Sentencing Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I have tabled Amendment 97A, which is again about probation capacity. I know that the Minister has done his best to convince us, and I completely understand that, with his business drive and determination, he is going to do the absolute best possible for this problem. But I remain unconvinced that the concerns raised by Peers in Committee and by probation staff themselves have been properly addressed.

It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, is not going to push his amendments to a vote, and I certainly will not push this to a vote. However, in Committee, the Government charged that this amendment would risk duplicating existing reports and delaying reform, but I do not see that, because this amendment is not about producing more data for its own sake; it is about independent assurance at arm’s length from Ministers and operational management that the Probation Service has the capacity to safely absorb the additional demands that the Bill will place on it. Quarterly staffing statistics published by the Probation Service are not the same thing as a system- wide assessment that the Probation Service has that capacity.

In addition, the amendment balances investment plans. The Minister referred in Committee to the recruitment of trainee probation officers, to digital innovation and to welcome investment over the spending review period. We heard about those issues from the Minister himself at a briefing yesterday. All of that is positive, but none of it guarantees that the capacity is adequate at the point of commencement of the new statutory duties. The organisation Justice also says that the number of new probation officers set to be recruited would be inadequate. I would be very grateful if the Minister could tackle that problem of the inadequacy of numbers because, of course, recruitment takes time. Trainees take time to qualify. Technology takes time to embed and to get right. In the meantime, probation officers are working under extraordinary pressure, managing high-risk individuals and with case loads that are already too high.

The argument that this amendment would delay reforms misunderstands its purpose. If it delays reform, it is necessary, because it means that the reforms are not enough. Carrying on with huge changes regardless of capacity does not strengthen probation; it weakens it and increases risks to staff. Parliament is being asked to legislate for significant new demands on the Probation Service without this independent assurance by HMPPS that it has actually happened and that it is going to work and it is going to fit. I would have supported the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, but I will, of course, not move mine. I just hope that the Minister feels he has the backing of the House for everything he is trying to do. If we are raising concerns, it is only from a point of view of wanting to make it perfect.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for giving way. I rise to speak to Amendment 70, which my noble friend Lord Jackson, who cannot be here today, led on in Committee, and which I have signed. It would require the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament on how the Act has affected reoffending rates. I appreciate the Minister’s encouraging introductory remarks.

The amendment would also create a feedback loop into the policy-making process by halting various provisions in the Act if certain metrics are not achieved. On the data, I am aware that reoffending statistics which differentiate between custodial and community or suspended sentences are routinely collected and published every quarter, as the Minister reminded us just now and in Committee. I am also aware of the evidence that those given a community or suspended sentence order reoffend less. Indeed, I am grateful to the Minister for responding at very short notice to my request for data.

To rehearse the compelling arguments for the presumption of non-custodial sentences of less than a year, the one-year proven reoffending rate for adults starting a suspended sentence order with requirements in quarter 3 2023 was 25%. Of those released from a custodial sentence of 12 months or fewer, 62% reoffended within a year. Importantly, robust analysis that compares like offenders with like also shows that suspended and community sentences are more effective than short custodial sentences, with a difference of four percentage points. Even where offending has been prolific, they pack a greater punch in reducing reoffending and promoting rehabilitation. All this is to say that I, like many other noble Lords, really want this presumption to bear more of the above fruit, because a large body of research shows that even where short custodial sentences are the only recourse, they often fail to rehabilitate.

We are also aware that we cannot build our way out of our long-standing prison capacity crisis, and that requires keeping people out of prison where a non-custodial sentence is the most effective disposal, despite public demand for punishment to mean deprivation of liberty. Many simply, and understandably, want offenders to be removed from our streets, not least so that victims know where they are and are unlikely to see them at large—hence this amendment is in a group concerned with transparency of the criminal justice system.

We do need to finesse the wording. I agree that referring to

“the impact of this Act on re-offending”

presents a minefield for researchers as reoffending is affected by many factors. However, there needs to be a proper stocktake in the aftermath of introducing a presumption that will make a custodial sentence far less likely.

