greatly increased prison population compared with 10 years ago.

My point is that unless the people working in NOMS can get support—for example, from an expansion of the National Grid Transco scheme—so that they can direct prisoners towards jobs and be sure that they are doing them, it will be difficult for them to do what is being asked of them in respect of getting people back into work. The Committee supports the broad change of direction in the development of NOMS, but we must ensure that it has the tools to work with.

We must—this is by the bye—also remove from the system some of the sillinesses that gets in the way of delivering a coherent approach. I do not know whether it is still the case, but we were told that prisons scored half a mark on the rehabilitation target—whatever that was—for managing to get a prisoner an interview with a jobcentre. We can best do without that sort of box-ticking target that reveals nothing at all about how likely it is that the prisoner will end up getting a job; I suspect that my hon. Friend the Minister agrees with me on that. We must concentrate on measuring things that really make a difference to the life of the individual prisoner.

Work is central to the prison regime, and to achieving its objectives. I do not wish in any way to diminish issues to do with drug treatment, housing, family contact and so forth, but if we do not get the work strand right, it will be difficult to deliver on other things. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to look again at what is happening. Is the pace of change fast enough? Is there sufficient focus in the prison system on this critical issue?

Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey and Wood Green) (LD): A Basic Skills Agency report found that up to 80 per cent. of prisoners were functionally illiterate. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that is also a main contributor, and that it needs to be dealt with even in advance of the work strand?

Mr. Denham : That is an interesting point. Functional illiteracy among the prison population is a major issue; it is one of the indicators of likelihood of offending. We acknowledge that the Prison Service has made great strides in the past few years in terms of adult basic education and skills. About 10 per cent. of all adult basic education qualifications are achieved in prison; that is significant.

The difficulty is that, if we look at this matter from the point of view of the individual, making somebody functionally literate may be a necessary step towards enabling them to get a job, but it is a long way from getting them into a job. Gaps appear to open up in the process when we look at the career of an individual offender and ask, "What happens next?" The way the system is managed, the Prison Service can tick its box and say, "We've got this prisoner to the level of adult basic skills that is necessary," but the next bit might not happen. That process probably creates a slightly more literate reoffender, rather than somebody who will go on to get a job.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 311WH

The important thing is to join up the system. We should not move away from the focus on adult basic education as a starting block, but neither should we limit the system so that when people get to that educational level there is no further progression in respect of real work-related skills. Adult basic skills are an essential element of this system, but perhaps the system is not quite right at present because the focus has been almost exclusively on it, rather than on the things that need to follow on from it.

I have spoken for longer than I intended. I hope that I have set the scene in terms of some of the main themes in our report.

2.59 pm

Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): I am delighted that we have this opportunity to debate the report. It is an important report, and I support all its conclusions, and the gist of what its Chairman, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), has been saying.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the impetus that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) gave to the Committee in terms of this report. When she was Prisons Minister, she was renowned for the number of prisons she visited, and I am sure that the present Minister is also no slouch when it comes to visiting prisons. Given the number of prisons that the Committee visited in the course of producing this report, I like to think that we have done justice to the impetus that my right hon. Friend has given us. I pay tribute to the energy, commitment and hard work that the Chairman has put into the report and the work behind it, which I am sure hon. Members will have been impressed with today.

As an Opposition spokesman, I had occasion to visit prisons, and before that I frequently visited them in a professional capacity. Every time I went into a prison I was impressed when I saw prisoners engaged in what is termed "purposeful activity". Unfortunately, that was often not enough. By the same token, I never failed to be anything but depressed when I saw, as I did all too often, prisoners either hanging around on wings or locked up in their cells. One of the most frequent causes of complaint to me from prisoners was the inordinate length of time that they spent banged up in their cells. I believe that there have been improvements in that regard, but much more needs to be done.

It seems to me that time spent either hanging around on prison wings or simply locked up in cells is unlikely to have much rehabilitative effect. I, and I think most members of the public, would prefer to see prisoners who have to be in prison doing something constructive that will give them a better chance of staying out of trouble in the future. I am sure that all forms of rehabilitative activity have their place, including addressing offending behaviour, but the strongest and most useful form is working.

As I suggested to the right hon. Member, there is a good deal of evidence to show that prisoners who work in prison and go into work as soon as they leave prison are much less likely to get into more trouble. There are no panaceas for reoffending, because in many cases prisoners have led disordered lives, have come from

17 Nov 2005 : Column 312WH

unfortunate home circumstances or have personality problems or other cause of their offending. However, if they get into the habit of work while they are in prison, the chances of their staying out of trouble once they come out are much increased.

Susan Kramer (Richmond Park) (LD): The hon. Gentleman may not know that Latchmere resettlement prison, which is in my constituency, has a very low reoffending rate of about 25 per cent., even though the prisoners are mostly long-term servers and have therefore committed some of the most serious crimes. The last year or 18 months at Latchmere is used to get them not only into work but into work in the community where they will be living. That enables them to take on financial responsibility for their families ahead of rejoining them, and thus to reintegrate into the family circle.

There are only 207 places at Latchmere, the largest of the three resettlement prisons. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that, combined with his other proposals, the expansion of resettlement prisons of this kind could make a real difference to reoffending rates?

Mr. Clappison : I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that contribution. We could not visit all the prisons and we did not visit Latchmere, but it sounds as though it is doing important work. It certainly supports the Committee's view on this issue. I am sure that what the hon. Lady said is right. I believe that the Home Office has evidence from research done a few years ago into the value of employment on release which shows that it reduces the risk of reoffending by between a third and a half, which I think is better than any other form of rehabilitative activity.

Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op): Perhaps I may introduce chapter 12 of the report, which is about women in prisons. Stroud is next door to the constituency of the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb), who has Eastwood Park prison in his constituency, which has had some difficulties over the years. When I have been there, I have realised that a particular issue about women in prison is how often they are moved around the system. Sometimes that adds to the problem of never being able to go home; such women may have been living with a violent partner, so they may have to be thinking of starting another life.

I agree entirely with what the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) says about needing to prepare people for when they leave prison, through work and work-related activities. However, that is particularly difficult for women, who, as they are moved around the system, do not know exactly where they are likely to be released. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Government have to pay really close attention to that, because such women are the most vulnerable?

Mr. Clappison : The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point about women and work. Moving women around the system is undesirable also because it tends to break up the contact between the woman, her home and any children involved. I was going to mention later, but shall mention now, that the Committee has suggested that the Government should set a target for reducing the number of women prisoners. I do not know whether that is seen as radical or not.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 313WH

As the hon. Gentleman will know—he takes an interest in these matters—the number of women prisoners has gone up by more than the proportion of prisoners as a whole. That is somewhat surprising, given that women, as we all know, are much less likely to commit violent or sexual offences and are probably much less threatening offenders. The increase has never been properly explained, but if we all put our minds to it we could find a way of reducing the number of women in prisons or help them by putting them in prisons nearer their homes. We could also look into the question, which will come about through intermittent custody, of women spending only part of their time in custody and being able to keep in touch with their families more.

Mrs. Gillan : Given the work that he has done on the Select Committee, does my hon. Friend agree that when women are put in prison, there is a disproportionate effect on their families?

Mr. Clappison : Absolutely.

Mrs. Gillan : Often, the children have to be taken into care and that starts the cycle again. It is therefore imperative either to try to keep women in the community so that their families can remain intact, or at least to arrange things so that there is a continuation of family care, so that we do not put a new generation at risk or risk the family being totally broken by the time the woman comes out of custody.

Mr. Clappison : I am absolutely delighted that my hon. Friend, who serves on the Opposition Front Bench, is putting forward what are undoubtedly very important public policy reasons for trying to deal with women in a different way, as far as is possible. Those are important points, and my hon. Friend made them extremely well.

Mr. Nick Hurd (Ruislip-Northwood) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend, the Chairman and other members of the Select Committee on focusing on this important issue and the way in which they have done so.

I want to discuss transfers, a problem that is not restricted to women. If I read the report correctly, a recurring concern of the Committee is the rather ad hoc and premature process of transfers. If I read the Government's response correctly, they do not recognise that as a major problem. Is my reading accurate and is my hon. Friend satisfied with the Government's response?

Mr. Clappison : My hon. Friend makes an important point; he has an important interest in this issue because of his background. He is absolutely right. The Government's response was depressing on that issue. However, I should be fair to them. My hon. Friend may not be aware—it was not part of our report—that the Home Secretary came before our Committee last month. I put to him that very point about the high and increasing volume of transfers, which shuttle prisoners around the system and disrupt their chances of getting any education or worthwhile work activity. To be fair to the Home Secretary, he was far more responsive to the Committee than were the somewhat defensive remarks in the Government's response to the report.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 314WH

I am not making a partisan point, but it is fair to say that the Government's response to the report was a little too defensive on a number of issues. Other things that the Government have been doing and saying have been slightly more encouraging.

To come back to my main point about work, if one baldly asked the question, "Are we doing enough to provide work for prisoners in prisons?", the answer would have to be, "No, we could all do much more." I agree with the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen that we need a greater sense of urgency from the Government and more practical results. I do not doubt that they have good intentions, but they need to be translated into results.

Our report makes uncomfortable reading as far as purposeful activity is concerned. In paragraph 37, we said:

"disturbingly high proportions of prisoners are engaged in little or no purposeful activity."

In paragraph 28, we noted that the Prison Service admits that it is has met its key performance indicator only

"once in the last eight years."

I should add that the key performance indicator for purposeful activity is hardly one that sets the world alight. For all the forms of purposeful activity—which total about 30, including work, education, washing the floor and all the rest of it—the Government set a total of 24 hours a week for prisoners. That has been met only once in the last eight years. I suggest to the Minister with all due respect that the solution is surely not to abandon the key performance indicator.

The report also says that

"it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that the KPI has been dropped to avoid embarrassment arising from the Prison Service's continuing failure to meet the target."

I know that the Government's response rejected our comments on that. However, when a target is not met the solution is surely not simply to get rid of the target and then choose other targets which people think might be met; surely it is to make more effort to reach the target.

The Government have good intentions, and I give them credit for taking an interest in the subject, but we need a commitment to carry those good intentions through. What the Committee said, and what the Chairman of the Committee said in his opening remarks, is also supported by the conclusions of the prison industries review and the prison diaries, to which he referred and which is a worthwhile experiment. The prison industries review, instituted by the Government, supports the conclusions that we reached.

I can do no better than to quote paragraphs 153 of our report, which said:

"We agree with the Prison Industries Review that it is 'indefensible' that the Prison Service cannot find enough work or purposeful activity for prisoners. There continues to be an unacceptable disparity in the provision of work opportunities for prisoners across the prison estate. Whilst a maximum of just over 30% of prisoners may be involved in some form of prison work activity, only a third of those have been placed in prison workshops, the type of work activity which most closely reflects 'real working life'."

17 Nov 2005 : Column 315WH

We go on to suggest that all this shows that involving prisoners in work schemes has not been given sufficient priority.

Drawing on what we say in the report, what the prison industries review said and what the prison diaries also revealed about the lack of sufficiently serious work, I emphasise three points. They are implicit in our report. First, I believe that work in prison should resemble as closely as possible work outside prison. That is why it is so important that more prison workshops are up and running and that more of the work is in workshops where prisoners receive training rather than do functional activities concerned with prison life itself, such as mopping floors.

I do not shy away from the question of paying prisoners an appropriate rate for their work. That could be of benefit to everyone. It might enable some prisoners to pay compensation to their victims. If it gets the prisoners into the idea that they can earn money honestly as opposed to dishonestly, that can only be a good thing for the future. It is interesting that in the comment that I have seen on our report in the press and elsewhere there was not the reaction that some people might have thought. The public would accept that paying prisoners and getting them into the idea of making an honest living is a good thing, which in the long run could save a lot of money.

Secondly, I believe that work in prison should, as far as possible, include the training of prisoners in appropriate skills; that is self-evident. Thirdly—this point has already been made by the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen and the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Susan Kramer)—work should be linked wherever possible to employment outside prison.

I echo the remarks that the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen made about the Transco approach; the whole Committee was impressed by that. I believe that the Prison Service's "custody to work" initiative deserves support. I praise the Government for setting it up, but I hope that they will follow it through and support that approach. I draw some encouragement from what the Home Secretary said when he appeared before the Committee, but he and the Government will be judged on what flows from the report, on the progress made in establishing more work in prisons, on giving prisoners training and on linking all that, as far as possible, to prisoner employment on release.

Again, I make common cause with the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen. I do not shy away from more day release if it is necessary to get prisoners into jobs at the end of their sentence. I do not believe that that is a soft option, and I certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman about trying to implement such schemes as much as possible, and not finding obstacles to put in the way.

