Prison: Support for Dependent Children

Lord Laming Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right, of course, that the welfare of the child should be paramount. There has been a significant reduction in the number of women receiving custodial sentences, but the figures that she cites on the number of children who are then unable to stay in the family home are striking. We are working very hard, with our review of Working Together to Safeguard Children and our review of children’s social care, building on the important work of my noble friend Lord Farmer and the review of women in prison.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will recognise that innocent dependent children should not also experience something like a prison sentence. That being so, will she use her good offices to ensure a statement of assessment about the arrangements that will be made to ensure that young dependent children are suitably cared for while their mother is in prison?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously, part of the pre-sentence report focuses on whether there are dependent children in the family, as the noble Lord knows very well. In all too many cases, when women end up in prison their children are already known to children’s services. That also presents an opportunity for earlier intervention and continuity of support and care. This also ties in with our strategy around kinship care and the support that a woman offender’s wider family can offer to her children.