My main point is that I, and the public, will assume it is more likely than not that this presumption will de-risk crime for offenders. Knowing they will receive a community or suspended sentence order will surely be a less fearful outcome than imprisonment. We are all aware of how prolific shoplifting has become, now that police are not even attending. Hence and crucially, previous data might not be reliable in this new sentencing world. Therefore, the public need to know not only that this experiment will be evaluated and reported on, as the Minister has assured us it will be, but that it will be called off if necessary.

On this amendment, we also need to finesse whether these reforms are given only two years to bed in, and if the 10% reduction in reoffending pass or fail rate is appropriate. However, the fact that these details need ironing out should not preclude amending the Bill so that there is clarity for the public that steps will be taken to roll this presumption back if it proves ineffective or even harmful. I will not be pushing this to a vote.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

It was indeed a pleasure to give way to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, after all the work he has done in relation to prisons.

Noble Lords may wonder why this amendment about Wales is in in a group about transparency. I wondered too but I think there is an answer, to which I shall come. I had first thought it was just Wales an afterthought—“We’ll just put it in somewhere where it doesn’t really matter”—but there is a reason why it is there.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, for the discussion I had with him in relation to the amendment I tabled in Committee, which was designed to achieve the devolution of just probation and related services. Then, when that amendment was debated, I was extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, who, in his usual extraordinarily courteous and perceptive manner, pointed out the fallacy of what I was suggesting; namely, that one was devolving part of an entire system of offender management. Probation and prisons have to run together. The Welsh Government had thought they should just take probation. The commission I chaired took the view that actually there were two integrated parts. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, and am grateful for him having made transparent the objection to the Welsh Government’s proposal; namely, that you cannot devolve part.

Therefore, I put forward this amendment, which seeks to devolve the whole of probation and prison services. I did so on the basis that at least that gets over one objection of Her Majesty’s Government to the devolution of the justice system to Wales—or part of it. Normally, the objection is, “Well, we know how to do things in Whitehall, they don’t know how to do things in Cardiff, let’s leave it here”. However, it is now quite clear that there was now another very substantial objection. That is, if you devolve offender management, both probation and prisons, you are devolving just part of the criminal justice system, so you cannot do that either. So I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, for making transparent that objection.

Separation Centres: Terrorist Offenders

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. We are carefully considering the High Court ruling on the Abu case, including considering appealing the decision. Our decisions are based on risk, and the proportionality of our response to that risk is how we make our decisions. Someone’s mental health throughout the justice system is a very important factor in how we manage everyone’s risk, whether they are on the first night of their first time in prison or they have been in the system for a very long time.

I am proud of so many of my colleagues who spend so much of their time in our prisons, and of our probation staff, who go out of their way to support people with their mental health requirements. The support we give our NHS and health providers in our prisons is clearly important too. We need to enable them to have the right space and time to work with people who are often very vulnerable.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, there is a gaslighting quality about the High Court judgment that the public sector equality duty was breached because no consideration had been given to decisions that meant a cohort of prisoners, all Muslim, were treated in a particular way. The judge said that this could have been perceived as a form of collective punishment against Muslims. All the inmates in the separation centre are Muslims. Some 75% of MI5’s counterterrorist caseload is Islamist extremists, and 63% of prisoners for terrorism-related offences are Muslims. When I visited HMP Frankland in 2022, a prison officer in the separation unit told me that they were perpetually—and, I thought, dangerously—constrained by the PSED and human rights legislation. Will the Government appeal this judgment and strenuously reassure prison governors that they can and must continue to use separation units to keep officers, prisoners and the public safe?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

As I said to my noble friend, we are considering appealing the decision. It is also important that the staff who work in our separation centres have the skills they need to care for the people there. The system is robust, but we always need to look for improvements. That is why we commissioned Mr Hall to look at all our separation centres and the policies we have to make sure they are right for the future.

Adult Prison Estate: Support for Young People

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Farmer]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to mitigate the reduced support for young people moving from the Youth Custody Service into the adult prison estate.