We visited a prison in Germany that ran an extensive day release work programme. More than 70 per cent. of prisoners on the scheme who went through the training in prison, some of whom went on to day release, continued to work for their employer when they were released from prison.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 316WH

So, there are strong public policy reasons for supporting the scheme. There is a great deal to be gained. I do not think that giving prisoners work in prison is a soft option. I do not think that it is a soft option to reward prisoners, or let them out of prison so that they get used to work. There could be a great deal to be gained from that. One has to be realistic; such schemes will not solve all reoffending. However, they are by far the best way of reducing the reoffending rate and the best way of giving some prisoners a second chance, particularly the younger prisoners. There are great benefits for us all. I certainly impress on the Minister the gist of what the Chairman of the Committee said.

The Government need to have a sense of urgency about the issue. They need determination to translate their intentions into results. We need workshops in prisons and we need prisoners to work. We will wait to judge the Government on that, but there needs to be real commitment. The test for the Government will be whether they can translate their intentions into practical consequences, whether they can sweep away the obstacles to getting prisoners into work and whether giving prisoners training gets the priority that most right-thinking members of the public would say that it deserves.

3.18 pm

Mrs. Janet Dean (Burton) (Lab): I am pleased that we have this opportunity to debate the report on the rehabilitation of prisoners, and I, too, commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, for his hard work in conducting the inquiry.

Recommendation 122 of the report summarised the changes needed to improve the prospects for rehabilitating prisoners. In order of priority, they are: "(i) a major drive to provide work and work-like regimes and training within prisons; (ii) an extension of this provision and other rehabilitative interventions to short-term and remand prisoners; (iii) significant improvements to drug and alcohol treatment; (iv) independent inspection of mental health provision; and (v) specific provision to address the needs of minority and vulnerable groups."

One of the main conclusions of the Committee is that the overcrowding in our prison system has a hugely damaging impact on the delivery of rehabilitative regimes across the prison estate. Overcrowding means that it is less likely that prisoners will be held in prisons close to their home, and that will restrict contact with family and friends, as well as making it harder to have a coherent pre-release strategy.

Overcrowding means that it is less likely that prisoners will be engaged in purposeful activity, as other hon. Members have mentioned. The Government acknowledged in their response to the report that the Prison Service has regularly missed the target for purposeful activity in recent years. Overcrowding also produces a so-called churn in the system, whereby prisoners are moved at short notice to other establishments, thereby interrupting the work that has been done with those prisoners. Having said that, I agree with my right hon. Friend that we can consider how to improve matters in spite of overcrowding.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 317WH

Conclusion 5 of our report says:

"We are critical of the management of transfers of prisoners across the prison estate which appears to be more ad hoc and pragmatic than strategic in design. The very high levels of transfers have a direct and significant negative impact on rehabilitation measures, both through disruption caused to intervention programmes and failure to provide prisoners with the particular interventions they need, as identified through assessment and sentence planning."

We were impressed by the way in which transfers take place in Germany. Where the prison system is based on the federal system, prisoners are transferred back to their home region when they are convicted. It brings all the advantages that would benefit the rehabilitation of prisoners in this country, such as reducing transfers during sentence, allowing prisoners to retain links with families and enabling sentence and rehabilitation planning, including settlement on release.

The Committee's report stressed the need for real work opportunities in prisons, as others have mentioned. In conclusion 29, we stated:

"We endorse the conclusion of the Prison Industries Review that:

'Industrial workshops are one of the best means, within prison walls, to reflect real working life. A proportion of the prison population will never have been exposed to real work before, and this may be their first opportunity to gain some transferable employment skills. In order to advance the resettlement agenda prison work needs to be targeted at those who are least likely to want to work. These individuals should be allocated for work, particularly on work initially that requires little training. They should not be ignored if they are difficult, or lack motivation. They should be the target audience of industries, and will benefit most from prison work. They have the potential for most return in terms of reduced re-offending on release.'"

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen said, we were impressed by what we saw on our visits to Her Majesty's prison Coldingley, where prisoners can obtain transferable qualifications and skills and gain experience in a real working environment. I was pleased to read in the Government's response to the Committee's report that the prison has now adapted its regime to allow part-time working, with time given to other rehabilitative activities, including education. The report recommends that the Coldingley system be used as a model for other prisons, as well as expanded to cover prisoners who are reluctant to take on prison work.

Members of the Committee were impressed also by the collaboration with private companies such as Transco, bringing skills training into prisons and young offenders' institutions. The scheme not only makes the rehabilitation of those serving custodial sentences more possible, but it can address the skills shortage in many places.

Besides the development of more work opportunities, the Committee also felt that there should be pilot schemes that pay prisoners more realistic wages. The schemes should not make the prisoners better off while in prison, but give them the experience of paying tax and living costs, and thus better prepare them for life outside prison. More realistic wage levels could help to address the concerns of some private businesses that prisons can undercut the prices at which businesses produce goods.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 318WH

One major cause of criminal activity is drug addiction, and I am pleased that the amount of Government money made available to offer treatment to those in our communities who wish to get off drugs has increased dramatically in recent years. However, the majority of prisoners have drug and alcohol problems, and they should be addressed. That applies to short-term prisoners as well as those serving long sentences.

In conclusion 75, the Committee stated:

"We recommend that every prisoner should receive health care screening, including mandatory drug testing, on admission to prison".

Although the Government did not accept mandatory drug tests for all prisoners, their response to the Committee's report provided the reassurance that screening procedures on admission shall identify drug misusers. I welcome that, and I am also pleased by the Government's statement that following a pilot in 2004, a drug rehabilitation programme for short-term prisoners specifically is being introduced.

Progress is being made. The OASys model enables better information about prisoners to be transferred with them between establishments and when they leave prison. Will the Minister confirm whether the roll-out of connectivity between the Prison Service and the probation service is now complete?

One of my main concerns, which is highlighted in the Committee's report, is the increase in the number of women prisoners and the even greater isolation they can have from their families. Although it is true that only 6.1 per cent. of the prison population are women, the annual average number of women prisoners has increased by a massive 173 per cent. since 1992, compared with a 50 per cent. increase in the number of male prisoners during that period. In the 10 years from 1994, the average number of women in prison in England and Wales rose from 1,811 to 4,487. Most of the women prisoners are mothers and primary carers, so many children are affected by the absence of their mother. More than 30 per cent. of women prisoners have suffered sexual abuse.

