Prisoners: Accommodation on Leaving Prison

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lady Rendell for introducing this vital debate. It always seems to me that if we were starting with a plain sheet of paper for policy we would have a penal system that looked nothing like the one we have at the moment. I believe that it would also be much more economic to operate. As we have heard, many prisoners have mental health problems, come from dysfunctional families or have been in the company of the worst elements of society. They have lived a nightmare, after which it would be quite difficult to imagine them ending up anywhere but in prison.

Their release from prison, when it comes, is a very crucial and sensitive area, as we have been hearing. Accommodation is vital, but they also desperately need human relationships—people who will take their hands and walk back with them into rehabilitation. This is a vital issue. Surely, rehabilitation must be central to our penal system. It matters not just for the individuals but economically for society. It certainly matters for the well-being, security and living conditions of ordinary people in their own society. We want fewer criminals around, so we want the rehabilitation process to be successful.

I follow closely the research and advice provided by that excellent organisation the Howard League. I hope that the Government follow it as closely as I do. I found its recent report particularly interesting, and I draw some of its points to the attention of the Minister.

The report recognised that men and women released from prison with no home could be temporarily accommodated in hostels. However, many men interviewed in the study found hostels unduly restrictive and disempowering, because of stringent terms and conditions, especially those which exclude them from employment. They said they would rather spend their sentence in prison. While the women in the research sample said that they felt safe and looked after in hostel accommodation, they were nevertheless frequently moved away from existing family networks to be accommodated, due to the poor geographic spread of hostels.

Is it not important, as the Howard League argues, for routine inspections of approved premises to take place, on the model developed for inspecting prisons? Inspections should consider capacity, overcrowding, communal facilities, privacy and bedrooms, as well as the hostel’s regime.

The report points out that sentenced prisoners are often released with no accommodation and no job. The Government announced, in the comprehensive spending review, that JSA payments would be delayed for seven days. Prisoners rarely have previous wages to draw on. So the discharge grant of £46 will have to last for at least a week, often longer, if their benefits have not been arranged prior to release. Remand prisoners, who are released direct from court, receive no discharge grant and no resettlement help. Government plans to impose at least one year’s supervision on short-sentence prisoners will not help prisoners on remand who are either found not guilty or given a community sentence that does not involve supervision.

There is a sad lack of authoritative national statistics on the number of people who are homeless and are remanded or sentenced to prison. The Howard League, in its research, recommends that both prisons and local authorities should be required to record the number of prisoners making homeless applications to their local authority.

In the age when we look for joined-up government, let us note another finding: that the bedroom tax will have a negative impact on the availability of accommodation for those leaving prison. The majority of homeless people who have been in contact with the criminal justice system are single and need to be housed in smaller properties. Increased demand for these properties caused by the underoccupancy charge will make it more difficult to find suitable housing.

I sometimes wonder when I look at the reality of how it is all operating, whether we speak about rehabilitation but have a secret plot to ensure that it is as unlikely as possible to succeed. Either we believe in rehabilitation or we do not. If we do, we need to make sure that the provision of services, the arrangements, for individuals—they are all individuals with different needs—are in place.