Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We might learn more about the book later, but we must move on now. I am saving the hon. Gentleman up; he should not worry.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to facilitate mutual ownership of probation trusts; and if he will make a statement.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

The transforming rehabilitation competition process has been designed to allow a range of entities to bid to deliver rehabilitation services. This could include alternative delivery vehicles and mutuals designed by individuals within existing probation trusts.

The Cabinet Office’s mutuals support programme has made some of its £10 million funding available to support mutuals interested in participating in the competition. This has included access to coaching and capability-building from experienced commercial mentors and leaders in the field.

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the Secretary of State for that reply. Will he reassure me that, while we have examples of good practice in local probation trusts and individuals who want to transfer to a mutual status, those moves will not be opposed by the Ministry of Justice but, rather, facilitated?

[Chris Grayling]

I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. Indeed, we held in this House a week ago, while we were all waiting for the Europe votes, a forum with potential bidders. It was gratifying to see among those in attendance a large contingent from the potential mutual bidders. I am very keen to see them make good progress in this process.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right. One of the real worries about this so-called reform programme is that it borrows from the Work programme, which the Justice Secretary introduced when he was Minister of State for Employment. Frankly, many of the failures, flaws and potential fraud in the Work programme could be replicated in our probation service.

Returning to probation trusts, I quoted from the March 2012 consultation report. What has changed since then? The Justice Secretary has changed. He has stopped the pilots; he has added medium-risk offenders who have served a custodial sentence, and those on community sentences and suspended sentences, to the list of offenders who will be handed over to the private sector; and he has issued the invitation to contract for £450 million of services before the Bill has even had its Second reading in this House. There has been no testing, no costing, no evidence to support such sweeping changes and no backing from any serious professional probation voices.

Clause 1 was inserted by the Lords as a vote of no confidence in the case that the Justice Secretary has been making. That was not a party political move, as it was led by Cross Benchers and a former chief inspector of prisons. Clause 1 was introduced and approved because there are still too many doubts about the Bill and the programme of privatisation—doubts about the viability, accountability, affordability and safety of services under a new, largely privatised system. How much will it cost? How much will it save? How will it be more effective? How will it reduce reoffending? How great will the risk be in putting serious offenders in the hands of private companies? How much money will be offered up front? How much will be held back and paid via payment by results? How will the repeated failures of the Work programme be avoided? How will the fiasco and fraud we have seen before be avoided in the Ministry of Justice’s management of contracts?

To justify the proposed legislation, the Justice Secretary has to address those concerns, and he has not. He has to be able to demonstrate that his plans are better than building on what is already in place. He cannot do that because all 35 probation trusts in England and Wales have been independently judged either good or excellent. All 35 probation trusts are hitting all the targets they have been set. Reoffending rates for those under their supervision have been falling every year for more than a decade. Imagine the credit the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government would take if all local authority children’s services were judged good or excellent. Imagine the purring pleasure of the Secretary of State for Education if all schools were judged good or excellent. Imagine the huge relief of the Secretary of State for Health if all hospitals were judged good or excellent. No other part of the public sector performs so consistently, and to such a high professional standard, as the probation service.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s argument. Is he suggesting that none of the 35 probation trusts should apply for mutual status, which would allow them to carry on their important work? Is he advising against that?

[John Healey]

That is a red herring. Unbelievably, probation trusts are prevented from putting forward proposals to bid for contracts to do the job they have proved they can do so well. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman comes across to south Yorkshire and looks at our probation trust, which is one of the best-performing trusts in the country. In the past five years, it has been top-ranked almost every year in reducing reoffending.

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[Kate Green]

It is clear that we need much more time to scrutinise these proposals properly and, sadly, that is not what we are being offered by the Government tonight.

I turn to an issue that has been raised by a number of hon. Members, mostly Government Members, about the opportunities that exist for probation trusts in some form to bid for the new contracts. It is pretty clearly understood in my area that they will not have that opportunity to bid. It is baffling to me that, when they are doing such good work already, we would not want to give them the opportunity at least to compete for those contracts. They might not be successful, but surely where we have good models of provision in the public sector, we would want to enable them to put themselves forward in competition with other potential providers.

It has been said, rightly, by a number of hon. Members that there will be the opportunity for probation trusts to set up different kinds of legal structures—co-operatives, mutuals, shadow structures and so on. I am not sure why we think there is any particular advantage to the public in forcing them to go down that route. Again, I cannot help but believe that it will create extra cost and extra complexity. Nor is it clear to me that we know what these mutuals and co-operatives will and will not be allowed to bid for.

It would be helpful if the Minister commented on that in his response and told the House how he envisages these entities coming into a system when the contracting is beginning to take place already, before many of them have had any chance to get off the ground.

[Paul Maynard]

rose—

[Kate Green]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is interested in this issue so I am pleased to take his intervention.

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. She is being most generous. Does she agree that Greater Manchester is one of the more innovative probation trusts and has had a number of very successful schemes and should perhaps be seen as a litmus test of whether the condition for mutuals is going to occur in practice.

[Kate Green]

I agree that Greater Manchester has been innovative. As I say, in my discussions with Greater Manchester, the trust was preparing for exactly this approach, at least a year ago, and had the brakes put on. It was told that it would not be able to bid in the process in the way that it had planned, so I would be interested to understand, as I think the hon. Gentleman would, what Greater Manchester and other such trusts will and will not be able to bid for, what sort of entities they will have to establish to enable them to bid and potentially to take a leading role in that bidding process, and whether there will be time for them to create those entities and put in bids, given that, as I understand it, the preliminaries of the process are already under way this month. He and I look forward to some reassurances from the Minister.

A number of my colleagues have pointed out that the Lord Chancellor’s proposals mirror the structure and approach of the Work programme, which he introduced as Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions. Leaving aside the pretty poor performance of the Work programme to date—I am prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt; it may achieve improved outcomes over time, although it is getting off to a depressingly slow start—in the light of everything that has been said in the Chamber this evening about what we have seen from the Work programme and what seems to be being replicated in these contracts, I am concerned that we will have a national top-down driven system, when what we have heard from both sides of the House, about innovative experiments in different parts of the country, is that a localised, bottom-up, partnership approach across a range of local agencies has been what has worked best.

I am concerned that the track record of some of the large multinational providers, who are likely to bid for these contracts—indeed may be the only people qualified and able to take the risk inherent in bidding for these contracts—is that they are not good at developing supply chains down the local agencies. As hon. Members may know, many voluntary and charitable organisations have complained bitterly about their experiences with the Work programme. They complain that they have been used as so-called bid candy, but have not been given any opportunity to deliver activity. They complain that they have had very few referrals, having been included on bids by the large prime contractors. There are real concerns that we are seeing a model that looks very like the Work programme in terms of top-down, Department-led contracting. There are also concerns about whether we can be confident that those problems and pitfalls will not occur in these contracts in the way that they did in the Work programme.

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[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I shall try not to lose us any more time. I always seem fated to be called to speak in a debate when a time-limit has been applied. Also, I usually seem to speak to an empty Chamber, but I have a few Members to speak to today.

It is a pleasure to speak on the Second Reading of this Bill, and there have been some useful contributions so far. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), I regard myself as a critical friend of these proposals. No one can dispute the figures, and I make no apology for arguing that something must be done. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood) appeared to suggest that that was a bad approach. I think that when we have a cohort of prisoners who are getting no rehabilitation support because their custodial sentence is less than 12 months, something should be done. I think there is general agreement on that on both sides of the House. We cannot go on giving people £46 cash-in-hand and just hope for the best. That is why these proposals are an important first step.

None the less, I recognise the level of concern that exists on both sides of the House and in the wider community, which is interested in these issues, not least the Prison Reform Trust, of which I am a trustee. There is a deep underlying concern that these proposals may inadvertently lead to an increase in the prison population as sentencers play safe and send people to custody in order to access rehabilitation services that they fear may not be available if they go for a community sentence. That is a genuine fear that we have heard expressed today, and I would like the Minister to try to nail it. What guidance can he issue to the judiciary and magistrates to remind them that existing sentencing guidelines will remain in force, so custody remains an option only when the offence justifies it? Furthermore, can he ensure that that guidance makes it clear that the level of support available to an offender does not vary depending on whether it is in a custodial or a community setting?

Those assurances would help many who are concerned that these proposals may lead to an increase in the prison population, and it will emphasise that these reforms should not be portrayed as being to the detriment of community sentences. Indeed, given these concerns, I would welcome hearing from the Minister how he sees community sentencing playing a greater role in the future.

We have also heard a lot about the probation service’s fears about the changes, and I want to raise a couple of points that may alter the balance of the debate somewhat. For a very long time now the probation service has argued for parity of esteem, within the Ministry of Justice, with the prison sector. The 35 local probation trusts have never felt that they have argued with one voice in the way that the prisons sector can in the Ministry of Justice. Creating a national probation service, and creating a probation institute to enhance that profession’s qualifications and opportunities, is a good thing. It provides an opportunity for the thousands of well-respected, highly professional probation officers who are out there.

We can all refer to excellent voluntary organisations that engage in rehabilitation work. As Christmas is coming, I can recommend Fine Cell Work. It produces excellent embroidery, cushions and needlework, which can be fantastic for relatives or friends. I suggest that hon. Members visit its website today. Fine Cell Work has a purpose, because it trains people for a career after they leave custody. The Clink is another good example of an excellent voluntary organisation. It is about to open its third restaurant inside a prison, at HMP Brixton—perhaps we can all go for a Christmas dinner at some point, if it opens early enough. Its reoffending rate is 12.5%, which is one that many would dream of in terms of this debate.

I recognise the concern expressed by hon. Members on both sides that the smaller community groups may struggle to cling on in this new competitive environment. A fortnight ago I made this point, but I will make it again: Ministers and Opposition spokespeople must look carefully at what is being proposed by Clinks, which is the trade body for the hundreds of voluntary providers in our prison system. It has some specific proposals about where risk can be located in the supply chain to enable more of these many smaller groups to play a crucial role. That particularly relates to the point made by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) about the smaller groups that help women offenders and other minority groups of offenders. That is an important thing and I hope that the Minister can respond to it.

The speed of reform is certainly daunting and ambitious, and I would be naive not to suggest that. In a way, it makes me think of the work capability assessment, although I would rather not necessarily have to do that. The previous Government sensibly asked Professor Harrington to undertake regular reviews of specific aspects of the WCA that were causing concern—one year it was mental health, another year it was fluctuating conditions. That tweaked the WCA to improve it, perhaps not to the extent that Labour Members might like but it was a useful self-correcting mechanism to improve a process. I would very much like to see something similar in this area. I recognise that we have Her Majesty’s inspectorate of probation, but how will the Minister task it to provide regular reviews of the progress of these reforms, identifying thematic areas that might need attention? Such an approach would greatly enhance the House’s confidence that these reforms will be properly scrutinised and improved as they go along. The iterative element to these proposals will be crucial, just as it was on the WCA.

I am also highly concerned about the potential for large numbers of breaches, with the impact assessment talking about a need for 600 extra places and a cost of £16 million. Nobody who is concerned about the size of public spending should treat that lightly. I want to hear a bit more from the Minister about how we can ensure that breach is not an automatic conveyor belt. Provision was made in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 to allow offenders to go before a court to explain why they did what they did and then the court would have the option to do nothing if it thought that what it had heard so convinced it. Disappointingly, I understand that that was not commenced—indeed, it was removed in the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Will the Minister say whether that can be looked at again to ensure that we do not have this automatic escalator of breaches, whereby we end up with more people in prison than should be there? I am particularly concerned about the much younger age group, who often have learning disabilities or communication delay of some sort. They often seem to be in a Catch-22 situation, where they have a complex set of requirements placed on them which they cannot possibly hope to understand. I know the Government, in the other place, made a commitment in response to Lord Bradley to have “easy read” statements of what the requirements are going to be. Can the Government update us on the progress of that, because I fear that without them we will see far more breaches that cannot be explained in front of a court to the satisfaction of the court?

Also, I remain slightly concerned by the role youth offending teams will play in the new landscape. Someone turning 18 while in custody, having been sentenced as a minor, will be transferred to the national probation service. For many of the vulnerable young people in my constituency, that will be quite a culture shock.