The majority of women prisoners are in prison for non-violent offences and are therefore not a danger to others.

Mrs. Gillan : The hon. Lady touches on a point that is close to my heart. Does she agree that it is worrying that about a third of women prisoners lose their homes and possessions? When they come out of prison, they have no home to go to and their possessions have usually been disposed of.

Mrs. Dean : Yes, I would agree with that. Isolation and imprisonment for women causes more problems because most of them have primary caring responsibilities. They might be escaping abuse in their home, and if they come out and find that they have no home and that their children have been taken into care, it is even more difficult for them to get back on their feet.

We must look at better ways of punishing women than just locking them up. We need to consider more effective community punishments for women and men; we cannot keep on building prisons. Intermittent custody offers the greatest benefit to women prisoners because it enables them to continue to mother their

17 Nov 2005 : Column 319WH

children. However, they have the greatest problem in accessing such an option because there are fewer women's prisons and a relative sparsity of offenders. Many women would have to travel long distances to reach their place of custody.

The answer may be to provide small local units or it may be to restrict the number of women given custodial sentences, which is what the Committee suggested. I hope that a new sentencing regime will provide more opportunity for community sentences.

Mr. Hurd : The report acknowledged that there is a public relations challenge in getting across to the public that community sentences are not a soft option. Does the hon. Lady feel that the Government have taken that on board, and did the Committee come up with any constructive ideas on how that message could be put across?

Mrs. Dean : I think that the hon. Gentleman has been reading my notes because I was just about to say that we need to ensure that the general public are made aware of the benefits that community sentences can bring. The hon. Gentleman will note that conclusion 11 states:

"To ensure confidence in the new sentencing regime, there must be public education about the new sentencing measures, and publicity about actual sentences imposed, to demonstrate that they are robust and legitimate alternatives to prison in terms of punishment, public protection and rehabilitation."

In that respect, I commend the work of SmartJustice, a representative of which I met the other day. SmartJustice is a five-year campaign supported by the Network for Social Change and run under the auspices of the Prison Reform Trust. It is involved in increasing public awareness of alternatives to custody and working with the popular press to take a less punitive and more rational approach to crime. It gives talks on crime and punishment throughout the country to a wide variety of groups, including community and civic groups, such as rotary clubs, faith groups and schools.

SmartJustice for Women is a targeted campaign that was launched at Holloway prison on 27 July. I believe that the Minister was present on that occasion. SmartJustice says that it is involving women's groups in the campaign, including Soroptimist, the townswomen's guilds, the National Federation of Women's Institutes, the Mothers Union, Maternity Alliance and the National Council of Women. I hope that those involved will be instrumental in raising public awareness of the alternatives to prison. I hope also that, through better sentencing and rehabilitation of prisoners, more treatment for drugs, improved education and, in the long term, through tackling the root causes through early education and tackling deprivation, we can at least stabilise the prison population.

3.31 pm

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): The hon. Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean), my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) and the other members of the Home Affairs Committee, under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), have done the House a considerable service

17 Nov 2005 : Column 320WH

with their report on the "Rehabilitation of Prisoners". It must make a welcome change for them—a release—from having to carry out pre-legislative scrutiny on yet another asylum and immigration Bill or yet another criminal justice Bill. That seems to be their normal diet.

I take an interest in this subject partly because I practised as a barrister for a number of years and represented a number of people who then went to prison and partly because the first non-governmental organisation that I ever subscribed to was the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, but most importantly, in the context of this debate, because I have Bullingdon prison in my constituency. I want to comment on Bullingdon in more detail later.

We must recognise that the punishment element of prison is the loss of one's freedom. The punishment is going to prison. Prison itself should not be a further punishment. The punishment should be the removal of freedom. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere said that quite often, if prisoners are given good treatment, we have to deal with the type of knee-jerk reaction found in the Daily Mail or The Sun. However, we have moved on from Victorian times. We are now in the 21st century and we need to trumpet clearly the message that the punishment is the removal of freedom.

We must also recognise that the average stay of most people who go to prison is 23 months. Although they may be taken out of the community for a period of time, it is not necessarily that long. At present, we have a vicious circle of overcrowding and transfers in the prison system that make it much more difficult to help to rehabilitate offenders and, as a consequence, too many of those in prison reoffend once they leave.

We have not yet heard much mention of the recent report by the social exclusion unit, but I think that it shows that more than half—some 58 per cent.—of all prisoners are convicted of another crime within two years of release. Tragically, that figure is as high as 72 per cent. in the case of young men aged between 18 and 20. Those figures are tragic for us as a community. They mean that, clearly, prison is not succeeding in rehabilitating people.

The social exclusion unit made several recommendations, particularly with regard to helping ex-prisoners to find jobs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere said, getting a job on release reduces the risk of reoffending by between one third and a half. Most of the recommendations from the social exclusion unit have not been implemented. We need to hear much more clearly from the Government what strategies they have for reducing overcrowding and reducing the need to transfer prisoners constantly between prisons in the system, and what more they are going to do to help to ensure the working of rehabilitation programmes in prison.

Paul Boateng is now the high commissioner to Pretoria, but when he was Minister of State at the Home Office, he said, in a Prison Service briefing in June 2000:

"Too often I hear of good projects in one prison rejected by another; of inconsistency of funding and a lack of coordination . . . I want to see some strategic developments".

We would be interested to hear from the Government what the strategic developments are.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 321WH

The prison population is now at a record high, at somewhere near 77,000. It has grown by more than half in the past decade, and numbers are rising by an average of 250 prisoners a week. The Select Committee states in its report that

"it is clear that overcrowding is having a hugely damaging impact on the delivery of rehabilitative regimes across the prison estate, both in terms of quality and quantity of appropriate interventions."

It goes on:

There seems to be a vicious circle of overcrowding, which leads to transfers, among other things. The combination of overcrowding and transfers makes it difficult to rehabilitate prisoners, which means that prisoners leave prison not having benefited from the experience very much, and that leads to high reoffending rates. That is crazy, and something needs to be done about it. I shall make a few suggestions.

I am sure that most colleagues will think that my first suggestion is reactionary, so I shall start with that one and come on to the more liberal ones shortly. There are many foreign nationals in our prisons—some 10 per cent. of the prison population—and I suspect that that is a consequence of an increase in drug trafficking, more people involved in drug offences and so on. However, there is no justification for keeping overseas nationals in our prisons. When they finish their sentences, the burden should be on them to demonstrate to the courts why they should not automatically be deported to the country from which they came.

