Prisons: Children of Prisoners

Lord Laming Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, this is a very complicated area. The noble Baroness is not quite right: we do encourage courts to ask defendants, whether they are male or female, whether they have dependent children. What happens is that some mothers, in particular, fear that their child might then be taken into care, and they may well have made their own informal arrangements for that child and therefore think, “Actually, I’m not disclosing that I have children”. It is therefore very difficult for us to pick up that information.

The noble Baroness mentioned Barnardo’s. I pay tribute to the work that it has done on the National Information Centre on Children of Offenders, a comprehensive website that was launched in May this year so that all government agencies, both nationally and locally, can find out best practice and work out the diverse needs of these very vulnerable children.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the reasons why we have these very short sentences of two weeks and the like is that the courts appear to have lost confidence in the non-custodial arrangements that have been made, particularly given the decline in the standing of the probation service? What steps are being taken to recover the position of probation supervision?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is right that there has been a move away from community sentences, which perhaps has been because the quality has not been there. However, we are turning that around. We are looking at improving the provision of mental health, alcohol and drugs treatment locally, so that court-ordered treatment can run alongside community sentences. On the point about probation, we have re-established the National Sentencer Probation Forum, in which people who hand out sentences and the probation service can discuss what issues need to be sorted out to ensure that the provisions are there for these community-based sentences. I think all noble Lords will agree with me that the more that we can use them, the better for all involved.