Prison Reform

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

The noble and learned Lord, with all his experience of the system, will appreciate that we have a duty, and therefore have to have the ability, to house all who are sent to prison by judges. What we are endeavouring to do is to identify the causes of reoffending. Once we have done that, we hope that that will reduce the numbers. If judges feel it is appropriate to sentence offenders to particular sentences, it is not for the Government to reduce those sentences simply to make the figures balance.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Woolf (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry, but if we are going strictly in turn, it is the turn of the Labour Benches. However, I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has been trying to get in. Therefore, if we go next to Labour, I suggest that we then go to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf.

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords, the Minister will know that in the nine years since the publication of my report, the reason that the number of women in prison has decreased is because of the establishment of a network of community women’s centres, which have been used by the courts to help those women turn their lives around. Under the new community rehabilitation contract regime introduced by the coalition Government one women’s centre, Alana House in Reading, has been closed because its CRC, MTC Novo, has refused to fund it. Other women’s centres do not even know what their funding is going to be after 1 April. Does the Minister agree that the inevitable result of this will be an increase in the women’s prison population?

[Lord Faulks]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness’s contribution to reducing the population of women prisoners and her concern for them. Of course, she will be pleased that their number is lower than it has been for a decade. We hope that we can reproduce the best practice found in Holloway—albeit it is closing—and in the women’s centres in making sure that the arrangements in prison are those best suited for women and their rehabilitation.

Prisons: Violence

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

The NICE estimate is that 90% of prisoners have at least one psychiatric disorder. Of course, the precise nature of a psychiatric disorder will vary. With many of them, prison may not be the correct place to treat them—although there may be other factors that make it appropriate for them to be there. NHS England has developed national specifications for health and justice services in English prisons and all prisons have clear commissioning models that focus on outcomes specific to custodial settings. All judges who sentence offenders will, or should, have adequate information to allow them to sentence appropriately. It then becomes a matter for the prison estate as to how best they are housed.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister may be aware that there are about 82,000 men in our prisons and over 3,000 women. Those women are responsible for about 50% of the self-harm in prison. Furthermore, since my report published nine years ago this week, the number of women who took their own lives in English prisons last year was a record. Two have taken their lives this year already, in the first two months. What factors does he think underline the deterioration in the safety of women in our prisons?

[Lord Faulks]

On the positive side, the female prison population is now under 4,000—the lowest it has ever been. In the speech I referred to earlier, the Prime Minister made a particular point of the importance of finding alternative ways of dealing with women offenders, preferably avoiding sending them to prison altogether, which has been very much the trend with sentencing. Of course, there will be an irreducible number who have to be sent to prison. Although the noble Baroness is quite right that any suicide in prison is a matter of complete regret, and self-harm is equally concerning, we are in the process of modernising the prison estate to ensure that there are the best regimes and that women are held in environments that better meet their gender-specific needs.

British Bill of Rights

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

I cannot for a moment pretend to understand President Putin’s thought processes or his secret desires. But whether or not we are satisfied with the decisions of the Strasbourg court can hardly justify some of the extraordinary tactics that he uses in Ukraine, or to treat dissidents and those who oppose his policies.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has just told the House that the consultation will start in autumn. Which autumn does he have in mind? Does he mean that it is imminent, or that it will be some time in the future?

[Lord Faulks]

This autumn.

Criminal Justice: Secure College

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Lord the statistics off the top of my head. At the moment we certainly incarcerate something like 85,000 of the overall adult population. As I said, we have reduced the number of young people in prison, and I shall write to the noble Lord with the comparative figure in due course.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

I think it is right to say that there are now fewer than 50 girls in the category to which this Question applies. A couple of years ago the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the Penal System, which I chair, held a year-long inquiry which showed that even those girls do not need to be held in this kind of accommodation and can be dealt with in the community. Does the Minister accept that?

[Lord Faulks]

I can assist the noble Baroness and the House by telling her that, as of today, 36 girls are in custody—19 in secure training centres and 17 in secure children’s homes—so it is a reducing number. I think that those who are responsible for sending young women and girls to prison have it well in mind that it should be a last resort. The Government are anxious to keep all young women and girls out of prison if it can possibly be avoided.

Offenders: Rehabilitation

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

I entirely accept that at least a significant part of imprisonment should be concerned with rehabilitation. I also accept what my noble friend says about the importance of encouraging ex-offenders to resume their life in so far as possible. We do, however, expect employers to be sensitive to re-employing offenders, depending on the particular nature of the employment.

