| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I disagree with that as an accurate assessment. As the noble Lord says, the Adult Learning Inspectorate annual reports show that inadequacy rates in prisons have fallen year on year since the inspection of education in prisons formally began, which is more recently than most other post-16 sectors. We have therefore made positive improvements. We have inspected that issue—78 per cent of prisons failed the inspection in 2002–03; 61 per cent failed in 2003–04; and 55 per cent in 2004–05. We are making steady and trenchant improvements, but is that enough? No, and that is why we are working harder to make the improvements that we all aspire to see.
Lord Acton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Shrewsbury and Standford Hill prisons have introduced the Shannon Trust's Toe by Toe method of having educated prisoners teaching illiterate prisoners to read? Is the Minister aware that the Chief Inspector of Prisons, in her annual report, strongly supported those efforts? Will the Government encourage the use of Toe by Toe throughout the prison system?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend about the benefit of the work done by the Shannon Trust's Toe by Toe mentors. We are well aware of their good work, and the scheme received positive mention in the recent Green Paper Reducing Re-offending. We believe that prison governors need a degree of flexibility, but I am sure that my noble friend will be pleased to know that the Department for Education and Skills' Skills for Life strategy unit has developed a Toe by Toe information pack to support the Toe by Toe reading scheme that will be available in the summer.
The Lord Bishop of Worcester: My Lords, does the Minister agree that in her own and the Government's strong commitment to reducing re-offending and to rehabilitation, the existence of a report produced by a highly competent and astute observer who is also in a highly prestigious public office is a great asset and support? Will the Minister therefore reconsider any policies that might lead to the reduction of the effectiveness and public prestige of Anne Owers's office?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I wholeheartedly agree with the right reverend Prelate that the asset that Her Majesty's Chief Inspector brings is one that we value highly. I have said that on a number of occasions, and I do not hesitate to say it
19 Apr 2006 : Column 1053
again: we intend to enhance and improve the inspection and not to reduce its effectiveness. That is the purpose of our reforms, and I can give the right reverend Prelate total assurance that that will remain our focus.
Baroness Sharples: My Lords, does the Minister accept that if there were more writers in residence there might be less recidivism?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a good point, and she will know that we are doing everything that we can together with the Learning and Skills Council to encourage such activity and that we hope that the alliances about which I have spoken on a number of occasions will enable even greater activity to take place of the sort that I know the noble Baroness will like very much.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, one area of concern expressed by HMI is the very high prison population, which is now at a record level. The other area explained by HMI is the inadequacy of resources and provision for young adults, who so prominently feature in figures on re-offending. Can the Minister indicate when the prison population is likely to drop, so that such issues can be adequately addressed, particularly in relation to the rehabilitation of young adults?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. Of course, we are not at the highest level; we are at just over 77,000. I agree with the noble Lord that that is a high number, but the whole thrust of our policy is to get better risk assessments, identifying who needs to be in prison for how long and making sure that that is a positive and creative opportunity to reduce re-offending. All the work that we are doing to reduce re-offending is to that end. If we reduce re-offending, we shall reduce the prison population.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, given that it is the Government's view that the link between poor educational experience, unemployment and re-offending is striking, should not responsibility for this important area be represented in all prisons at the highest senior management level?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I certainly understand why the noble Baroness would ask that. I assure her that they are represented at an appropriately high level. The work of the Learning and Skills Council and our work with the DfES are extremely important. One thing that has been advocated for a long time is that there should be continuity of care right the way through. We now have that. It will take some time to improve, but improvements are occurring—not quickly enough for those of us who hunger for rapid change, but they are steady. That we should celebrate.
19 Apr 2006 : Column 1054
Hepatitis C: Contaminated Blood Products
3.21 pm
Lord Jenkin of Roding asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the Department of Health's report Self-sufficiency in Blood Products in England and Wales, published on 27 February, is a complete account of the circumstances leading to the infection of National Health Service patients with HIV and hepatitis C due to contaminated blood products.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): My Lords, the report published on 27 February examined key issues around self-sufficiency in blood products in the 1970s and early 1980s. The review was commissioned following suggestions that implementation of what was called the "self-sufficiency policy" in blood products in this period might have avoided haemophiliacs being treated with infected blood products. The report makes it clear that it was based on surviving documents from 1973, but that self-sufficiency would not have prevented infection of haemophiliacs with hepatitis C.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, that is all very well, but is the Minister aware that this report, internally produced by his own department, has been roundly condemned by many, including the Haemophilia Society? The society said that the report was,
"a blatant attempt to gloss over the details of the events of the time and even to lay blame at the door of the patients themselves".
Bearing in mind that the department "inadvertently", as the Minister said in response to me in an earlier Question, destroyed all its own files on contaminated blood products and that much new information has recently come to light in the United States, Canada, Ireland and Scotland, is there not now an unanswerable case for a full and impartial public inquiry into what really has been one of the major medical disasters in the National Health Service?
Lord Warner: My Lords, I do not accept any of those remarks. We regret that the papers were destroyed in error, which was, I think, explained to the noble Lord in a meeting with the former Permanent Secretary to the Department of Health. I think that it has been explained to him on a number of occasions that there was no deliberate attempt to destroy past papers. We understand that many of the papers were, unfortunately, destroyed, but I have to say that that did not take place under this Government.
I understand the way in which parts of the report may have been interpreted by people from the haemophilia world, and I have enormous sympathy with the circumstances that they face. It is regrettable if it has had that impact on them, but it is a fair and accurate report on what it was asked to do—to identify many of the events and chronology in that period, which were quite complex, and the extent to which
19 Apr 2006 : Column 1055
the policy of self-sufficiency would have avoided contaminated blood being used by haemophiliacs. The report makes it very clear that the self-sufficiency policy would not have achieved that objective.
Lord Snape : My Lords, before we line the pockets of the lawyers in a public inquiry, will the Minister accept that this is a human not a political problem? Did he see the BBC "Breakfast" programme this morning in which a young man was interviewed who had been infected by contaminated blood at the age of five, had been told by his parents at the age of 12 that he had a limited life expectancy, developed full-blown AIDS as a teenager and is still alive in his early twenties after a lifetime of pain and suffering, having been paid only £21,000 in compensation? Will the Government look again at such cases and, regardless of the necessity for a public inquiry, pay adequate compensation to those affected through no fault of their own?
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |