Queen’s Speech

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have certainly sacrificed some key reforming measures that should have been included in the gracious Speech. One such issue, referred to by my noble friend Lord Paddick, is the problems in our prison system. The need for greater efforts to promote prisoners’ rehabilitation is clear from even the most cursory look at reoffending rates. Some 44% of adult prisoners, 59% of short-term prisoners and 69% of juvenile prisoners are reconvicted within a year of their release—an unending cycle that continues to repeat itself on a regular basis.

All too often the problems and pressures that lead offenders into crime are still there when they leave prison. That is why we should ask a fundamental question: do prisons really rehabilitate inmates? All too often their pro-criminal attitudes are unchanged. Imprisonment causes many prisoners to lose their accommodation, their jobs and, sometimes, their families. On release they are, therefore, more likely to be jobless, homeless and without family support, all of which increase the risk of reoffending. Research and experience tell us a great deal about successful approaches that can reduce these dismal reconviction rates.

For example, we know that focused offending behaviour programmes can reduce reoffending. These programmes can change attitudes to reoffending and improve empathy with victims. They can help offenders to restrain impulsive and aggressive behaviour, to resist peer pressure and to recognise and manage the trigger situations that lead them to offend. Practical resettlement support for prisoners also reduces reconviction rates. Which other factors help support a reduction in offending? Getting released prisoners into jobs cuts reoffending; providing educational opportunities reduces reoffending; providing stable accommodation on release cuts reoffending; maintaining family ties cuts reoffending; and effective drug rehabilitation dramatically cuts reoffending.

All too often, prisoners receive little in the way of purposeful activity or rehabilitation, and the position has deteriorated in the past five years. Will the Minister look at the Ofsted inspection of prison education provision and Unlocking Potential, the report produced by Dame Sally Coates? However, we need to go much further than that and ensure that every prisoner who needs a programme to tackle his offending behaviour or an intensive drug or alcohol treatment programme can get on to one.

The Minister was right to draw attention to domestic violence, but at present the waiting lists are often far too long. For example, it can take two years for a prisoner assessed as needing a programme to tackle domestic violence to get on to one. That cannot be good enough if the strategy is to stop that sort of reoffending on release.

So many prisoners reach the end of their sentence without work being done that could reduce their risk, and victims of crime suffer as a result. Underlying all this is the fact that we use prison too much and too often. We now have 148 prisoners in England and Wales for every 100,000 people in our general population, compared with 101 in France and 76 in Germany. We are not twice as criminal as Germany, so why do we need to use prison twice as often? As a result of our high use of imprisonment, much of the prison system is overcrowded, overstretched and cannot provide effective rehabilitation for all its prisoners.

The report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons into Brixton prison published this month illustrates these problems graphically. At the time of the inspection in January, two-thirds of prisoners said that they had felt unsafe in the prison. Levels of violence had increased and self-harm incidents had quadrupled since the last inspection of that prison. Prison should be removed as an option for many lower-level offences and sentencing guidelines should scale down the length of sentences except for the most serious offences and the most dangerous offenders.

I urge the Government to think again about their regrettable decision to drop the prison-related elements of their previous Prisons and Courts Bill from the programme for this Session. Those provisions amounted to just 22 clauses. If they were reintroduced in a short prisons Bill, I believe there would be strong all-party backing to ensure its safe passage through this Parliament, and the prospects for reducing the high number of crimes committed by released prisoners would be much better.

In conclusion, £1 billion can buy 10 votes for the length of this Parliament. The same amount could improve our prison system and make it fit for generations to come for a very long time.

Courts: Magistrates’ Courts

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

I thank the noble Lord for that question, but I think that he is not right. Where courts are located has depended very much on historic chance. As things have changed, as demography has changed, as people have become more mobile, it makes sense to look at where those courts are. Where courts are too close to each other, it makes no sense to have an underutilised facility. Far better, as is planned under this programme, to make sure that we have newer courts which build in the kind of facilities that the noble Lord has just talked about, so that we can improve the estate rather than diminish it. Overall, there are major savings to be had by that, some of which can then be ploughed back into those improved courts.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, has the justice department undertaken an impact assessment on summary justice, particularly when courts are closed or moved to a different location? I declare an interest. I chair a public inquiry on behalf of the Magistrates’ Association on the delivery of local justice. Will the justice department give evidence to that inquiry, with particular reference to closure and its impact on the local justice process?

International Women's Day

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, for this debate. She will not be surprised if I start with my perennial gripe. As I look around me, I see no woman on the Bishops’ Benches. I trust that that anomaly will be resolved before long.

I shall concentrate on two areas. The first is about women in prison. At any one time there are around 4,200 women in prison, representing around 5 per cent of the total prison population. Most are not serious offenders. In 2009, 61 per cent of imprisoned women received sentences of six months or less; 37 per cent had no previous convictions, which is more than double the figure for male prisoners; 63 per cent are in prison for non-violent offences; and around a quarter of the women imprisoned each year are jailed for shoplifting.

Women in prison typically have a wide range of serious welfare problems. They are five times more likely to have a mental health problem than women in the general population, with 78 per cent showing signs of psychological disturbance when they enter prison. That compares with a figure of 15 per cent for the general population. Seventy-five per cent have used illegal drugs in the six months before entering prison, and 58 per cent have used drugs every day during those six months. Thirty-seven per cent have previously attempted suicide. More than half of imprisoned women have suffered domestic violence, and one in three has experienced sexual abuse.

It would be far preferable for most of these highly vulnerable women to receive supervision in the community combined with help to address the problems connected with their offending. That was a strong message of the review by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, of vulnerable women in the criminal justice system. Her report states:

“Community solutions for non-violent women offenders should be the norm”.

It also recommends:

“There must be a strong consistent message right from the top of government, with full reasons given, in support of its stated policy that prison is not the right place for women offenders who pose no risk to the public”.

One of the results of that report was the establishment of a network of women’s community projects with funding from the Ministry of Justice. It is important that these projects are run by voluntary organisations in partnership with the probation service. They operate as one-stop-shop centres providing a range of services and have proved highly effective in keeping women out of custody by providing the support and help that they need to avoid reoffending. More than 2,000 women have been referred to the projects since they were established.

I understand that 11th hour discussions are taking place on the possibility of some continuing central government funding, but these projects are still unclear about whether any further central funding will be available to them after the end of this month. I would be grateful if the Minister could make an early statement on the amount of central government funding being made available for the continuation of these essential projects, the duration of that funding and the number of women’s centres that will receive it.

The second aspect of my contribution relates to women and equality. It is here that I refer to the one body that has been assigned with this task, the Equality and Human Rights Commission—the EHRC. Key issues need tackling if we are to achieve true equality in Britain. The time is short, so let me pose some key questions.

What plans does the EHRC have to take enforcement action following startling revelations of extreme pay gaps, including a gap in annual basic pay between women and men of 39 per cent? This gender pay gap rises to 47 per cent for annual total earnings when performance-related pay, bonuses and overtime are taken into account. Secondly, women in some of the UK's leading finance companies receive around 80 per cent less in performance-related pay than male colleagues. We must ask why. Thirdly, what action is the EHRC taking following the Speaker’s Conference on political representation, particularly on the lack of ethnic minority women in local and national politics? What action is the EHRC taking with regard to broadcasters following the successful age discrimination case taken by Miriam O'Reilly against the BBC? Does the EHRC plan to look again at the fact that the equality duties do not apply to employees of the BBC and Channel 4? Could we be told if the EHRC has been constantly blocked from taking legal action? The EHRC is at the heart of the equality debate and we need some clear answers to these important questions.