[Jeremy Wright]

I am conscious of the time and that I might not have the chance to get to this later, so I can give my hon. Friend the instant reassurance that in the case of the individuals he is describing, a decision will be made on each about whether it is more appropriate for the national probation service or, indeed, the CRC to manage it or for the youth offending team to continue to do so.

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the Minister for that response and hope that the youth offending team will still have a voice in that process rather than just being passive.

Most importantly, in terms of the numbers involved, we all frequently discuss the role that mental ill health plays in causing offender behaviour. The numbers in prison with a mental health diagnosis, an addiction problem or a dual diagnosis is significant. It is striking that, despite the fact that we have a specific mental health rehabilitation order, for the last year for which I have figures only 1% of disposals consisted of such an order—that is only 783. That cannot be because we are not aware of the problem; clearly, we are, and many detailed reports have considered the structural issues that mean that the capacity for meeting that need simply is not there.

Bearing in mind what we have heard from Members on both sides about cost, as well as the fact that providing treatments for these vulnerable groups costs more, will the Minister consider whether the mental health rehabilitation orders, which might be far more costly, need to be provided in a slightly different way? Otherwise, we might see a repeat of the current situation, where we have the need and the knowledge but do not seem to be able to supply the rehabilitation treatment to the people who most need it.

Clearly, I have just listed a long line of concerns, as is my way in such debates. None the less, I am highly supportive of the Government’s direction of travel on this Bill. I am very supportive of the Minister individually and I join Members on both sides in saying that we know that his heart is in the right place and we trust him to deliver the Bill properly.

Probation Service

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I shall do my best to encompass all my thoughts within the requisite five minutes.

It was a pleasure not only to be asked to speak in this debate, but to meet a constituent last Saturday whose grandson is sadly in the criminal justice system. He has just had to move to the other side of the country to access the rehabilitation course he requires to get a meaningful job upon release. The consequence is that he can no longer see his family, as they cannot afford to travel to the other side of the country, but he understands the importance of getting a job and having a secure financial base on which to rebuild his life. It is clear to me that this debate is not about the arid structures that Opposition Members have talked about; it is about real people and, most importantly, outcomes.

The Secretary of State is right to point to the appalling reoffending statistics for those serving sentences of less than 12 months. As he said, those with the highest reoffending rates seem to get the least rehabilitation support. Resettlement prisons are clearly a key component of the new landscape, but on the journey there are risks of mixing potentially vulnerable young offenders and older inmates. Will the Minister look closely at what the independent monitoring board has said about HMP Portland, where there has been serious evidence of self-harm and violence because of the inappropriate mixing of populations?

I urge hon. Members to look at the Prison Reform Trust’s report, “Out for Good”, which is about what prisoners want in having a successful rehabilitation in their communities. I declare an interest as a trustee, but it is a very worthwhile read. One of its key points, which I have not yet heard mentioned in the debate, is the importance of stable financial support on release. By this I do not just mean the £46 that people take through the gate, but their ability to have a bank account and to access insurance. Many banks have carried out pilot projects—Barclays has made more progress than most—and the charity Unlock is doing its best to corral the financial services industry in this regard. However, I urge Ministers to try a little harder. Without access to a bank account, which is now such an important part of daily life, or adequate insurance, rehabilitation is made that much harder.

Members in all parts of the House have praised the voluntary sector and the charities that can all play such an important role, but I have detected a slight discrepancy whereby Opposition Members see them as being welcome participants but in a subsidiary role. I am happy to see them in a leading role, and I think they want to do far more. For example, the Clink Charity is a support group for about 1,000 different smaller charities that is actively trying to work with the Government to play a role in this. I urge the Minister to look closely at its recommendations about how we can involve those smaller charities fairly in the commissioning sector. It proposes that some of the up-front financial risk that they have to bear should be transferred to the upper-tier providers of these services, perhaps allowing them to play a much greater role. I would like the Minister to respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), who is no longer in her place, who said that many small charities—Hibiscus springs to mind—work with very small segments of the offender population and might struggle to generate the statistical justifications that, in the eyes of the larger providers, enable them to make a contribution.