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

Transition from the youth to the adult estate is a critical time and needs to be managed with care and thought for the safety of the young person. The transitions policy framework is a guide for all practitioners to ensure that the transition is focused on the needs of the individual, so that when they arrive in the adult prison estate it leads to a safe and positive outcome.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am encouraged by his support for rehabilitation and for reducing reoffending by young offenders. The state helps to look after looked-after children until they are 25, recognising that the effects of every young adult’s immaturity are amplified by adversity, family trauma and intense relational insecurity. Young adults in custody often face very similar challenges. Without excusing crime, how could boys’ entry into the adult estate be more trauma-informed to mirror how girls are treated? Also, could genuinely supportive relationships—such as peer-to-peer buddy schemes, including from the very good staff who were at the YCS—be maintained until they fully transition, to help young adults navigate the relational jungle that is the adult estate?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord does amazing work in this area and I appreciate his focus on it. The trauma-informed approach is well established for the transition of women within the justice system. Stephanie Covington and others have been great on training staff. We now need to train more in the youth estate for boys and the male estate for men. That is where the Enable programme comes in. It is rolling out now; it is in five prisons at the moment and it will be the basis of training a trauma-informed approach.

It is also important to understand the complexities of young people. As someone who was brought up in a foster family with lots of young people with challenges, I know that how they transition to adulthood and the adult estate is really important. Synaptic pruning, with the connections between brain cells and how they change through adolescence, is important, as is attachment theory. Peer mentoring when someone moves from the youth estate to the adult estate, with officers following them through there and someone who meets them at the gate and makes sure they are settled in well, is equally important.

Prenuptial Agreements

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for bringing forward this important debate at the early stages of this Government; as the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, just pointed out, they have four and a half years to go. As my noble friend Lady Shackleton pointed out, this matter is always kicked into the long grass; it is therefore a good time for it to be brought out.

The Law Commission made recommendations in 2014, which it is currently reviewing, but calls to make properly drafted prenuptial agreements binding were made long before then, including by noble and learned Lords in this House, so it is hard to be optimistic about change, but, as a non-lawyer I want to take a slightly different tack. As an aside, I am in very good company with and have empathy for another non-lawyer, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, who is preparing to respond to many legal eminences.

This Government have said that, for them to act, any measures will need to further one or more of their five missions. My argument is that making romantic relationships a little less romantic meets the opportunity mission test. Binding prenuptial agreements would, albeit indirectly, boost opportunity for children to do better. That is quite a leap, so I will elaborate. They would strengthen marriage by making it more intentional and less risky, thereby, it is to be hoped, helping to increase marriage rates throughout society. According to Louise Perry, more marriage would be better for women too, as they are the vulnerable party in our informal hook-up culture, where unplanned pregnancy means they are often left, literally, holding the baby.

Crucially, more marriage means more children benefit from the stability that the commitment of marriage brings to family life. Children of married parents are considerably less likely to experience their own relationship breakdown. This was emphasised by the Centre for Social Justice in its 2009 Family Law Review. Its starting point, unusually but importantly, was that any reform of family law needed to support family stability and address the prevailing culture of family breakdown. Then and now, this is the underlying social emergency at the root of and driving so many other social issues. Some 44% of children do not grow up with both their parents. Children who endure family breakdown are around twice as likely to experience homelessness, alcoholism and mental health issues; to get into trouble with the police or spend time in prison; to underachieve in education; not to live with the other parent of their children, and to become a teenage parent themselves.

Marriage makes a difference. The Millennium Cohort Study found that 88% of married parents were still together when their child was five years old compared to only 67% of parents who were cohabiting when their child was born. More starkly, children born to cohabiting parents were almost three times more likely not to be living with both their parents when they were five years old compared to children born to married parents. Attributing this difference in stability to marriage is often dismissed in favour of other coexisting factors that make people more likely to form lasting relationships, such as higher levels of income or education, but low-income married couples are significantly more stable than low-income cohabitees. How relationships are structured matters.

Anthropologically speaking, the whole effort of getting married, the ritual itself, the decision to commit and the explicit public nature of that commitment, and even the financial investment in marking that change of relationship status, are all qualitatively different from the slide into cohabitation which is very common. Psychologists such as Professors Scott Stanley and Galena Rhoades at the University of Denver have extensively studied how sliding into cohabitation differs from deciding to get married and how that affects relationship durability.

