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Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, made some important points with which I can agree. For the avoidance of doubt, we very much value the difference in the skills exhibited by probation officers and in the Prison Service. They have different but complementary functions and we want to lose the skills of neither.
From our criminal justice debates, noble Lords will know that we are trying to develop a more holistic approach to the management of the offender, so that it will be seamless. In order to do that effectively, we are bringing the service together, but we will rely on the skills and ability of the Prison Service and the officers within it and the skills of the probation service and their development.
As for whether the changes will require fresh legislation, we do not believe that our recommendations will. In the Criminal Justice Act 2003, we have already introduced a framework and do not think that any additional legislative change will be necessary to implement most of the recommendations—the major ones. Of course, if we discover difficulties with some of the minutiae, we will come back.
Your Lordships will know that the nature of the inspectorate has not yet been definitively decided, but it is clear that it must be independent, robust in its operation, fair and frank. Having had the advantage of holding the office of Home Secretary, the noble Lord will know how vital it is for us to receive independent advice on how the service is being delivered. We are entirely committed to maintaining the independence and efficacy of inspections.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, I welcome the new emphasis on education, training and work programmes in prisons but will my noble friend confirm that prison and probation is not about process—ticking the boxes of key performance indicators—but outcomes, mainly measured by falling rates of reconviction? Can she explain how the measures will end the position where 74 in every 100 prisoners under the age of 21 are back behind bars within two years?
Will she visit Mount Prison in Bovingdon, which I was able to do last month, to see the impressive range of rehabilitation work under way there, including the use of longer serving prisoners as mentors to those who are to be released earlier? Will she also guarantee that
there will be enough cash to turn the Statement's ambitions for rehabilitation into reality across the system?
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I can certainly reassure my noble friend Lord Corbett that that is our expressed intent. We too are monitoring carefully the impressive projects that are being carried out in a number of our prisons. We are seeking to identify what works so that we can spread that practice more widely. We have been encouraged, for instance, by the work of Youth Justice Board for England and Wales. Its efforts have significantly reduced recidivism among young offenders. It has fallen by 22 per cent, which is a very real reduction. We wish to take advantage of all the intelligence that we have available to make sure that that can be replicated across the piece. I agree with my noble friend about its importance. I cannot guarantee that I shall have an opportunity to go to Mount Prison, but I shall certainly ensure that the invitation is heard by my private office and indeed by the Minister responsible for prisons, unless he may beat me to it.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, there is a degree of humbug in much of the Statement. The Minister will no doubt recall that Schedule 19 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 was the product of the Home Secretary personally. It was his conditioned reflex to the courts having declared that the European Convention on Human Rights, accepted by the Government, disentitled him from playing any part, as this House had frequently pointed out, in the sentencing of people convicted of murder.
Schedule 19 resulted in his laying down minimum sentences that were at least 50 per cent greater than those which had been agreed a year previously, thus jacking up the whole of the sentencing regime for serious offences. The Minister will no doubt recall—hence my reference to "humbug"—how Schedule 19 pre-empted the Sentencing Guidelines Council, resulting in judicial discretion being removed and judges being prevented from sentencing according to the justice of the case. As a result, the suggestion that 8,000 more places are required is a gross underestimate. If the sentencing regime for all serious offences is jacked up as a result of the Home Secretary's Schedule 19, the Prison Service will find itself in an impossible position.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I am delighted that we are returning to a subject that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, and I have debated on a number of occasions, so he will not be surprised by my saying that I do not agree with him. The noble and learned Lord will recall from our almost endless conversations on the matter that Schedule 19 provides the court with a starting point. It is not a minimum term; it is a starting point, with aggravating and mitigating features that the court can take into account in determining the nature and length of the sentence. I respectfully suggest to the noble and learned Lord that that does not detract from the
exercise of discretion, but rather it burdens the judge with exercising his judgment with a greater degree of acuity and clarity than was perhaps always obvious to the outside observer. It perhaps makes it easier for one to understand why the decision has been reached.It would be verging on the unfair—I hesitate to say it to the noble and learned Lord, because I know that he would never wish to be unfair—to describe the Statement as "humbug". It is an accurate reflection of that to which we aspire in terms of sentencing. We have made it clear, as we did during the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill, that the Government are wholly committed to ensuring that only those who need to be in prison, because of the nature of their offence or pattern of offending behaviour and for whom alternative sentences are not appropriate, should be there. We have made that point repeatedly.
My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has called for longer sentences for murderers and for serious offenders who have committed the most heinous crimes, but not for other offenders for whom we believe rehabilitation, restitution and recovery are possible.
Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I welcome the emphasis on prison education in the Statement. Does the Minister agree that education is the saviour of many an offender and prevents him reoffending? Does she further agree that the greatest barrier to delivering effective education programmes in prisons is overcrowding? It causes the demoralisation of the prison officers and a high level of sick leave. As the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, has mentioned, prisoners have to be moved around from one prison to another and are unable to complete their programmes. Noble Lords may have shared my incredulity in hearing the Home Secretary blame the judiciary for sentencing drift, in the light of the fact that since the Government came to power, they have introduced about 700 new criminal offences in addition to the jacking-up of sentences to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, referred.
In light of that, perhaps the Minister will indicate what chance the Sentencing Guidelines Council will have of stopping sentencing drift and the inexorable rise of the prison population, about which Her Majesty's Government appear to be proud. I share the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, on the self-congratulatory tone of the Statement in respect of the increased number of prison places and the building of seven new prisons. I should have thought that that is an indictment and an admission of the Government's failure to tackle the rise in crime and to reduce the rate of reoffending.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I do not accept that the rise is the result solely of the efforts of the Government. There has been sentencing drift. The noble Baroness will recall from our debates on the Criminal Justice Bill that we referred to the imbalance in sentences from one part of the country to another. In the north-west, driving offences are dealt with in one way, whereas in places such as Essex, drivers who are found guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol have a 74 per cent chance of going to prison.
There are regional variations that have nothing to do with government policy, because the same law is applied in very different ways in different areas of the country.The drift in custodial sentencing in magistrates' courts has more than tripled. It has risen from five per cent to 17 per cent. In Crown Courts, it has nearly doubled, rising from 17 per cent to 28 per cent in the past 10 years. There have been changes in the way in which non-serious and non-violent offences are dealt with. Sentencing drift for theft and handling offences has nearly tripled. Eight per cent of offenders used to be sent to prison; that proportion has now risen to 22 per cent. For motoring offences, the figure has risen by 500 per cent for men and by 400 per cent for women.
We must address those drifts and changes in pattern. They cannot with due fairness and propriety be held at the Government's door. There has been a drift in the sentencing pattern. The Sentencing Guidelines Council will help greatly to stop the drift, because there will be very clear bench-marks to deal with regional variations. It will not mean that we will have total uniformity across the country, because at various times an offence may be more serious in one area and it would be totally explicable why that area might be dealt with differently. It is to be hoped that inexplicable variations will be minimised. That is a major improvement.
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