Prisoner Releases in Error

Debate between Lord Timpson and Lord Foster of Bath

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The digital team that has gone into Wandsworth is confident that it can do some quick fixes. I do not have an exact timeline, but we have given it up to £10 million to do those quick fixes. The nature of digital technology is such that we will be able to roll that out across the prison estate very quickly. One relevant point some noble Lords were discussing with me in your Lordships’ House last night is the Sentencing Bill, which we hope will make things simpler. I also want to touch on the point the noble Lord mentioned about how complicated it is. It is unfair on our hard-working staff to expect them to get this right all the time, especially those who have just started. We need to support them not just with digital solutions but with a lot of training because, even though we are going to simplify things, it will still be a complex process. I hope that the Sentencing Bill will simplify things for everybody involved in the justice system.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I genuinely welcome the quick action by the Government and the measures that have been proposed—in particular, as just discussed, the use of AI. The Minister refers to the hard-working staff, but the truth is that although we have more and more prisoners, we have fewer and fewer prison officers. They are leaving at an alarming rate, so we need to address some of the staffing issues. The Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee and the Chief Inspector of Prisons have been highly critical of the recruitment procedure for prison officers, which is done via Zoom with no face-to-face interviews; of the in-service training of those officers; and, in particular, of the assessment of the in-service performance of those officers—often, no records are kept of any discussions with them. Does the Minister accept that all those issues relating to staff in our prisons also need to be addressed to ensure that we have a higher calibre of staff who are less likely to make mistakes, including mistaken releases?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that we are 100% dependent on the good will and ability of our staff. Our staff in the Prison and Probation Service have been heroic over the past few years, dealing with Covid, early releases and so on. We expect a lot of them and we need to improve their training. That is why we have the Enable project, which I worked on before I came into government. We also need to up our game on retention, because we do not want to lose experienced prison officers. One of the challenges I have set myself is that, before I was in government, I ran a company that was generally known as a good company to work for. I am determined to try to instil that sense of direction in the Prison and Probation Service.

Education in Prisons

Debate between Lord Timpson and Lord Foster of Bath

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons A review of work and training provision in adult prisons, published on 13 October, regarding the impact of cuts to education in prisons.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

We inherited a crisis in our justice system and I am passionate and focused on providing good education and work opportunities, which are vital to prisoner rehabilitation. The education budget has not been cut—in fact, it has increased by 3%—but many prisons will face reduced delivery due to rising costs, while others will see an increase. We are focused on maximising value from new education services and expanding work opportunities through employer partnerships.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I chair the Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee, and our recent report on prisoners made clear that we want to see a much wider range of education opportunities in our prisons, for more people, to help reduce reoffending and to make the public safer. As the Minister clearly said, he entirely agrees with that principle, but he has to accept, as the Chief Inspector of Prisons made very clear, that the current provision of education in our prisons is woefully inadequate. As the Minister pointed out, some provision of education in prisons is being reduced by as much as 50%. Can he at least assure us that, in addition to all the improvements in efficiency that he wants to make, he is lobbying hard for increased funding to pay for that much-needed education provision?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble Lord and I share the ambition for our prisons to be places where people turn their lives around, and education has a big part to play in that. We are making progress. In five prisons, we have the working week happening now—31 hours of purposeful activity. This year, 10% more prisoners participated in education compared to last year, which is really good. Our reading strategy is now in every prison, and the third sector is involved in that. I am a big believer that we need to strongly manage contracts. As I said last week, there are too many classrooms with teachers but not enough prisoners. We need to see more of them. I have also changed the word “education” in our prisons to “skills academy”, thinking that that would appeal more to our prisoners who did not have a good experience of education. I saw that last week in HMP Hindley, where I had positive feedback from the staff and prisoners.

Independent Sentencing Review

Debate between Lord Timpson and Lord Foster of Bath

Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s support for the general direction of travel of the sentencing review. We will continue to work with the police and others on any impacts on the wider justice system—that is very important. However, the alternative is that we run out of prison places, and the last thing that our police want or need is to have no prison places. It is very important that we make sure that we have enough prison places to rely on, so that, in future, the police have confidence that they can go about their job.

As for the short custodial sentences, MoJ research found that custodial sentences of less than 12 months were associated with higher reoffending rates compared to court orders of any length. That is why we need to make sure that we get the balance right. Tagging has recently been shown to cut reoffending rates by 20%, but what is also interesting is the future of tagging. With the way in which technology is developing, I envisage that the role of tagging and wrist-worn technology will mean that the role of probation becomes far easier and we can do far more, not just to track offenders in the community but to check whether they are consuming alcohol or drugs or whether they are in the wrong place, and so on. With electronic tagging, we need to make sure that we support our probation staff, but I am very interested in the future of the technology too.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

It is particularly welcome that the Government have accepted that community sentences are far more effective at reducing reoffending than are short sentences. Will the Minister accept that, if we want to further improve the levels of reoffending and increase public confidence, a community sentence programme will need to have far more investment than the very welcome £700 million for the Probation Service? Can he assure us that funds will also be made available for support services such as for housing, mental health, and drug and alcohol and gambling problems? Will that money be forthcoming?