As we have heard, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, in her minority judgment in Radmacher v Granatino, which tested the binding nature of a prenup, spoke of the importance of maintaining a distinction between marriage and cohabitation. She also said that Parliament, not judges, needed to make the law in this area. In 1998, the last Labour Government published Supporting Families, the UK’s first ever Green Paper on family policy, and made a strong case for doing this. It is worth repeating what they said then:

“allowing couples, either before or during their marriage, to make written agreements dealing with their financial affairs which would be legally binding on divorce … could give people more choice and allow them to take more responsibility for ordering their own lives. It could help them to build a solid foundation for their marriage by encouraging them to look at the financial issues they may face as husband and wife and reach agreement before they get married”.

This speaks of the greater intentionality that prenuptial arrangements bring to marriage; people think about the future. Indeed, this measure was included in the section in the policy proposals on supporting marriage—still a very valid aim of social policy. It pointed out:

“Providing greater security on property matters in this way could make it more likely that some people would marry, rather than simply live together … Nuptial agreements could also have the effect of protecting the children of first marriages, who can often be overlooked at the time of a second marriage—or a second divorce”.


In its Family Law Review, the CSJ points out:

“England and Wales is unusual across Westernised family law jurisdictions in not having binding pre-marriage agreements … or other marital agreements”.


While prenuptial agreements should not be mandated or normative, it is responsible to consider what a couple would want to happen in future circumstances. Arguably, when the couple are in flush of premarital romance and well disposed towards each other, that is a good time to think about how finances should pan out if things do not work out.

Of course, some strongly hold that premarital agreements plan for failure, reflect distrust and undermine the commitment of marriage. I would argue, as Labour did in 1998, that this intentionality and ability to plan address the realism of the future. Moreover, it is ironic that while it is possible to have a cohabitation agreement to protect assets if a relationship fails, married couples in England and Wales are subject to the very uncertain outcomes of our current divorce law, which can create many perverse incentives.

The CSJ lists many other advantages of making prenups legally binding, such as the greater security that they give to those re-entering marriage who have been scarred by divorce, lower legal costs, fewer delays as judges have not the need to determine arrangements from scratch, and international norms which mean that prenups are expected to have legal force. Disadvantages include the difficulties of predicting future events and including these in the agreement. The vulnerable, weaker party—or the one who is keener to marry—may feel obliged to sign despite possible downsides for them. This leads to the issue of how much residual discretion, which we have heard about, should be allowed to the courts not to treat prenups as binding in particular cases. The more the discretion, the greater the opportunity for fairness and justice, yet the greater the risk that agreements are not binding at all. The lesser the discretion, the more unfair outcomes there will be, even though there is fairness in upholding agreements. Hence, in 1998, the Government permitted a narrow discretionary factor of “significant injustice”. Judge-made law could elaborate the circumstances in which “significant injustice” may be found.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister whether this Government will make the prevention of parental relationship breakdown a key part of their mission to break down barriers to opportunity—and of course of their child poverty strategy. Poverty is a consequence of family breakdown as well as a cause of it. Bolstering marriage is essential, as the last Labour Government realised. Perhaps counterintuitively, making prenups binding is a low-cost tool in the box to do that.

Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. As for what kind of prisons we need, I think we need a good mix of prisons of all shapes and sizes and in all locations. On IPP sentence prisoners, I am sure the House knows me well enough to know how deeply troubled I am by the state of the lives of IPP sentence prisoners. It is not included in the sentencing review because I feel we are already making good progress, albeit early progress. The IPP action plan is solid and we need to push on fast with it.

