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Lord Rooker: My Lords, therein lies the problem!
Lord Rooker: My Lords, hang on. One of the issues is that short sentences are an abject and complete waste of time. They do not do any good at all for the system or the people concerned. Let us get that clear.
I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, on securing the debate. I shall try to address the terms of the debate as printed on the Order Paper as our discussion has gone very wide of them. I thank the noble Baroness and recognise on behalf of the Government the work of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. We also appreciate the work of the independent inquiry commissioned by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation chaired by Lord Coulsfield. I have certainly looked at that and read the executive summaries of both reports. The messages are very similar and are certainly ones that we want to take on board.
I freely admit that I shall not be able to do justice to all the issues raised in the debate. As I say, I shall try to stick closely to the relevant issues: community involvement in determining policies relevant to crime prevention, alternatives to prison and the rehabilitation of offenders. The noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, referred to education and her work with Crimestoppers. She was quite right to read out the relevant phone number. My noble friend Lord Williams referred to family contact. I shall try to comment on that. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury mentioned the use of language. That is a very important matter. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern—I agree with much of what she said in this regard—referred to tipping the balance towards social inclusion rather than exclusion. I support the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, who referred to working with children before anti-social behaviour orders were imposed.
The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, made an incredibly powerful speech. That speech, along will all the others, is worth reading. He spoke in a positive, challenging fashion. The noble Lord, Lord Fellowes, said that we needed to ensure more public confidence in community sentences. That is a fair point to which I hope to return in a moment. Getting the message across in that regard is a key element in winning public confidence. I shall disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno. If anyone thinks I shall suggest that 24-hour drinking and casinos are the answer, they have the wrong Minister.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to Restorative Justice. I shall address aspects of that matter. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, indicated that as he had kindly
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provided me with his speech earlier in the day, I must answer the five points that he made. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, stumped us in that foreign nationals are not mentioned on the Order Paper. However, I shall ensure—I do not normally do this but I must do so on this occasion, as I did some three years ago when I replied to a long debate on prisons as a Minister at the Home Office—that a compendium letter is sent out to noble Lords covering all the points that I do not cover today. I have separated all the notes that I have received in the past three hours into a pile on which I can comment and a pile that I shall not get anywhere near using. However, I shall do my best.
First, I want to make some general points about the work of the Home Office. The two reports I mentioned will certainly assist our work. I make that absolutely clear. We will use the reports. They will assist us to increase public confidence. The general public know very little about the criminal justice system. They do not come into contact with it and therefore it is a mystery. There is no question that they gain false perspectives from the tabloids. We hope that the public will gain confidence in community penalties.
We must better promote what is already taking place. An enormous amount of work is taking place and as I realised in preparing for the debate—one can get out of touch when not dealing with issues on a daily basis—we are not telling people about it. We must do much more work in that regard. I refer to our work to rehabilitate offenders, to tackle drug problems, to assist offenders to obtain employment and to the robust nature of community sentences for both young and adult offenders. I want to highlight the encouraging progress we are making in reducing reoffending as shown in the latest reconviction rates published last week.
We have a large reform agenda underway that will take us further in our drive to prevent crime and reduce reoffending. This includes the implementation of the new National Offender Management Service and the introduction of the Generic Community Order and Custody Minus. There will, of course, be many legislative opportunities to discuss these issues in the long parliamentary Session that we are entering.
I want to stress the Government's commitment to dialogue, consultation and the involvement of local people in the work of the criminal justice system. That is why, as I say, the reports are doubly helpful. The Home Secretary has described civil renewal and community engagement as a partnership approach to delivering public services, and this includes criminal justice reform. We do not see community engagement as an optional extra: it must be a thread that runs through all we do in explaining and running the criminal justice system to make it more civilised. We certainly cannot claim that we have a success on our hands and that we can export our prison system to the rest of Europe as we have the worst record in that regard—I make no bones about that. For many people civil renewal is not significant new work as much is already happening, but we know that this needs to be shared. That is the point of explaining what is going on. It needs to be promoted and developed across the
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country so that we get a positive focus for the criminal justice system and people understand that it is a seamless system from beginning to end, and one that they can trust.
Good examples of recent community engagement initiatives include the involvement of volunteers in the Circles of Support and Accountability projects where local people both support and monitor sex offenders. That is a somewhat different headline from the normal headline, which I experienced when I was in the other place, of "local people shun paedophile". That is the normal headline. I refer to the establishment of a community liaison group in Reading, a joint prison and probation project, working with partners and engaging local people in dialogue as offenders renovated a local park. That was a real bonus as people saw what was happening as regards alternative approaches to offenders.