Mrs. Gillan : My hon. Friend might be interested to know that foreign nationals make up more than 10 per cent. of the prison population. At the end of March, when there were 9,194 foreign nationals in prison, the figure was 12 per cent. The Home Office does not have a grip on the situation: at any one time, there are some 1,200 people in prison for whom it has not been possible to ascertain a nationality, so the figure is even larger than the one he quoted.

Tony Baldry : Whether the figure is 10, 11 or 12 per cent., it is a significant percentage. We should make it clear that the burden will be on overseas nationals who have committed offences to convince the courts that they should not automatically be deported to the country of their citizenship at the end of their sentence. Then, if they are inclined to reoffend, they are less likely to reoffend in the United Kingdom. It is as simple as that. Any foreign national who breaks the law in this country such that it merits their going to prison forfeits their right to remain in the country.

Much good work is being done with the rest of the prison population.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 322WH

Mr. Denham : I have a genuine query. Although I chaired the Committee, I may have misunderstood the report. My understanding is that those who are sentenced to more than two years generally are deported at the end of their sentence, and that the problem with those who are sentenced for less than two years is that the courts rather than politicians have judged, on the basis of various international conventions, that that is not a sufficiently serious sentence to deport. I may be wrong about the law on that, but perhaps the obstacle is the court's interpretation, not of the convention on human rights but of other international conventions.

Tony Baldry : The right hon. Gentleman reinforces my position. At present, the courts decide whether a person should be deported, and the sentencing practice of judges in such cases varies greatly from Crown court to Crown court. We should change the position, by statute if need be, so that there is a presumption that any foreign national whose offences in this country merit a prison sentence should be deported at the conclusion of that prison sentence.

Bullingdon prison is in my constituency. It is a sizeable local prison for men and one reason why I wanted to take part in this debate is that I do not think that those who work in the Prison Service have their achievements trumpeted often enough. Being a prison officer or prison governor must be a tough job. Prison staff work with people who, by definition, do not want to be where they are. They must often deal with people who are vulnerable and who have a history of personality difficulties. Treating them with dignity and firmness must often be testing, particularly if prisons are overcrowded.

Bullingdon prison makes every effort to try to help people to prepare themselves for the world outside. For example, it involves the St. Giles Trust, which has a contract to provide accommodation advice to prisoners. Interestingly, much of that advice is given by prisoners who have been trained to NVQ level 3 by the trust. It does its best to provide education and work opportunities. As Sue Saunders, the governor of Bullingdon prison, explained:

"Education is pivotal to prisoner resettlement and is provided throughout the"

prison

"both in the classroom and workplace. Through working closely with Milton Keynes College, we fulfil a provision for Basic and Key Skills and Wider Key Skills in the workplace. In addition Vocational Training is provided within all industrial areas across the prison. That currently equates to over 60 qualifications in a wide spectrum of subjects and areas of work. Where self-study in cells is identified as the most appropriate way for the individual to learn, the education contractor offers peripatetic learning where tutors support the student. In addition to this all prisoners have a minimum access of 20 minutes per week to the library.

Having moved away from providing 'traditional' prison work, we are now focusing on providing qualifications to prisoners within our workshops. An example of this is the relocation of the Industrial Cleaning Workshop into the main prison, giving the workers a real life environment by providing cleaning services across the prison. This has been recognised by the Adult Learning Inspectorate who stated that this training provided real work experience in a way that would not normally be seen in a prison environment. In addition we also deliver in excess of 500 qualifications in this area.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 323WH

In conjunction with colleagues from the Probation Service we now provide an access to work course: Transit. The aim of the course is to offer prisoners who are able and willing to find work, extra support and guidance to help them achieve their goals. This includes helping prisoners to understand the process of applying for work, writing CV's and completing application forms as well as helping with interview skills."

The prison has

"secured the services of Job Centre Plus for three days a week, offering advice and guidance on employment issues as well as a job brokering service."

Sue Saunders continued:

"On 4th October, Bullingdon held its second Job Fair. 12 Potential employers and over 150 prisoners who are approaching release attended this and the feedback from all . . . was very positive."

As a consequence, a third job fair is planned for early next year.

Bullingdon prison also runs a two-week debt management course every eight weeks that covers income and expenditure budgeting, how to read statements and payslips correctly, and the importance of saving and planning finances. Trading standards at Oxford county council runs a bespoke money management course at Bullingdon consisting of four two-hour sessions each on budgeting, banking, accounts and borrowing.

That all seems excellent and well in support of what the Prison Service now has as part of its motto: unlocking potential and releasing success. It was not, therefore, surprising to me that Martin Narey, the chief executive of the National Offender Management Service, gave Bullingdon prison a glowing reference in his report, in which he said:

"There is some innovative and significant work taking place for the remand population. Rather than allowing remands to be marginalised—frequently inevitable in many"

local prisons—

"Bullingdon is giving some of them an opportunity to sort their lives out."

Martin Narey thought that the multi-skills workshop at Bullingdon was "first class" and commented that it was

"unusual to meet so many prisoners so enthusiastic about the training they were receiving and the quality of work was extremely high. A significant number of prisoners have made very impressive progress to NVQ level 2 and 3 qualifications in printing and related skills. Significantly, a number of them had achieved category D status, but were very keen to stay at Bullingdon to continue their training."

What he says after that, however, is the sting in the tail that causes me concern:

"Regrettably, prison population pressures mean that it is unlikely that we will be able to keep them at Bullingdon. This is tragic. Bullingdon are developing offender management on the lines of the national offender management model and are well placed to operate successfully in a commissioning environment. And not for the first time, I thought the work being done by RAPT to arrest drug abuse, was outstanding."

It is sad that the work of a local prison where, by every standard, the governor and the prison staff are doing excellent work in terms of advice on housing, rehabilitative training and getting people back into the world of work within the available resources is undermined by a combination of overcrowding and prisoners being all too frequently moved around the prison system. That is genuinely tragic.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 324WH

Martin Narey concluded his report with comments, which should be trumpeted, about the governor and staff at Bullingdon prison, praising

"the consistent enthusiasm of every member of staff I met and the frequent evidence of prisoners being treated with dignity."

