Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Bishop of Gloucester Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 25th March 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

172: After Clause 56, insert the following new Clause—
“Data collection in relation to children of prisonersThe Secretary of State must collect and publish annual data identifying—(a) how many prisoners are the primary carers of a child,(b) how many children have a primary carer who is a prisoner, and(c) the ages of those children.”

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, tabled this amendment, to which I am very pleased to add my name in support and to move it today in this final stage of Committee on the Bill. In his absence, I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the noble Lord for his commitment to the families of prisoners. This is also an issue which I know my right reverend friend the Archbishop of Canterbury cares deeply about, as well.

This amendment was selected for Report stage in the other place but not discussed. Introduced by Harriet Harman, it is an important progress chaser to the Government’s response to the 2019 report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which she then chaired. This proposed new clause would require the Secretary of State to collect and publish annual data, identifying how many prisoners are primary carers of a child or children, how many children have a primary carer in prison, and the ages of those children. Its inclusion would be highly appropriate for this Bill, which focuses on both victims and prisoners.

When a parent is committed to custody, their child should not also receive a sentence; they should not be punished or overlooked as a result of their parent’s crime. When a primary carer, or indeed any parent, is removed from the home, children and other family members are deprived of a provider of care and income. Often a shadow world of shame and stigma begins, which can haunt them throughout life and put them at risk of getting caught up in the criminal justice system themselves. If we are to prevent offending and anti-social behaviour then we need to be serious about looking upstream to support those at risk. This includes children with a parent in prison.

Charities working with prisoners’ families, such as Children Heard and Seen and the Prison Advice and Care Trust, have repeatedly highlighted the gap in our understanding of the scale of parental imprisonment. I commend to noble Lords two short films released by both those charities that show the heartbreaking realities of this issue and the impact on a child when their parent is sent to prison. It also shows the remarkable work done by both charities alongside families.

The 2019 Joint Committee report highlighted the

“complete lack of reliable quantitative data on the number of mothers in prison”

and

“the number of children whose mothers are in prison”.

It argued that

“without improved data collection, collation and publication”

it is both

“impossible to fully understand the scale and nature of this issue and to properly address it”.

It continued:

“Mandatory data collection and publication must be urgently prioritised by the Ministry of Justice”.


A few months before that was published, Crest Advisory’s report on the children of prisoners found that

“during a parent’s journey through the criminal justice system there are numerous points which children of prisoners could be identified—on arrest, at sentencing, on entry to prison, and under probation supervision. But at the moment, at no point does the system ask: ‘If this is a parent in custody, where is their child?’”

The point of doing this would be to ensure the welfare of the children and to establish whether help is needed for the family or friends now caring for them. As that report said:

“Instead it is left up to the offender or the parent left behind to seek help—something which we know is problematic because of stigma and fear about children being taken into care”.


That is echoed again and again by the charity Children Heard and Seen, which does such fantastic work with children with a parent in prison, including a ground-breaking initiative across the Thames Valley region.

Rightly, the Government broadened their response to the Joint Committee to all primary carers, not just mothers. Many men are also in this position—albeit with a very different proportion of the male prison population compared with the female estate. Again, we are hampered by the lack of reliable data. However, the Farmer review on women in the criminal justice system, the Ministry of Justice, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons and many others highlight that relatively more women than men report being parents and, likely, primary carers.

The Government’s position in 2019 was that their aim was to establish more accurate metrics to measure the number of prisoners with primary carer responsibilities. However, they also acknowledged that gathering information about dependent children is a sensitive matter and committed to exploring the most accurate way to collect and then collate and publish that data,

“provided an accurate method can be found to estimate it, and provided it can be done in a way that protects the rights of vulnerable individuals”.

Given the significant body of evidence showing that the children of prisoners are at risk of markedly worse outcomes in areas such as mental health, underachievement at school and becoming offenders themselves, we should, at the very least, know how many children there are and their age and stage of childhood. The amendment is limited to quantitative data collection, given the inherent problems of collecting identifiers in such a delicate and sensitive area and given that a key aim at this stage is to progress-chase the Government on behalf of these particularly neglected children. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester for her introduction and Harriet Harman for her amendment in another place; even though it did not progress, it was very important. I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, cannot be in his place today, because his report, which pre-dates the Select Committee report in the Commons—it was published in 2017 and was called The Importance of Strengthening Prisoners’ Family Ties to Prevent Reoffending and Reduce Intergenerational Crime—sparked a lot of this work.