We are building on firm foundations here. A great deal of good work is being undertaken around the country. There is a tradition of local involvement in the work of the correctional services that we are learning from and developing. Youth offending teams have more than 10,000 volunteers working on referral order panels and with young offenders. There are 1,800 members of independent monitoring boards involved in the scrutiny of the work of prisons and more than 600 members of local probation boards. We have an impressive range of activities by volunteers and mentors working alongside offenders in prisons and the community, supporting and monitoring their activities and making a significant contribution to our work to reduce re-offending. We value and appreciate the commitment and the enthusiasm of these volunteers who bring a different perspective. They provide offenders with a different kind of relationship and make a significant contribution to the work of the state and the statutory sector.
We also have more than 5 million hours of unpaid work undertaken by offenders subject to community sentences as well as reparation work by prisoners benefiting a whole range of local communities. In addition to the Home Secretary's comments, today the Prime Minister announced a clean-up campaign to start in February and March so that more local people from a range of communities can have a say in the kind of work they want to see offenders doing.
Work with victims is important: we want to increase their satisfaction. A recent survey by MORI showed that 85 per cent of victims surveyed who were seen by probation victim contact officers were very or fairly satisfied with the work of those staff. That is a fairly high percentage. Early findings from Restorative Justice approaches that bring together victims and offenders—we have heard much about that—indicate high satisfaction levels. We see this as an important area for further development that should contribute to an increase in public confidence.
Our success in encouraging community engagement has also received international recognition. I am not familiar with the project I am about to mention, but a UK project, the Birmingham Neighbourhood Safety Project, was awarded this year's European Crime
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Prevention Award at a ceremony earlier this week. An independent evaluation found that the project contributed to an overall fall in crime of 14 per cent in the communities concerned, with youth crime falling by 29 per cent.
As I have said, we need to build on all this good work that is going on around the country. The criminal justice programme of reform builds in community engagement in our work to prevent crime, on police reform, in the work we are doing to increase the diversity of the judiciary and the work of local criminal justice boards to increase public confidence in our work.
I say "in our work"; it is a sign of immaturity and lack of confidence in what someone is doing when, because they might not agree with what their opponents are doing, they have to use the shorthand of accusing them of being soft on crime. When I talk about "our work", it is the work of Parliament. We are all one society here, representative or not. This House is certainly far more representative of society in this debate than the other place; those who have been in the other place know that to be the truth.
The establishment of the National Offender Management Service also offers a new opportunity to consider how we engage with our criminal justice partners, the sentencers and local communities. High on the agenda is work with sentencers; that is very important. The kind of speeches that Ministers and others who are leaders make are important, so that sentencers get the right message. Anyone who wants to track speeches and comments and then have a look at what has happened to the prison population in recent years will sometimes see a correlation that we wish was not there. It makes sense for us to work towards more local people being aware of the work of the criminal justice system and the contribution of prisons, probation and the youth offending teams. In relation to sentencers and community involvement, a lot of good practice and innovation is already around across the country. We have to share that.
I am never going to manage all the points now, but I shall do in due course. The noble Lord, Lord Williams, asked about visitor and family centres. Some 112 prisons have access to a visitor centre at present. The running cost for each centre remains a matter for each establishment. There is no doubt that they are an enormous benefit to the prisons concerned. There may be good reasons why those prisons that have not got them do not do so, but 112 is about three-quarters of the 130-odd prisons.
The noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, asked about literacy and offending. There is significant research into the links between low literacy and numeracy and youth crime. That is a key issue. The Youth Justice Board has spent £40 million in the past three years introducing and enhancing basic skills within the young offender institutions. There is a roll-out of the "national plus" scheme for improving reading and writing among young people in custody. Work is under way; it has to be evidence-based, of course.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury asked about investing in prevention of youth crime. In addition to what I have just said, the Youth Justice
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Board has a £10 million investment in prevention programmes, through the youth inclusion programmes, to catch young people early—"catch" in the sense of doing something with them. Recent spending review settlement will increase the youth inclusion programmes to the most needy estates across the country.
The right reverend Prelate raised issues about restorative justice programmes. Work is undertaken, even at an early age. Someone else asked about this. My answer ties up with the ASBOs. We do not automatically issue the ASBO, but get some work done first. That is also the case prior to cautions and final warnings. Work is to be done of a positive nature, because we see its benefit. Restorative justice came on to my radar only about four or five years ago. A friend of mine who was a magistrate in the south-east listened to the former chief constable of Thames Valley at a large conference and was seized by the idea. I have shared a platform with him since, and know how people feel; I felt the same on that occasion. That massive contribution needs explanation and information, so that it builds people's confidence. Nothing can be done without that.