I have a footnote on that. I frequently find myself to the left of the Labour party, which is an increasingly uncomfortable position. Martin Narey argued two years ago for Bullingdon to remain in the public sector, and it has. I believe that prisons should be in the public sector, for this reason: my experiences with the proposed accommodation for asylum seekers at Bicester was searing, for whenever I sought information from the Home Office about what was being proposed, I was told that it was commercial in confidence. I emphasise that, because last time I said it, the Hansard reporter recorded it as "commercial incompetence".

One of the institutions that should be most transparent in its activity and delivery in our society is a prison. We should know what is happening in prisons in terms of the inputs and their outcomes. I have yet to be persuaded that handing institutions such as prisons over to Group 4 Securicor enhances the rehabilitative process of Her Majesty's prisons. However, that is just a parenthesis. There is no necessary consequence that private is good and public is bad. I believe that those who work in the public sector in prisons do a good job.

The thrust of my submission to the House this afternoon is simple. The best way to get the prison population down is to stop reoffending. If those in prison ceased to reoffend, our prison population would drop considerably. If consistent efforts were made at rehabilitation and ensuring that those who left prison had a better chance of accommodation, employment and life skills, the likelihood of their reoffending would drop and thus the probability of our prison system being overcrowded would be reduced.

Although Ministers do not have it entirely in their gift to control the total prison population, the Prison Service could certainly make greater efforts to ensure that people, whether men or women, do not spend the whole of their prison experience being shunted around from one prison to another. Each prisoner should be treated as an individual. The Home Office and the Prison Service should take pride in ensuring that people leave prisons with the best possible skills and qualifications in order to tackle the rest of their lives crime free and in society with the rest of us.

3.51 pm

Dr. Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab): I congratulate the Select Committee on its excellent and timely report. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) for securing the debate. I am interested in the subject because I have a community prison, a high-security prison, a women's prison and a youth offending centre in my constituency.

Does my hon. Friend the Minister concur with the sentiments about women prisoners outlined in paragraph 297 of the report? It says that the

"majority of women in prison are in prison for non-violent offences and have never been a danger to the public."

17 Nov 2005 : Column 325WH

In paragraph 308, the Select Committee suggests that offending behaviour programmes need to be adapted to meet the specific needs of women prisoners and, in particular, to take note of their life experiences and the fact that many of them are victims of abuse, and that that can be a long-term problem.

Such comments are echoed by the governor of the women's prison in my constituency. She has explored with me ways in which the Government can deal not only with the mental health problems that many women prisoners experience, but how their self-esteem can be improved. She argues that, unless women's self-esteem is improved and they are more independent when they leave prison, they are likely to reoffend. The governor expressed concern about the lack of emphasis that is placed on women in prison to prepare them for work. Too often, programmes focus on developing basic skills. Some women will need that training, but insufficient emphasis is placed on their being prepared for work outside prison or on linking any of the schemes within prison to outside employers.

I draw attention to the work of SmartJustice. In my constituency, it has been working with the prison as well as it can to implement the new sentencing regime, so that community sentences are considered more appropriate for women. Hon. Members have said that prison is an inappropriate punishment for women, particularly when they are not a danger to anyone except themselves. When their children have to be taken into care, that has enormous ramifications for their family and wider society. I should appreciate the Minister explaining how the Government will carry out the Select Committee's recommendation of setting a target to reduce the number of women in prison.

I wish to make a few comments about education. It is clear from visiting prisons in my constituency that the Government are putting additional resources into prison education. That has been particularly successful in the teaching of basic skills. However, we have some way to go in terms of making vocational education in prison work, and particularly in ensuring that it leads to a job outside prison. Several Members have commented on the Transco scheme, and I would like the Minister to say whether that will be rolled out across the country. It seems to be particularly successful in reducing reoffending rates. It is also important in that it connects prisoners to work and to work environments when they are in prison.

We have all read reports that show that although prisons can train prisoners and give them qualifications, including vocational qualifications, that will not necessarily lead to them getting a job outside prison. I would like the Minister to comment on how vocational education will be monitored, especially in terms of the extent to which it reduces reoffending and leads to prisoners finding meaningful work.

3.56 pm

Mr. Nick Hurd (Ruislip-Northwood) (Con): I did not serve on the Committee, I have no prison in my constituency and, as will become painfully obvious, I do

17 Nov 2005 : Column 326WH

not know a great deal about this subject, but I am drawn to it by the simple statistic that three in five prisoners reoffend within two years. That starkly highlights that the problem we are discussing represents a great waste of both money and lives. I congratulate the Committee on throwing a spotlight on this important issue.

I listened closely to the opening remarks of the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), and it seems to me that there is a major cultural problem within the Prison Service that needs to be tackled. I noted that there were comments throughout the report—more in regret than anger—that the Government might not attach great enough priority to that issue; in particular, there was concern about the dropping or reclassifying of targets, such as public service agreement target 5.

One of the keys to making progress on rehabilitation is getting to know our prison populations better. Information technology has an important role to play in that. I read with interest about the OASys programme, and I look forward to the Minister's comments on the process of connectivity in that respect, not least because I suspect that I am not the only Member present who has concerns about the track record of the Government in implementing and co-ordinating IT programmes, particularly through the Home Office.

I was shocked by the statistics on drugs. Regardless of whether 55 per cent. or 80 per cent. of prisoners enter prison with serious drug or alcohol problems, it is clear that drugs use is a major driver of reoffending, and tackling it must therefore be at the heart of any Government strategy to get serious about the problem that we are discussing.

Susan Kramer : I have talked with my local prison governor, the local police and local community safety staff. Although a lot of extra money has been made available for drug rehabilitation for prisoners, similar programmes with the same kind of energy do not seem to be available for tackling the alcohol problem that so many prisoners have and that is far more widespread than drug problems.

Mr. Hurd : I thank the hon. Lady for that comment. I am not in a position to address her point, but I hope that the Minister will do so in her closing remarks. Although the report places a heavy emphasis on drugs, arguably, it does not place enough emphasis on alcohol.

I welcome the introduction of drug rehabilitation for short-term prisoners. I would like the Minister to expand a little on the comments that the pilot that triggered the expansion of the programme was helpful. What is the statistical evidence about the effectiveness of such programmes?