I am looking at two things at the moment. One is that 30% of IPP sentence prisoners are in the wrong prison for helping them fulfil their needs to get out of prison. I am also heartened by a dashboard that we now have so we know where every IPP prisoner is and where they are up to with their sentence—it may not sound much, but it is a game-changer for how we can support people to work through their sentence. So I want to make rapid progress. I also reassure my noble friend that, when I was running the family business, I managed to work alongside 30 colleagues who were IPP prisoners and they were absolutely fantastic, and the second chance that they were given was paid back in buckets.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, with sentencing of female offenders, much is made of their vulnerability, their adverse childhood experiences and revictimisation as adults. Judges are increasingly mindful of their roles as primary carers. All this is humane and understandable. Is the sentencing review going to take a similar approach to men? While they must also take responsibility for breaking our laws, many are equally vulnerable and have had many adverse childhood experiences—I think 25% of the prison population has had the experience of being in care—but it is culturally normative to take a far more punitive approach to men.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for the question. While the review will evaluate the sentencing framework and examine the experiences of all offenders, it will be guided by the evidence of what works to keep the public safe and to rehabilitate offenders. I am focused on the evidence of what works both here and abroad. Currently, judges and sentences already take into account the individual circumstances of each case to account for the culpability of the offender, male or female, and the harm they caused, or intended to cause and any aggravating or mitigating factors.

There are three facts that I am sue the noble Lord will know: female offenders make up only 4% of the prison population; over two-thirds of them are in prison for a non-violent offence; and 55% of women in prison have dependent children. What noble Lords may not know is that the average life expectancy for someone who is not in prison in this country is 82; if you are a man in prison, it is 56; if you are a woman in prison, it is 47. So, we clearly have a lot of work to do to support these very vulnerable and often ill people.

Prisoners: Early Release Scheme

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am afraid I would not want to put a date on when things are going to change, but I assure the noble Lord that the remand population of 17,000 is far too high. He is right that a number of prisoners who are on remand do not engage as well as they should in all the opportunities they have to turn their lives around—for example, education and purposeful activity. Changing magistrates’ sentencing powers to 12 months will free up Crown Court time to reduce the backlog, and this will reduce time spent on remand.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, what help is being offered to families who experience difficulties when a prisoner returns home earlier than expected? Is the Minister familiar with the prison-based family hub that Spurgeons is running in HMP Winchester? This connects families with a full range of support local to their homes and works with them in full respect and recognition that they are often the most effective front-line rehabilitation asset in released and serving prisoners’ lives.

Prison Capacities

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, successful rehabilitation reduces pressure on prison places. My two reviews for the Ministry of Justice, which it continues to implement with dedication and enthusiasm, emphasise that healthy relationships greatly reduce reoffending, as those who receive family visits are 39% less likely to reoffend than those who do not have them. HMPPS is very mindful of closeness to family when selecting which prisoners to send abroad. Some 28% of foreign national prisoners are Romanian, Polish or Albanian, and would be closer to home in Estonia than in British jails, which would give us some more space.

Many prisoners without family on the outside or friends to help them go straight benefit from well-supervised peer support in prison, and those relationships protect against repeat offending. Trained prisoners mentoring others derive much purpose from this. They take a huge load off officers and recipients more readily take their advice about going straight.

I recommended that prisons be extrovert and draw in local charities and other organisations to expose men to opportunities on the outside. Community days in prisons ensure that those who never see the visits hall can learn there about work and volunteering, including from former prisoners. One revolving-door prisoner attending his first community day was very doubtful but said, “For the first time I found myself thinking about what comes next. Now I never want to come back in again”. Does the Minister plan to roll out peer support and community days across the estate?

Finally, the Question refers to vulnerable prisoners. Much is said about diverting women who have experienced trauma and abuse away from custody. Male offenders with similar histories are treated far more harshly. Surely we should be moving towards equality of approach in this area.

Prisons: Foreign National Offenders

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is experienced on this subject. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Jackson on securing this important and relevant debate and on his many specific questions.

Many of our prisons are operating at full capacity and at great cost to the public purse. Rehabilitation, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, and is a vital function of prisons—I will address mainly this subject in my contribution—is made considerably harder by overcrowding. Deporting foreign national offenders is key to the overall strategy to reduce the proportion held in our jails. However, we must also get better at reducing reoffending among foreign nationals so that those who cannot be deported do not come back in again.

Eligibility for deportation varies with sentence length and severity. There are many grounds for exception, although the ministerial Statement on 11 March laid out a far more stringent approach—particularly to short-sentenced FNOs. I make no judgment one way or another as to whether there are too many or not enough exceptions. I simply draw attention to the reasons why, according to that Statement in March, only 3,600 FNOs might be returned, leaving almost two-thirds of the 10,000 FNOs in place.