I was asked about how prisons look after young people with serious mental health problems, and am conscious that I cannot do justice to any of the three articles that appeared in the Guardian. I read one case this morning, and knew what was going to happen before I got half way through. It was tragic the way that the service failed that young person. The failure beggars belief, but one could see the thread of what was happening. There has to be an answer to that.
The Youth Justice Board has secured agreement through the Children Act—it got Royal Assent just before the Queen's Speech in November—that prisons must be part of the local area child protection agreements, soon to be known as the local safeguarding children boards. The Youth Justice Board also promotes the need to see young people who are offenders as children first and offenders second. The priority one gives is important in making sure that the real issues are dealt with. Those issues are not always the crimes that have brought people to the attention of the authorities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, asked me about ASBOs in relation to young people. ASBOs on youth must be issued in conjunction with the youth offending team to ensure appropriate prevention interventions. The ASBO penalties have to be advised by the wider youth prevention schemes, or they will be breached. At the moment, about 50 per cent of ASBOs on youth end up being breached; there has been a significant rise in custody as a result. That is being analysed, as it is a serious issue, through the Youth Justice Board.
The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, asked about police in schools. The Youth Justice Board and the Department for Education and Skills have rolled out a safer schools initiative, in which police officers are based in schools. I do not know how far or how many, but it has obviously got beyond a pilot programme, which I hope is good news.
My noble friend Lord Rea asked several questions. I have some figures on one of them and will use them if he does not mind; I will address all the other issues
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in a letter. He asked about drug treatment and testing orders. In 2002–03, there were 6,000 orders. That doubled to 13,000 in 2004–05. The real issue is what happens afterwards. Research has indicated that the longer offenders remain in the treatment, the more likely they are to reduce their levels of offending and drug misuse. Evaluation of the three drug treatment and testing order pilots found that, on average, offenders committed 75 per cent fewer offences while on the order and reduced their spend on drugs by more than 90 per cent.
The two-year follow-up reconviction study—my noble friend asked about it—found that there was a significant reduction in the average number of convictions per year in the two years following the order in all three pilot sites. The study also found that offenders who completed their orders—it was only 30 per cent—had a reconviction rate of only 53 per cent, compared to 91 per cent for revokees. I emphasise that. The figure is significant; keeping them on the order is obviously the key element.
My noble friend asked me about mental health in prisons and on probation. In summary, in terms of all the figures that I have, National Health Service mental health investment is expected to reach £20 million a year by 2005–06. That means that, within the next three years, an in-reach type of service will be available in every prison in England and Wales. It will not happen tomorrow, but within three years.
The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked about final warnings issued and accompanied by a restorative justice reparation. The Youth Justice Board sets targets for youth offending teams to provide a restorative justice intervention for all final warnings where appropriate. Current data suggest that, in most parts of the country, that target is met.
I am conscious of the fact that I have not even got to the summary of some of the responses that I wanted to make but, as I have said to everyone who has spoken, we will analyse the contributions. They have been incredibly useful. The debate has highlighted the important role of local communities, so its focus has widened. We could not have a narrow debate; in some ways, the subject goes with the debate that we had on women in prison the other week.
The Government's reform agenda includes working to get appropriate, consistent and well-targeted use of sentences, through the Sentencing Guidelines Council, and will provide sentences with credible alternatives to custody. I was conscious of the recommendations that magistrates and judges go to see what happens with community sentences and follow that up. I know that that happens, but it is highlighted in the reports. I want to stress that for some dangerous and serious offenders a prison sentence is the only option that will protect the public. In some ways, when you ask, "What's the purpose of prison?", that is the answer. It is a last resort, for those who have to be incarcerated for public safety. It must be a last resort. We believe that short sentences do little to reduce offending but that they disrupt ties with the community. You cannot do any
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work in prison to help someone who is there for a short time. The chances are that they will be moved anyway during that period.
We must have an effective criminal justice system. We must act and be seen to act on behalf of all the people whom it serves. In this case, in order to obtain wider public confidence on new alternatives to prison, I believe that the better way forward is to help those who have offended not to re-offend and to focus on community engagement, so that people have some knowledge and will feel that they have ownership of the system. Let us face it, the previous way forward has not exactly worked with blinding success, has it?
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