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, while acknowledging the importance of the opportunity to resume career and noting that many men who come out of prison have a family home to which they can return, is the Minister aware that for the overwhelming majority of women coming out of prison, accommodation is their priority, not employment? They want somewhere to live with their children. Is he aware that women who are remanded for 28 days and who are not then charged lose their home and their children, with little chance of getting either back?

[Lord Faulks]

That is clearly a matter of concern. The Government are aware that that can be an issue and are anxious to ensure, so far as possible, that when offenders leave prison they are given as much support as possible. The noble Baroness will be aware of the transforming rehabilitation steps that have been taken by this Government. We wish to ensure, so far as possible, that the return to the community is as satisfactory as it can be.

Prisons: Education and Training

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister just referred to purposeful activity for those who are in our prisons. I know of one women’s prison where this activity is filling sandwiches for Pret A Manger. Is this the kind of purposeful activity to which he refers?

[Lord Faulks]

Purposeful activity covers a number of different areas: work, training, education, PE and programmes designed to tackle the causes of prisoners’ offending. Quite a lot of the emphasis on purposeful activity is to try to allow prisoners to engage in activities where they will have some prospects of work outside, particularly in the catering business. With great respect to the noble Baroness, who I know has great knowledge of these issues, that is in fact not out of step with where they might be able to find employment afterwards.

Prisons: Prisoners with Children

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Corston (Lab)]

My Lords, 17,000 children a year are affected by their mothers’ imprisonment. Given that the Government plan to close two women’s prisons, which means that there will be only 12 women’s prisons in England and Wales and which will lead to much longer journeys for those visiting their mothers and, often, to catastrophic breaks in the relationship between mother and child, will the Minister confirm that the mother and baby unit at Holloway prison is not subject to closure?

[Lord McNally]

I am not aware that there is any plan to do that but, if there is, I will write to the noble Baroness. However, such decisions are taken for operational reasons in the region. I have visited the Holloway unit and I know that it is valued because while it is not the most modern prison, it is close to people’s homes. The noble Baroness says that we are closing two women’s prisons, but the major complaint about those prisons which we plan to close is that they are a long way from anywhere, never mind not being close to home. We are developing the custodial estate so that women will be in the prison closest to their home. We have found from all the research that that is the factor which women in prison want. With that, coupled with the rehabilitation reforms and through-the-gate care for women, we hope to be able to address a number of the problems that the noble Baroness is concerned about.

EU Treaties: Justice and Home Affairs Opt-Outs

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, that is a good example of why we are giving careful thought to this array of measures. The European arrest warrant has played an important role in speeding up extradition arrangements between countries and represents the type of practical co-operation that we should all support. However, despite its success, the use of the warrant for trivial offences has damaged its reputation with many, and lengthy pre-trial detentions have also caused problems in some cases. It is those areas of proportionality and practicality in using the warrant that we are trying to address, both in discussions with our European partners and in looking at the process as it affects our own dealings with this warrant.

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that it does not require what he calls “careful time” to consider the European arrest warrant? Criminals are not fools. If we opt out, they will go and live in Spain, the way they used to years ago, beyond the reach of British law. Given that there is much greater pressure in view of international terrorism, why does it take any time at all to consider this issue?

[Lord McNally]

It takes time because it is part of a range of issues. Nobody is talking about jettisoning all these measures, but some of the proposals in the Protocol 36 decision were written when reference to the European Court of Justice was not in mind. There is a variety of technical reasons why careful study is warranted. I assure the House that the Government will continue, as they have done right through their period of office, to address opt-ins and opt-outs on the basis of national security and national interest. When we have our package to bring before the House, we will ask your Lordships to make decisions on that basis.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I, too, support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, on this amendment. Like my noble friend Lady Howe, I am sorry that yet again we should be coming to an important Bill like this and raising the issue of women as something that has been admitted, rather than actually trying to discuss in more detail exactly what should be done with and for women.

We have discussed frequently women in prison, but we have not discussed women in the community so frequently. On several occasions when it has come up, I mentioned the need for specialist women offender teams around the country. We have also mentioned the possibility of a women’s justice board, which would be responsible, like the children’s justice board for children, for looking after both women in custody and women in the community. I hope that the Minister will recommend to his colleague, to whom the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, referred, that she should look very carefully at this because there will be a need for somebody to keep oversight over the cohorts of women around the country who are being subjected to myriad different providers, and there will need to be consistency as well as quality in the content of what is done for them, so I hope account is taken of that in considering this amendment.

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords, I am delighted to support the amendment tabled in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. It is 15 months now since we had the first vote specifically on this issue that I can remember. At that time there was a tied vote and we were promised a strategy. Subsequent attempts to amend legislation to provide for gender-specific services have failed.