That report emphasised throughout that data was needed on prisoners, their families and their children, particularly the age of the children, because that then enables the right sorts of services to be available inside a prison to support those family links that are so important. The noble Lord is so right that data is critical for ensuring that we—that is, the court system, prison, probation and other services, including Parliament and civil society—understand the impact on both prisoners and their children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question. I am afraid I do not have a detailed answer and propose to write to her, if that is acceptable.

The basic custody screening tool ensures that we identify prisoners with primary care responsibilities on entry into prison. That means that we can access this information centrally. While we recognise that the self-declared nature of the information collected through the basic custody screening tool means that it is—as many noble Lords have mentioned—fraught with concerns of prisoners about how much information they are willing to give and so brings with it certain levels of inaccuracy. Our intention is that this data will be reflected in the BOLD publication. I hope that, in the circumstances, the right reverend Prelate will agree that this amendment is not necessary and will withdraw it.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

I thank the Minister and all other noble Lords who have spoken. I am interested in his answer, because in one way he is saying, “Yes, we need this and recognise this”, but in another is saying “But we do not actually need this amendment”. I look forward to hearing more on that. As has been pointed out, the basic custody screening tool is very basic, and many parents do not want to declare on entry to prison that they have children. I will be watching with interest the BOLD programme and what comes out of that.

It is really important that the progress the Government are making in this area is now put on public record. It is nearly five years since the Joint Committee published its report. Also, I stress that it has been important to touch on family relationships and prisoners having those family relationships, but I do not want to lose sight of the fact that this is about the child. Not all children want to have contact with the parent who is in prison. So we need to be looking through the eyes of the child here.

As has been said, when children are given support, through charities such as Children Heard and Seen, we know that the results are remarkable. If, as the noble Lord says, education and other people are going to have this data, we need the data in the first place. That is where we need to start.

Many remain very concerned about these children who are invisible and that we are not able to support them, but I will not delay the Committee any longer now. I will take the comments back to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer; we will discuss it together and look at how to proceed on Report. Given all that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 172 withdrawn.

Death of a Member: Lord Judge

Lord Bishop of Gloucester Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Lords Chamber

There is no such thing as a speech too short. I hope Igor does not mind my having batted on a bit.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, these Benches echo all that has been said so movingly about this remarkable and learned man, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. As has been expressed, I and others felt a deep sadness on hearing the news of his death.

On behalf of these Benches, I have stood and given tributes on a number of occasions and, each time, very poignantly for me, I followed Lord Judge. He was wise, kind, humble, gracious and, as has been said, he always had a twinkle in his eye. His life was one of devoted public service to the greater good, be it in the law or the courts, as President of the Queen’s Bench Division and later as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, or as a Member of this House. He was a source of wisdom to me personally in my role as Anglican Bishop for HM Prisons. He would always greet me in the corridors with Shakespearean references to Gloucester. I will personally miss him.

As Convener of the Cross Benches he was a great friend of this Bench. Reference has been made to his speeches, not least on constitutional matters, and I hope that we will return to those so that we keep on listening to his words. As has been said, his interventions were always short; he would just stand up without any notes and he would always hit the nail on the head with just a few words. I said to him on numerous occasions, when I had spoken after him in debates, that I usually just wanted to say, “What he said”.

He contributed to a vast number of journals and books over his career, not least one entitled Christianity and Criminal Law, which brought theologians, lawyers, judges and historians together to discuss the Christian traditions of the law. He never shied away from addressing tricky issues and he often brought a fresh take to a problem of law. He was indeed ruthless, but always with that twinkle in his eye.

His insights and friendships will be greatly missed from all sides of the House. Our condolences go to his beloved family. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, my late noble and learned friend Lord Judge was, in my view, the judges’ judge, the Lords’ judge and the people’s judge. As judges’ judge, he championed the judiciary, filling a gap that we have sustained ever since the abolition of the old Lord Chancellor post. He kept up morale, not least mine. On my regular visits to him when I was as chair of the Bar Standards Board, he would say, “What’s the matter, Ruth?” As the Lords’ judge, he got to the essence of what we Lords should do and will always be remembered as the upholder of the rule of law by ensuring that parliamentary sovereignty held executive sovereignty in check. As the people’s judge, he followed in the footsteps of Lord Denning, Lord Bingham and Lord Mansfield, in reminding us that we are here to protect everyone from an overmighty executive. If only he were here to greet the first Lady Chief Justice.