I also welcome the Government's comments on the targets for increasing capacity in terms of drug rehabilitation. However, as we have grown to learn, targets are one thing, and meeting them is another. I would also be grateful if the Minister could update us on the progress that has been made, particularly in achieving the March 2006 target of 9,000 offenders on drug rehabilitation programmes.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 327WH

Overcrowding seems to be a hugely important issue that is clearly undermining the whole process of rehabilitation, and I agree with the comments of the previous speakers. As a society, collectively, we need to get more comfortable with revising the culture of sentencing. We need to go back to the basic principle that prisons should be for those who are dangerous to the community. I would like to associate myself with those saying to the Government that a significant effort needs to be put behind the message that community sentencing is not a soft option.

There seems to be no getting away from the need to increase capacity in our prisons and to build new prisons. I will be interested to hear how the Minister refutes the charge, which is regularly made, that the Government prison-building programme is a case of too little too late. I would be interested to hear her views on the degree to which the Government are prepared to involve the private and voluntary sectors in that expansion of capacity.

Lastly, I would like to introduce a separate concept—apparently absent from the report and from the work of the Committee—which is the possibility that increasing an offender's awareness of the impact of their crime on victims could have a beneficial effect on future behaviour and reduce the likelihood of reoffending. I do not know whether the Committee addressed that issue—I have not had time to read all the submissions—but I point the Minister to the work of the Sycamore Tree Project, which is under the umbrella of the Centre for Justice and Reconciliation. There seems to be some statistical evidence that such an approach can introduce significant changes in attitudes to offending, putting us back on the path to recognising that we must get people off the conveyor belt of crime if we are to reduce our prison population.

4.2 pm

Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey and Wood Green) (LD): I too welcome the report and add my congratulations to the Committee and to the Chairman. My party's position on such matters is close to theirs.

The prison portfolio came to me recently—I am recent altogether. Early on I sponsored a visit to Parliament by an American author, Michael Jacobson, who had written a book on downsizing prisons. The prison population in New York, I think, dropped dramatically. Part of that was to do with not putting people in prison in the first place if their crimes were so minor that they were better treated by community sentences or restorative justice, as many Members have said. Also, those offenders would then not be going to crime schools. There is an advantage from that point of view. What was clear from my meeting, which I sponsored with a Labour and a Conservative Member, was that we all agreed, much as has been the case in the Chamber today.

There is a great consensus that prison does not work and that the offending rate—60 per cent. recidivist—is not a way forward and has led to the overcrowding. The political climate in which we work outside such discussions here is not helpful and is destructive of what many Members have said about getting across the message that community sentences are tough. They are not soft on crime or prisoners. Politicians are going to

17 Nov 2005 : Column 328WH

have to grow up if we are to join hands across the issue and deal with some of the necessary measures for prisons.

When speaking to people, I have used an example. How well developed would a human being be if they were locked in a room, not talked to and not given skills? Would they be a well developed human being who could retake their place in society or would they be irresponsible for the rest of their lives, a burden to the state and almost certainly reoffend? If people are talked to, they understand the message; they do not have a problem with that.

On Tuesday or Wednesday of this week I went to an all-party parliamentary group where the Home Secretary signalled that he was moving towards the sort of proposals that we have been talking about. That is welcome, and I look forward to the Minister's comments on that.

I have been to Holloway prison and I was impressed with the governor and with the work being done with the women there. However, it was clear to me even as a novice that the sentences that women were given—mostly under six months—were incredibly detrimental to a sensible way forward. A sentence of that length is not long enough to get them off drugs or give them educational skills, but it is long enough for them to lose their homes and possibly their children, despite best efforts and a new 24-hour reception centre at that prison, which is next door to my constituency. I also commend the work of SmartJustice, whose members I have also met. It is doing a fantastic job.

At Holloway, I spoke to a group of women called "the listeners", who have volunteered to listen to other women prisoners who need someone to talk to. They do not proffer advice. These women were serving two, three or four-year sentences, possibly longer. I sat down and talked to them for a while, and every one of them wants to have a career in counselling; two were taking university degrees. It is a real step forward. I would say that a good percentage of those women will not reoffend, because they have something to look forward to—a place in society. That is to be welcomed.

We have all said today that the system is not working. We must realise the benefit for society of placing rehabilitation at the centre of the prison system. Only then will we see a dramatic drop in rates of reoffending, which I understand costs about £11 billion.

Hon. Members have touched briefly on education, but, as the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) said, education alone is not enough. People must be given the fundamental skills with which to move on, not simply to get back into work but to understand what they are doing.

It is a tremendous leap for someone who is not used to a working life to go from three and a half hours of work activity in prison to an eight-hour working day. Members of Parliament may not understand that, because we do a much longer day. I was interested in what the right hon. Gentleman said about the German system, which seems very advanced, but I wonder whether letting prisoners out on day release would begin to be acceptable politically. As I have said, unless we learn not to attack one another for mentioning such things, we shall never get anywhere.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 329WH

We must expand the number of prisons involved in commercial work.

Mr. Clappison : I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady. She mentioned prisoners being let out on day release and the German example. I do not have the details to hand, but I believe that in the German case, where a lot of prisoners were going out on day release, the rate of offending by such prisoners for absconding or the like was very low.

Lynne Featherstone : We can learn our lesson from Germany. It is clearly succeeding where we are not. Extending the use of tough community sentences will be good. There can be no better way to rehabilitate prisoners than by moving them into the community. That is the best place for them.

In conclusion, we need to help offenders, in particular young people, to avoid reoffending by increasing the resources for education, training and skills. Basic literacy, numeracy and communication skills are incredibly important. This is a complex world and, although simply having a job is a start, the likelihood of keeping it without other support is slim. We do not want people to slip backwards.

I look forward to hearing the Minister address some of the points that I have made and would welcome hearing what action she proposes to take, what funding is proposed and what the time scale is for action and change. I would also welcome an assurance that downgrading targets will not be the Government's answer to not reaching them. At present that is a significant failing.

4.10 pm

Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con): I do not know where to start. I usually do not have the luxury of so much time on my feet, but hon. Members will be pleased to know that I do not intend to take advantage of it. I too am interested to know what the Minister has to say about the report. I appreciate that the Minister who will respond to the debate does not have direct responsibility for prisons.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Fiona Mactaggart) : I share it.

Mrs. Gillan : The Minister shares responsibility with Baroness Scotland in another place. No insult was intended to the Minister; I was not quite sure which of the two had the main responsibility in the Department. There is no doubt that the Minister has a job on her hands, as has Lady Scotland. The evidence for that is in what I consider to be one of the most comprehensive reports by the Home Affairs Committee for some time.

