Baroness Burt of Solihull
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Prisoners: Reoffending
Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts(1 day, 18 hours ago)
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Lord Timpson (Lab)
My noble friend is right that, in the past, that has been a significant problem. It still happens, but it happens far less. We try to release people on a Thursday, but some are still released on Fridays because of various technicalities. One of the things that I am working really hard at is getting people into housing when they are released. Over 14% of people leave prison with nowhere to live, and it is not surprising that they come back so often. For example, I was at HMP Bronzefield last week, a well-run prison. I found there that the women who are leaving with nowhere to live are coming back. The average length of stay of a woman in Bronzefield is 56 days. We need to ensure that there are more reasons why they can get out and stay out.
Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)
How much of the £700 million promised to probation will be going to the Probation Service for more probation officers’ training and support, et cetera, and how much of it will be going to Serco for tags? The Chief Inspector of Probation, as I understand it, has yet to get a straight answer to this. If the Minister does not have the answer in front of him, perhaps he could write to me and leave a copy in the Library.
Lord Timpson (Lab)
The extra £700 million for probation is a 45% increase. From what I have learned, all roads lead back to probation, and so that is where we need to focus our investment. We are recruiting 1,300 more staff and we will be recruiting more. We have not decided exactly how the money is going be split up. A lot of it will be for accommodation, some of it for tagging, and some of it for the support networks to help with mental health and work. I am confident that we can make big changes quickly, but we have to embrace digital technology. Far too much of probation officers’ time—70%—is spent doing admin, when I believe that 70% of their time should be spent face-to-face with offenders, helping them turn their lives around.