Early Years Interventions

Lord Bishop of Gloucester Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the benefits of early years interventions on people’s welfare and social mobility later in life.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, we know that the early years are key to children’s later life chances, and effective early support is crucial. That is why we have put unprecedented investment into childcare over the past decade, committed £153 million to support education recovery in the early years, rolled out the proven Nuffield Early Language Intervention, and have announced £300 million to create a network of family hubs and transform crucial Start for Life services.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her Answer. Given the crucial lifelong impact of the early years on individuals, the economy and society, and that we spend so much time, money and resources attempting to fix things later in life which could have been prevented, how do the Government plan to build on Start for Life and ensure that benefits are sustained for children beyond the age of two through the early education and childcare system?

Tributes: Baroness Williams of Crosby

Lord Bishop of Gloucester Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

I find myself rising again to give a tribute on behalf of the Lords spiritual from these Benches and wondering what I can add to all the wonderful things that have been said. However, as the first female Lord spiritual in this House, it is a privilege to pay tribute to an amazing person who, as we have heard, was something of a trailblazer for women in politics.

As a comparative newcomer to this House, I did not have time to get to know Baroness Williams, but now, as Anglican Bishop to Prisons, I was pleased to learn that she had once been a Prisons Minister and had a particular interest in improving the experience of women in prison. This may be an apocryphal story, but I believe that at one point she even asked to be locked up in Holloway to see what the experience for women was like. I am only sad that I never had a conversation with her about women in the criminal justice system.

As we have heard, Shirley was one of the iconic figures of British politics, shaped by the post-war world and one of those rare politicians known in public simply by her first name. Although she often seemed to struggle to acknowledge her own brilliance, from the outside others saw her talent and razor-sharp mind.

So much has already been said, but I wish to draw attention to her faith. She came from the tradition of politics of people grounded in internationalism, Catholic social teaching and social justice. Often found at Lambeth Palace, she was prepared to work across parties without fear or favour, with people of all faiths and none, to develop ideas and policy to the betterment of British society. Her Catholic faith and belief in universal values were central to her politics. In her final speech to this House, she called on us as the institutional memory of the nation to protect universal values of human rights, to play our significant part in the world and to think globally, not simply nationally. I can think of no clearer call from Baroness Williams to this House, and it is one shared by the Church: a commitment to social justice, protecting the vulnerable and being committed to global thinking.

After her many decades of faithful public service, I wish to end with the prayer: may she rest in peace and rise in glory.

Clerk of the Parliaments

Lord Bishop of Gloucester Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, I am very glad that I do not have to answer those questions, because I do not know the answers. However, I want to add a few words from these Benches, paying tribute on behalf of the Lords spiritual. My colleagues and I have greatly benefited from Ed Ollard’s sound judgment, diligent support and practical guidance in his time as the Clerk of the Parliaments. We on these Benches are immensely grateful for his calm and steady stewardship during, as others have said, this very unpredictable time. Navigating a unique transition to a hybrid Parliament, the role of the Clerk of the Parliaments has been challenging. He has met it head on, and it is a testament to his adaptability that your Lordships’ House has functioned so well and effectively during this pandemic. We warmly welcome Simon Burton to the role and very much look forward to working with him, but today, we want to say a huge “thank you” to Ed Ollard and to wish him all the best for the future.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler)]

My Lords, before I put the Question on the Motion in the name of the Lord Privy Seal, I add that Ed has been invaluable during my time as Lord Speaker. The advice he has given on a range of issues has been an enormous support. His approach was always cautious. On more than one occasion, he counselled that what I was proposing would not be appropriate, and what was worse was that he was always right. Importantly, he always spoke with authority, and the Deputy Speakers also thank him for the enormous support that he gave.

When Ed assumed office as the Clerk of the Parliaments in 2017, little did he know what lay ahead. His advice and practical guidance acted as a bedrock during one of the most tumultuous periods in recent political history, as the United Kingdom left the European Union and the House found itself at the heart of a landmark Supreme Court case. Recently, of course, he has led the radical procedural changes and wholesale operational transformation that has enabled the House to keep working during the Covid-19 crisis. It was an enormous achievement.

On behalf of the House of Lords Appointments Commission, the Deputy Speakers and the whole House, I express very sincere gratitude and wish Ed a very happy and well-deserved retirement.