My reading of the current government policy on transforming rehabilitation is that we are going back 10 years, because we are going to have an offender strategy that can be tweaked for women, rather than asking what kind of strategic priorities we need for women offenders. Those are missing. We have a two-page statement, not a strategy, from the Government about what is going to happen for women. If this was a serious undertaking, this kind of amendment would have formed part of the Bill. It would not be up to Members of the House to try to put it into the Bill.

The other thing that I found very troubling during the course of my review was how many women knew that their lives were spiralling out of control but knew that there was nowhere they could go to get assistance. That is what was so amazing about the seed-corn money, although it was £15 million, that the previous Government put into keeping women out of prison by providing women’s centres as alternatives to custody. I know that the Minister has visited at least one, and I am sure that noble Lords who are interested in this area will have done the same. You hear stories of women who have gone through a period of the most amazing redemption because they have had these gender-specific services from people who understand the reality of women’s lives and the centrality of family and children. They understand that when women go to prison, unlike men, there is no one to keep the home fires burning, and they usually lose their children and do not get them back.

All these issues can be dealt with easily if you make provision statutorily for gender-specific services, because people have to think about it. It is not a question of women being an add-on. I accept that, given the overall prison population—there are about 86,000 men in prison and 4,000 women—you could say that women are an add-on. However, given that some 17,000 children a year are affected by their mothers’ imprisonment, and a significant proportion of those children end up in prison themselves, such provision seems to me to be the most important preventive strategy. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government are so reluctant to have this in the Bill, because it would be a matter of pride to do so. I know that the Minister will tell me how much has happened, and I will listen with patience but with some irritation, because, given my experience in the 21 years since I first set foot in a women’s prison, I know that it will not be enough. So I say to the Government: if this amendment is not accepted, we really want to see something that will work.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Marks spoke on the needs and importance of specific services for women. I hesitate to follow the noble Baroness because I cannot be nearly as powerful as she was, but I cannot keep silent either. I spoke on the issue on the previous day in Committee. I appreciate that this is a different amendment that addresses a different matter from those that we have looked at before. On short sentences and a period of supervision, I want to make one specific point before I come to the more general. Unless the supervision requirements are appropriate, for all the reasons that we have talked about, the likelihood of a breach of the requirements by the offender must be higher, and that will mean that she is back in custody. That is exactly what we want to avoid.

I know how strongly my noble friend Lord McNally feels about this, and I know that we are going to hear that work is under way, led by his colleague, Helen Grant. However, I will make one point and ask one question. My point is that a marker of some sort should be put down that shows the importance with which this House regards this issue—like the noble Baroness, one finds it difficult to find the words, but they are not specialist services, because they are not an add-on; they are a different group and they need different services. Furthermore, the marker should acknowledge the importance with which this issue is regarded outside this House by, I think, everyone in the offender management penal reform field to whom I have spoken.

My question to my noble friend, who is probably at least as frustrated as I am, is what amendment, if this is not accepted, would put down that marker, get past the Treasury, if that is where the problem is, and not restrict the progress of work done in the MoJ but enable us to make the point? Many noble Lords have put down a string of amendments. If none of those is going to get a tick from the Minister, can he help us—I know that he is on side—by suggesting what would take the matter forward at this stage?

Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012

Baroness Corston Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, when the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, sat down, having made her usual very powerful indictment, there was a growl of approval because across the House there is an abhorrence of domestic violence and a desire to help the vulnerable, particularly the disabled. However, I ask the House not to take that sympathy into an assumption that all this is being put at risk by a callous and uncaring Government. As I pointed out before, the legal aid bill will still be running at something like £1.7 billion when all this is over, and criminal legal aid is now at just over £1 billion. However, I will not start quibbling over figures with the noble Lord, Lord Bach, as he demonstrated his command of figures earlier in his speech.

I contest, and worry about the impression that will be given because of strong campaigning, that legal aid is somehow removed from these areas. I will try to deal with the points that were made by the noble and learned Baroness Lady Scotland and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I will also address the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, which were made with his usual quiet courtesy. The point that I made about remoteness, which is a cold, hostile kind of word, is that we underestimate what new technologies can do to help with access to justice. That is the point I was making. On the point he made about mediation, I certainly am not overclaiming for it. Mediation is certainly not a cure-all. However, I thought that he threw in one very interesting statistic: only 5% of family law cases are contested. That is worth keeping in mind.

On the points made by the new president of the Family Division, I have been in this job long enough to give due deference to the separation of powers and the opinions of the judiciary. Of course, he is right to be very concerned, but I am not sure that the term “desperately unprepared” is fair. I know the amount of effort that has gone in, in my department, to make sure that these changes can be introduced as effectively as possible and that the help we want to give is given to the people who need it.