Given that many will be released back into the community, their rehabilitation is not an indulgence but an imperative. The “families and relationships” rehabilitation pathway is by far the most successful. In general, prisoners who receive family visits are 39% less likely to reoffend than those who do not. Hence, if the relationships are not criminogenic, there are significant benefits to prisoners of retaining close ties with people outside prison; for FNOs, this will often include families overseas.

When I did my two prison reviews, prison governors told me that only about half of the general prison population received family visits and that foreign national offenders’ families can be thousands of miles away. This is why I recommended giving any prisoner whose families would struggle to visit access to video-calling technology. The revolution to do this, fast-tracked by Covid, was game-changing. Is data still collected on the number of social video calls in prisons? In some prisons I have visited recently, this seems to have been deprioritised.

Encouragingly, as part of the reviews’ ongoing implementation, HMPPS now requires family services to include initiatives for prisoners who have no active family ties. However, if the mantra of my review, that the importance of relationships should be the golden thread running through all the processes of prison, is to be more than just a slogan, it requires a systemic shift in how prisons function. I see many signs that the Transforming Prisons directorate has fully taken this on board for the purposes of future training, so it is baked into planning for new builds and refurbished establishments. However, we also urgently need a more relational approach across the existing prison estate and among today’s prisoners and officers.

Just after Covid, I did an addendum to my two original reviews and emphasised the importance of peer-to-peer support programmes, especially in early days of custody. The plentiful resource of sentenced prisoners must be part of the solution. In the chaos of reception prisons, systems can be very confusing, especially for first-timers, yet understanding them is essential for settling in. Basic needs, including for family contact but also for such things as underwear, false teeth and reading glasses, often go unmet. The sense of helplessness and despair is greatly amplified for foreign prisoners, who face language and cultural barriers. One-third of all prison suicides occur within the first week in custody and the sense of isolation can play a decisive role. On my post-Covid visits, I have found that well-supervised peer support schemes greatly increase prisoners’ ability to take responsibility for their own lives and contribute to the well-being of others during this period. Setting the right trends at the reception stage can transform the whole of a prisoner’s journey.

In HMP Bullingdon, for example, “Hear to Help” prisoner mentors, wearing distinctive purple shirts, play a key support role in early days in custody, visiting everyone when they come on to the wing and doing what officers cannot. Officers are time-poor, mentors are time-rich, and they have often learned the hard way what works and what does not work in prison: they are people the men can connect with and relate to. One mentor said, “We have helped a lot of people and saved lives”. Indeed, a first-time prisoner told me he would not have survived the early days of his sentence without the help of his mentor. Many prisoners have a lack of trust for authority, are anti-uniform and have a fighter mentality. One mentor described prisoners’ violent behaviour as their “safety net”, their go-to response. It is where they feel safe, but it does not actually solve things.

Mentors provide a different safety net for prisoners’ frustrations and anger. They bring isolated people out of their cells, and their shells, encourage them to do things and “talk to them straight” about their cases and their trials. Without access to this peer support, it can take men several months to settle in, but with their help and presence, it is a lot quicker. These mentors are building community by being good role models and hubs around which positive behaviours coalesce.

You might think, where do you find the paragons of virtue who will take responsibility to look after other prisoners in a jail? For these “Hear to Help” mentors, the job itself gave them the turning point to pivot. Most were previously in trouble in prison, but the responsibility turned them around, and got them to work as a team and develop a whole new sense of purpose. They need to be well-supervised by dedicated senior prison officers who know how to build teams and are relationally brilliant. The scheme in Bullingdon is led by a woman who previously worked with struggling families in the community.

Foreign nationals serving very long sentences need a completely different type of peer support: less help to navigate the confusing prison system and more help to navigate their minds. They need to come to terms with what they have done and the fact of long-term incarceration. In HMP Dartmoor, there is more of an emphasis on training ordinary prisoners to deliver what are effectively low-level psychological interventions. Can my noble friend the Minister give the Committee an indication of the prevalence of peer support schemes that go way beyond the traditional orderly system and what plans they have to proliferate them? I also take the opportunity to ask about their plans to house prisoners overseas. What proportion would be FNOs? Can the Government confirm that family ties will be a key consideration in determining which prisoners are held overseas?

