Accidental Prison Releases
Baroness Janke Excerpts(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Lord Timpson (Lab)
The process is a mixture of paperwork and computers and digital. In an offender management unit, there are literally boxes and boxes of paperwork, all over desks and on the floor, that follow offenders around the various prisons that they go to.
My and the team’s solution is very much digitally based, but we need to make sure we link that across the whole justice system, and the Home Office as well, because a number of the errors can be caused not just in the prison but in the courts too. So, longer term, it has got to be right that we look at a digital solution across the whole justice sector.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, what assessment has the Minister made of the raising of the skilled workers visa threshold and its impact on the Prison Service, in view of the current difficulties?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
It is right that the Government want to bring down net migration, and we are supporting the staff who are affected. I have to say that the staff I have met do a fantastic job and we want to support them as much as we can.
Public Libraries
Baroness Janke Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, libraries are not only welcoming havens and refuges for people of all ages, but much more, as other noble Lords have said. Nearly 800 have closed since 2010 and many more are likely to do so, as local councils’ budgets shrink. But at what cost? The cost will be the loss of free books to poor families, children and the elderly, loss of IT access to the elderly and poor, loss of a warm, accessible facility to local communities and loss of local advice.
An investment strategy is very much needed, and the University of East Anglia has provided a means of valuing library services, which I hope could be looked at as part of assessing a strategy. It ascribes £3.4 billion of value to national library services. I hope this report may be helpful. Libraries change lives and must stay at the heart of our communities, where they belong.