I will deal first with the points made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland. Perhaps I should clarify, for the benefit of readers of Hansard, that perhaps my opening remarks should not have been made and we should have gone straight to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. So my reply came at the beginning of the debate. My plea is that I have been in the House for only 15 years and am still getting used to some of its more arcane procedures. Although my reply was all-encompassing, it probably did not address some of the specific issues that were addressed by the noble Baroness, and by the noble and learned Baroness. Therefore, I will do that now.

Because the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, deploys such ferocious talents in making a case against what the Government are doing, I worry that she will lead vulnerable women affected by domestic violence into the fear that somehow legal aid will not be available. I am sure that that is not her intention, but it could happen. I will point out that in the regulations that have been published there are 10 separate, distinct qualifications for legal aid. I will not trouble the House by reading them all. They are very precise, and it is simply not true to say that women who are subject to domestic violence will not be able to get legal aid. They will be covered by a wide range of qualifications for entry through the gateway. We should let the system start.

In answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and others, we will monitor the impact from day one.

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords, is the Minister suggesting that my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland is either scaremongering or not telling the truth?

[Lord McNally]

The noble Baroness is putting words into my mouth. When you start talking about death and saying that people will die because of this, it raises the temperature. The noble and learned Baroness is entitled to make her point—and I certainly would not like her to prosecute me. However, there is a case for the defence and I will try to make it. Part of the case is that the regulations we have set down have 10 specific areas that will qualify women for help in domestic violence cases.

In making her case, some of the figures that the noble and learned Baroness gave went beyond the issue of providing legal aid in family law cases to the much wider problem, which we all acknowledge, of domestic violence and violence against women in our society. It is unfair to use the figures and statistics for domestic violence in general to imply that in the specific and narrow area of legal aid in family law cases there is not a wide range of provisions. I refer the House to the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations 2012. For the benefit of the House, perhaps I can write to the noble and learned Baroness and put a copy in the Library, setting out the various qualifications for access to legal aid in domestic violence cases that there will be under our reforms.

Both the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised the question of a possible £60 charge. We have been in negotiation with the professional organisations. As was rightly said, the BMA has raised questions. However, we are asking applicants to provide a simple, standard template letter from a doctor or a nurse—not a medical report—and we see no reason why the charge for a letter from a GP should be more than a simple administration fee. We have arranged for communications to go out from the Royal College of General Practitioners, emphasising that GPs should respond as rapidly as they can and be as sensitive as possible to the needs of applicants. I invite the BMA to give similar guidance as part of its contribution to dealing with these issues.

The case cited by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, was certainly harrowing. It is impossible for me at the Dispatch Box to deal with this kind of case. From what she described, I would be surprised if, even under our reforms, there would not be access to legal aid, including a protective injunction that could be applied for in the circumstances that she described. On the question of evidence requirements, we will keep them under review and would welcome evidence of how they are operating.

The noble and learned Baroness raised the issue of simultaneous orders, and whether one could apply for separate orders at the same time. It is possible to combine such proceedings. However, the funding may not be available for the entirety of the proceedings. Funding is available for non-molestation order applications, but in order to receive funding for a matter falling within paragraphs 12 or 13 of Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Act, the applicant would need domestic violence evidence. I gather from the briefing that I asked for that the noble and learned Baroness may be right: there may have to be two trips. Certainly we will look at whether that will add costs and time to the process.

Are we putting training in place? The Department of Health has worked with the Royal College of GPs to develop an innovative e-learning course on violence against women and children. The course was launched in Liverpool in October 2011. It consists of four modules that aim to help clinicians provide an appropriate healthcare response to domestic violence. There is a similar training for police to spot evidence and act on it.

On the point about cross-examination, judges have certain powers to address the situation, including special measures if necessary: for example, by intervening to prevent inappropriate questioning or by having questions relayed to the witness rather than put directly. The noble and learned Baroness asked about access, and whether there would be an identifiable person co-ordinating complaints of domestic violence in each area. The answer is yes. The guidance provides for links to be provided to the relevant multiagency risk assessment conference, which will be chaired by someone who will take direct responsibility in that area.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, mentioned the problem of women’s refuges being full. It is right that, at the moment, that cannot be used as evidence, but I should like to take that back as part of the early review. She also made the specific request about equivalence in cross-undertakings. There is no provision that cross-undertakings must be of equivalence. However, the cross-undertaking must be given under Section 46 of the Family Law Act 1996. Where it is a general form of cross-undertaking, which is not made under Section 46, but, for example, to aid the smooth running of proceedings, it would not count as a cross-undertaking, but there would have to be equivalence in the cross-undertaking. I hope that that makes it clear.