To reiterate, there are many foreign nationals we will not be able to deport and many will have very high-risk factors for reoffending. What happens in prison can heighten or mitigate those risks. As one senior governor who oversees several prisons told me:

“Some people have never learned how to be relational—how to turn themselves around and take advantage of the positive opportunities prison can provide. It’s not about being soft or hard on crime, it’s about what works”.

Parents: Separation

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Farmer]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support parents considering separation, and to promote early resolution of private family law arrangements.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords contributing to what I consider an important debate this evening. I will not soft-pedal why we are discussing these issues: parental separation is an enormous and egregious problem, the scale and ramifications of which few seem ready to acknowledge. Parental separation is a recognised adverse childhood experience; by the time British children turn 14 years old, 46% no longer live with both their natural parents. Family breakdown is a major risk factor for children and young people’s poor mental health. Children who experience it are significantly more prone to anxiety and depression. Research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience also found greater susceptibility to severe mental illness such as schizophrenia. The IFS’s Deaton review on inequality reported that between 1971 and 2019 the percentage of births outside marriage ballooned from 8% to 48%: half of all births take place in inherently less stable, cohabitating couple families, or to parents living apart from the outset. Professor Matthew Goodwin drily comments:

“Britain is now … giving Europe a masterclass in … ‘non-partnered motherhood’—namely, women who give birth with no partner at all”.


In the rest of Europe, 5% or fewer of mothers are in this position, but in Britain and the United States that figure is 15%, so a growing number of children have never experienced life with both their parents. Many then endure multiple transitions, where step-parent figures come and go, further compounding their sense that relationships are fundamentally unreliable or worse. Children living with father substitutes are eight times more likely to be on the at-risk register and 50 times more likely to die of an inflicted injury than those living with two biological parents. Centre for Social Justice research found that they are also twice as likely to get involved in crime. Some 75% of young offenders did not grow up with both parents, and 40% experienced abuse or neglect.

Adults are also deeply and detrimentally affected by family breakdown: it is often a gateway to poverty, loneliness, mental ill-health problems and domestic violence from informal partners. Kiernan and Estaugh’s research found that women are more likely to be physically abused, assaulted during pregnancy and seriously injured by live-in boyfriends than by husbands.

Professor Jan Walker’s research found that many wished they had been warned of the harsh realities of post-separation life. There is no information about sources of support on the online divorce system, and emails from it mention neither mediation nor options for help in agreeing child arrangements. Could the online divorce process signpost people to such support? Moreover, in this age of graduated smoking bans and online regulation to reduce well-evidenced harms, should we not point people to research-based information about how divorce is rarely the end of a painful process but the beginning of a new one, especially for their children?

Family instability is the social trend of the last half century. It gets almost no airtime in government yet is a major contributor to our housing and loneliness crises, among others—massive societal harms exacting huge costs on the taxpayer. Matthew Goodwin again calls out the hypocrisy of elites who are, he says,

“by far … the most likely to get married, have children in marriage, and then stay married”.

Yet they

“downplay the importance of stable families, encourage others to lead ‘fluid’, ‘individual’, and ‘diverse’ lives, and deride anybody who points to the importance of marriage and family as right-wing reactionaries who want to return to the 1950s”.

Their “Do as I say but not as I do” is a classic “luxury belief”, an idea aggressively promoted to bolster their own standing, despite the harms and costs entailed, but which they do not personally pursue.

Sadly, our own Government have undermined the value of commitment in hard times by introducing no-fault divorce to reduce conflict over what was on the divorce petition. However, the reality is that this source of conflict pales alongside that over money and children, and everything else that has to be negotiated when one household becomes two. The interminable wrangling over such issues fuels the immense backlog of well over 100,000 family court cases and the average 45-week wait for private family law cases involving children, despite the Government’s target of 26 weeks. Allegedly, in some areas it is over 60 weeks. All the time conflict, unhappiness and eye-watering costs grow: last year Cafcass alone cost almost £150 million. May I ask the Minister the total costs for that year for family courts and the family justice system? They do not seem to be published.

