Crime, Reoffending and Rehabilitation

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate. I tip my hat to the work of the Church of England—indeed, of all faith leaders—to do with prisons. I too draw particular attention to the report chaired by the former Bishop to Prisons, James Jones, who has been a great influence on me and the way in which I try to think about prisons.

I start by declaring an interest. I am a patron of Unlock, a prisoners’ charity, and a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust. I see that my first chairman, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, is in his place; I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

It is interesting—and no surprise—that two former Lord Justices are listed to speak in this debate; one, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, has already spoken, while the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has yet to speak. Once again, I welcome my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy to the Front Bench. I look forward to him gripping this vexed question of what to do with prisons and prisoners with some degree of enthusiasm—even evangelism—because, unless a policymaker in the Government takes charge of this issue and owns it, it will just dribble on uselessly.

My noble friend Lord Farmer is to be congratulated on obtaining this debate. If I could bottle his speech and have it delivered by the crateload to every Whitehall department, I would. I have a suspicion that not every Cabinet Minister will condescend to read the Hansard of today’s debate but they jolly well should because everything that my noble friend said goes straight to the heart of the issues that my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench now faces.

Everything that has been said in this debate has been said time after time, ever since I became interested in this question. I was appointed shadow Prisons Minister by David Cameron in 2006, I think it was, when he became leader of the Opposition. I set about visiting as many prisons, YOIs and secure training centres as I could to see what was going on, in order to produce for my party evidence-based policy. In the end, after two or three years, I produced a paper called Prisons with a Purpose. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, mentioned, a number of the ideas in that paper were taken up by the coalition Government when they came into office in 2010 but, sadly, so many of them have fallen by the wayside. So we are still here. I am like a cracked record, repeating what I have been saying for the past 15 or 20 years. I dare say that I will go to my grave and wave from the hole in the ground, saying, “Do you remember? Why have you done nothing about this?”

If I may say so, there is not only a moral and justice case for dealing with prisoners in a productive and sensible way but a hard-headed economic case. The cost of housing a male adult prisoner in a long-term secure prison is enormous. If, when that prisoner is in there and is literally a captive audience, we do nothing to prevent him—it usually is a “him”—reoffending, are we not letting ourselves down? Are we not letting our fellow citizens down by fooling them into thinking that a Government with a policy of sending more and more people to prison for longer and longer while doing nothing constructive with them when they are in there are achieving something positive?

When I became the shadow Minister, the first person I rang up was the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham; he is no longer in his place. I have learned a great deal from him and many others who know an awful lot about this subject. He asked me to think about three things; noble Lords have mentioned them already. The first is what we do with prisoners when they are released. He said that they need a job, a stable place of accommodation and a stable relationship. Those things come through their families and the system, be it the Prison Service, the Parole Board or the voluntary sector, enabling people to leave prison in a condition in which they can get a job.

If you leave prison and you cannot read or write—bear in mind that the average reading age of an adult prisoner in our system is 11—you cannot get even the most basic manual job. So why do we send people to prison for all those years and not teach them to read and write or to add up? Why do we send drug addicts to prison and not effectively treat their addictions? Why do we send mentally ill people to prison and not effectively treat their mental health problems? I guess it is because it is easy just to keep on doing the same thing over and again.

I have been saying the same thing over and again. My six minutes are now up but I urge my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench to launch out on a new path—one of real reform and real positive advance.