Crime, Reoffending and Rehabilitation

Lord German Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a thoughtful debate, and we have been treated to a glitterati of expertise. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for addressing the major issues before us. In welcoming the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, to his seat, I say that we have had to welcome too many Ministers of Justice in recent years. I wish that his response to this debate will give us some hope for the future.

I was drawn to two remarks. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said that this has all been said before in this House. I am afraid I will be paraphrasing what he said until the end of my life, although I sincerely hope that that is not the case. But it is certainly true that all the points have repeated what we have heard in the past in this Chamber, and it is important to remember that.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester invited us to have a national debate. The source of the issues that it might cover have been laid out today. When the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, opened this debate, he focused on the causes of crime, and it is not often that we would have such a debate right at the heart of these matters. The House has today focused on those causes, whether they be alcohol, drugs, poverty, poor education and background, and so forth. We have also heard about the injustice of IPP sentences. That is something which I think this House will not allow any Minister to forget.

One thing on which the House has been united is its ambition. There is a sense that we all know what problem we are trying to solve. Though there might be a difference in emphasis, the House has shown that it wants to shift the dial back from the punitive to the rehabilitative elements of our justice system. It has recognised the importance of reducing the rate of reoffending, which, in the Government’s own words, is “stubbornly high”. So we give good marks for ambition, but it is in the delivery against those principles or ambitions where nearly all the work remains to be done and where we need to hold the Government to account for their actions.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, talked in his report and earlier reports about that “golden thread”, and he has talked today about the link through the prison gate, both before and after, of family life. One thread from this debate has been the need to build a seamless line of support for offenders through the prison gate. That should start from sentencing. Judges and those sentencing can be encouraged to outline the nature of any support required having sat through the case on which a custodial sentence is determined, but of course prison should be not the automatic choice anyway. There is now widespread evidence, as evidenced by my noble friend Lady Burt, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, that short prison sentences do not lead to better outcomes in rehabilitation, and particularly for women they can be irreparably damaging to family links and bonds. The number of women in custody has fallen since 2010, but the statistics predict an increase in the coming few years, especially as the courts backlog is cleared. Custodial sentences for women should be the very last option, as my noble friend Lady Burt and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said.

The challenge for government is to reduce reoffending through routes to employment. Only 8% of people leaving prison are in paid employment six weeks later, and after a year that figure rises to just 17%. England and Wales has one of the highest rates of imprisonment in western Europe, with approximately 80,000 people incarcerated, rising to 100,000 by 2026. Yet prison is not working. Reoffending rates remain stubbornly high; 45% of adults released from prison go on to reoffend within a year. For those who have served a sentence of less than 12 months, this increases to 61%.

Research by Nacro shows that around 1,000 people leave prison homeless every month, leading to an increased risk of reoffending. Even with the extra funding and support available during the pandemic, that was still as high as 650 people a month.

Ambition 1 in the Government’s prisons strategy White Paper is:

“Clarity over who is accountable for improving rehabilitation and resettlement outcomes to reduce reoffending.”


That is their ambition, but, as we have heard today, a plethora of bodies fall into this statement of principle. A few have been mentioned today: prison officers, prison trainers, the probation service, local authorities, the NHS, housing associations, benefit provision offices, employment advisory boards, and a plethora of skilled third-sector organisations.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said, we need to have a holistic approach to bring together all these bodies in a way that makes it work for everyone. The great problem for the excellent third sector bodies—we all know of the Clink example—is that scaling up is a very difficult thing to do across the whole of the country. There is no hope for running all this out of the Ministry of Justice in London. Devolution is welcome, but it has not gone far enough. The Ministry of Justice should be able to set a framework of actions; it must then have the mechanism for it to be delivered locally.

If through-the-gate support is to be meaningful and workable, a consistent and deliverable structure is required. Prison governors will need the ability to influence those providing services not only within the custodial setting but immediately on release as well. Local authorities with housing, social care and a multitude of other required services will need to be adequately funded for the work they undertake. Too often, there has been an expectation that they will carry out the work without additional resource to ensure adequate delivery.

Some people are entitled to the discharge grant, for example, to help them on release. Last year it was raised from £46 to £76—the first increase in 26 years. Inflation has now bitten well into that increase. Thousands of prisoners remain ineligible, including those released on remand, fine defaulters and people serving less than 15 days. So perhaps the Minister could explain how the extra £200 million the Government plan to spend in two years’ time on supporting prison leavers will enable them to access the services they need for help. How will that money be committed? Will it be given to the released prisoners directly, or to training providers, housing associations or the NHS? Who will administer these funds; will it be the probation service acting as a commissioner? These are all critical questions to understand whether the delivery mechanism the Government are proposing will actually work.

Fundamentally, of course, is £200 million enough to meet the need? After all, the savings to the public purse of reducing reoffending is a massive financial bonus to the country—£18.1 billion, as we have been told in today’s debate. So this is a perfect example of how the Government can spend to save money for the people of this country. As my noble friend Lady Burt said, an easy way to get cracking on all this is to end Friday releases. That is an easy first step to improving the co-ordination of all these services, which find that they are not in place on that day of release.

The White Paper refers to several pilot schemes. I would be grateful for further information from the Minister on the Grand Avenue scheme in and around Cardiff. There is a Grand Avenue in Cardiff; I can tell him more about it should he wish to know when it was built and so on. This 10-year project may provide guidance on the way forward in respect of commissioning support services. I hope that we will not have to wait 10 years to learn the lessons, because we need to be getting on with this holistic approach and commissioning now.

In conclusion, there is much to encourage us in the Government’s White Paper, but many questions remain about resourcing, devolving and co-ordinating the vital services to reduce reoffending. The goal is obvious but the solutions have escaped government over these last decades. I hope that this does not become another false dawn whereby ambition is failed by inability to deliver. I look forward to the Minister’s maiden speech and, hopefully, his answers to this fundamental question.