Our family courts are vital but should be the place of last resort. Before then, every proper assistance should be given to couples, as the Lord Chancellor said during the passage of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act. His commitment was that

“as a Government, we will work harder … to bring together the strands of policy that sit with various Departments and to ensure that we have a family policy that is fit for the 2020s”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/6/20; col. 902.]

The vehicle for doing that now is the growing number of family hubs in around 100 of 150 local authorities. I declare my interest as a guarantor of FHN Holding, the not-for-profit owner of the Family Hubs Network Ltd. Family hub networks include and build on Sure Start’s vital early years work. They bring together all the family support in an area for parents with older children and those with special needs.

The independent review of children’s social care and the Children’s Commissioner emphasise the need for integrated, community-based family support in family hubs. Moreover, historically, Michael Young, Labour architect of the welfare state, knew that struggling parents needed support. The Second World War had a long tail of effect on families, particularly the emotional cost of high levels of divorce and separation from parents—trends that have of course continued, as I have already outlined. Family centres were legislated for in the Children Act 1989; Sure Start children’s centres were the first step, and family hubs are the next iteration. However, much remains to do, extending way beyond the next election, for hubs to fulfil their transformational potential.

Since 2006, Australian family relationship centres have successfully signposted families away from the courts by providing mediation and focused guidance. A key message from the academic evaluation was that their work would be greatly enhanced by collocating or integrating help with housing, debt and other support that families need at times of transition. In other words, they would be greatly improved by being part of a family hub network—and our family hubs would be greatly improved if they included an offer akin to that of the Australian family relationship centres.

The March Budget promised £55 million for family courts, including money to support families through non-court dispute resolution. Ministry of Justice documents on earlier resolution of private family law arrangements prominently feature family hubs. Minimum expectations for all government-funded family hubs by March 2025 require support for reducing parental conflict and information for separating or separated parents.

Pioneering local authorities, such as Rochdale, already include evidence-based programmes for parenting when separated, and the Family Solutions Group has a pilot-ready model to further enhance such provision. Even in cases that must go before a judge, much could be achieved during pauses between stages by drawing on services in family hubs that help address entrenched relational difficulties, such as post-separation parenting programmes and support for their children. I ask the Minister again: will the Government fund such pilots and encourage family courts to work closely with hubs?

In conclusion, I have highlighted that family breakdown is the elephant in the room of many social policy problems. Family hubs are well-positioned to prevent and mitigate its considerable harms through early intervention and support. We must now build on the good foundations that the Government have laid in their family hubs programme, and maximise their potential in this vital area.

Non-custodial Sentences: Public Confidence

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the actual message is, in essence, for the Sentencing Council to transmit. The Government and Parliament set the framework, the Sentencing Council sets the guidelines, and our independent judges impose the sentences. The Sentencing Council’s present guidelines emphasise that community orders can be highly positive, last longer than short custodial sentences and involve important restrictions on day-to-day liberty; and that breaching them can result in significant adverse consequences. We must entirely combat the idea that community sentences are a soft option, and that is the Government’s position.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, the need to weigh public confidence against improving rehabilitation, reducing costs and the need for prison places seems to be ignored when sentencing for serious and violent crime. The trend here is for ever longer custodial sentences. People convicted of murder now spend 60% longer in prison, on average, than in 2001. No balancing act is being attempted, and no rehabilitation. Justice cannot be driven by vengeance, so why are the Government arguing for ever longer sentences?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I am not aware that the Government are arguing for ever longer sentences. On the contrary, the sentencing Bill that your Lordships will shortly consider has a presumption to avoid prison sentences in certain circumstances—particularly short sentences. As far as murder is concerned, the statutory sentence is life imprisonment. That is not a matter for the Government. The time one serves as a sentence for murder is a matter for the Sentencing Council guidelines. I think I would accept—as the Justice Committee accepted—that it is true that public opinion in recent years seems to have moved towards heavier sentences for serious crime. But I do not accept that, as my noble friend suggests, that overrides rehabilitation in all circumstances.