The right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) is to be congratulated—I merely echo the words of other hon. Members when I say that—on the scope and breadth of the report and the depth in which the Committee has examined the issues and problems affecting prisons. In common with a couple of my hon. Friends, I also started my career in prisons. As a young articled clerk I was dispatched off to Brixton nick, as we

17 Nov 2005 : Column 330WH

used to call it in those days, to visit clients of ours who had fallen on hard times. I am afraid that many clients of the firm to which I was articled ended up spending much longer periods of time at Her Majesty's pleasure.

What struck me 12 months ago when I was given the brief of visiting prisons is that they have not changed that much. That is quite frightening. I appreciate that it is mostly dictated by the physical nature of the prisons—the fact that so much of the estate is made up of old-fashioned Victorian establishments. However, there was a definite feeling of déjà vu when I walked into the first of the prisons that I visited. There was a lot of déjà vu when I entered Holloway—although I was particularly impressed by some of the work being done there, not least the work to deal with mental health problems.

The report, to which the Department responded in March, makes pretty uncomfortable reading. There is no doubt that although great strides are being made in some respects, there are enormous problems, and the Government need to tackle them before there is a catastrophe—although the current offending rate is itself a catastrophe.

As my party's spokesmen on the subject, I want to say that too many people take a neanderthal approach to the subject. They say, "Prison works. Lock them up. Throw away the key." They forget, first, that those in prison are human beings, and, secondly, that there is a cost to society. If anyone says, when I come up with ideas for rehabilitation or keeping people out of prison, that I have gone soft and am left-wing and wet, it is not true. It costs more than £37,000 a year on average to keep a man in prison. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but every prison place that she has had built since 2000 has cost £99,839. That is a significant cost to the taxpayer.

To those costs must be added the cost in human misery and family break-up, the cost to victims of crime, and the cost to the economy as a whole. I am not going soft when I suggest that perhaps we should not lock too many people up, or that we should do something with them when they are inside. I do not subscribe to the views of people who say, "Shut them in a room, take away their television, don't give them education; they must pay their debt to society." They are paying their debt to society by being inside a prison. I do not think that anyone in this Chamber would want to spend more than a few hours inside any of our prison establishments.

In England and Wales we have the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe, with 145 people in prison per 100,000 of the population. That is more than France, which has a rate of 91 per 100,000, and Germany, which has a rate of 96 per 100,000. According to the most recent figures that I have, which are for 2003, the average age of those sentenced to custody was 27. More alarmingly, nearly one quarter of our prisoners are 21 or under.

As we have discussed, the number of women in prison has doubled over the past decade. Before I came into the Chamber, I checked how many female prisoners were in our establishments on 11 November, and it was 4,599. That is a considerable figure, compared with previous years. More frighteningly, Home Office research shows that approximately 66 per cent. of those women are mothers. In that respect, the point that I tried to make

17 Nov 2005 : Column 331WH

in an earlier intervention is very pertinent. It is estimated that more than 17,000 children each year see their mothers put in prison. When we separate them from their mothers in that way, there is a risk that they will end up on the conveyor belt to crime. One of the social characteristics that identifies people who finally end up in prison is that they are victims of family break-up, and, in this case, it is the state that has broken up the family. With more than 17,000 children a year affected, we are very much preparing the seed bed in which we will grow our future prisoners, and we should not be doing that.

Prison has a poor record in reducing reoffending. Three out of five prisoners, or 61 per cent., are reconvicted within two years of being released. The frightening thing is that for young men and boys under 21 the reconviction rate stands at 73 per cent. That means that we have put a phenomenal percentage of people in prison, done nothing with them and then allowed them to come out and return to their life of crime.

Everyone who has spoken in the debate has mentioned the serious problem of overcrowding. At the end of August, 81 of our prisons—57 per cent. of the estate—were overcrowded, 13 were at more than 150 per cent. of their certified normal accommodation and 11 had populations over their operational capacity. The situation has not got better; indeed, it has got worse. As I said when I intervened on the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen, 75,187 people were in prison when the Government responded to the report in March. By 11 November, that figure had increased to 77,683—an increase of 2,496. Usable operational capacity stands at 78,341, and that means that there are only 658 places left, which is quite alarming. Far from home detention curfew being used to free up capacity in our prisons, there has been a drop in the imposition of HDCs; there were only 3,178 on 11 November, compared with 3,417 in March.

If we compare the prison population now with that 12 months ago, we see that there is an enormous difference. In November 2004, there were 75,023 people in prison. In the Minister's March response, the figure was 75,352, so the prison population was holding steady. I had discussions with various people in the prison sector, who were all a bit surprised by that. They could not understand why the figure was holding steady; they had expected an increase and did not know why there had not been one. Of course, the increase has now kicked in in spades, judging by the figures on the Home Office website.

The overcrowding of the prison estate is very much linked to the issues of reoffending and rehabilitation. If the system is overcrowded and has no capacity, and buildings are used that are not fit for purpose or have been patched up rapidly—that has had to happen as the prison population has increased—it does not provide an environment in which modern interventions can be made in prisoners' lives to enable them to go outside and become useful members of society.

The Minister plans to build more prisons, which I thoroughly commend. What sort of innovative thinking is she putting into that? I have looked at examples of new prison builds produced by the Design Council.

17 Nov 2005 : Column 332WH

They are not perfect, but they have a particularly interesting concept. The current prison system—I know that I am generalising—is 80 per cent. about security and 20 per cent. about learning, but the Design Council was looking at designing buildings that would create an environment 80 per cent. about learning and 20 per cent. about security, because some of the security problems in the old hospital-style prison system can be designed out of buildings.

The Home Secretary addressed the all-party group on penal affairs in the Moses Room the other day. I went along and was pleased to hear that he had a vision. He started by saying that he intended to re-examine the entire prison estate. I would like the Minister to put some flesh on the Home Secretary's vision, which was welcomed by all parties in both Houses of Parliament—Members of both Houses were there—because it is yet another vision. I hope that the Minister will forgive me, but I am slightly tired of visions; I have been hearing about them since the Carter report two years ago, and I do not see that vision being translated into action on the ground.

Mr. Denham : I would like to reinforce that point. I hope that this view came across in my earlier comments. The story that we have had from Ministers, particularly in the past six to nine months, and the Home Secretary's important speech to the Prison Reform Trust, set out a vision of how the system