I recognise the concerns of many probation trust members about their professional future. Will the Minister say a little more about the benefits of mutuals? Will he confirm that any trust that is doing good work at the moment, be it in Manchester or in Sussex—for both are doing excellent work—can continue to do that work if they transfer to a mutual status? That confirmation would be very welcome to those who work in such trusts. Thank you again, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I would like to refresh the hon. Gentleman’s memory about a couple of points. The work capability assessment was brought in under the previous Government, and we are trying to get it right. Equally, the cumulative impact on housing under the previous Government shows that 1.8 million people were left on waiting lists, a quarter of a million people were in overcrowded housing, and the housing bill doubled. The intention of our cumulative impact is to get it right.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Virtue is not found solely in the amount of money that is spent. Does the Minister agree that it is as important to enable disabled people to fulfil their aspirations and live fully in society as it is to focus on financial payments to a proportion of them?

[Esther McVey]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who does so much in this area. This is about fulfilling potential, protecting the most vulnerable, and helping those who would like to get into work. The budget remains at £50 billion, which is a fifth higher than the average in Europe, over double that in America, and six times more than in Japan. We are world leaders and I am proud of our record.

Transforming Rehabilitation

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It depends on what works. There are very good charities delivering excellent services for this country. There are charities that do good and noble work but are less good at the jobs they do. What matters to me is that we have the organisations that do the best job. In the Work programme we will find excellent organisations in the charitable sector doing first-rate work and excellent private organisations doing first-rate work, and I would like to have the best of both.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I strongly welcome what the Secretary of State has said. Will he look not only at the amount of money that prisoners get on release but the monetary form in which it is given to them? I am concerned that many prisoners are given the money in cash form and go immediately to the nearest town to use it to purchase inappropriate goods such as alcohol that damage the essential stability of their first 48 hours post-release when they need to set a good pattern of behaviour.

[Chris Grayling]

Absolutely. Another problem in the system was that up until a few months ago prisoners could not even sign on for benefits for a week after release, which left a huge hole in their finances and caused a lot of reoffending. I addressed that when I was a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions. We have to make sure that the environment is right when prisoners are released. If they are met by a mentor at the gate who then sorts out their lives, showing them where they are going to live and making sure that they are signed on to benefits, I hope that their time to go down the pub will be much diminished.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

1. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on improving training and skills of adult prisoners to improve their employment chances after the end of their sentence and reduce the risk of reoffending.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

18. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on improving training and skills of adult prisoners to improve their employment chances after the end of their sentence and reduce the risk of reoffending.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

I worked closely with the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning during the preparation of the new offender learning strategy published last year, and officials from both Departments have worked closely on implementation. I fully recognise the importance of learning and training in making prisoners more employable, and my officials and I are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to provide enhanced employment support via the Work programme.

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[Paul Maynard]

Many education providers these days use online platforms and tools to provide education in prison and would like to do so more often using both better internet connections and better wi-fi internet connection. Obviously, there are security concerns about making such connections available. Will the Minister explain a little further what he could do to encourage such provision to enhance rehabilitation opportunities?

[Mr Blunt]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend because, as he says, it is essential to maintain security while enabling learning and skills to be relevant in prisons. Prisoners’ educational internet access will now be via the virtual campus that is being installed where it is technically possible to do so in all adult prisons in England. It offers very secure access to online tools and resources that have been through thorough quality assurance and rigorous security checks, and has the potential to be developed so that prisoners’ in-cell time as well as their out-of-cell time could be much more productive than it is today.

Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Transparency and consistency in sentencing is both an end in itself, as part of an open justice system, and a means to an end. It is an essential component in dispensing criminal justice that is fair and credible and has the confidence of the public. No one has a monopoly on wisdom in these matters, although this country is fortunate to have a judiciary and judicial system that has intellect and integrity and applies itself to achieving fair and honest outcomes. From the magistracy to the Supreme Court, from first hearings and summary trials to second and third-stage appeals, there is much to take pride in. Anyone who doubts that needs only to read the sentencing remarks of Mr Justice Treacy in the case of Dobson and Norris, the murderers of Stephen Lawrence.

That is not to be complacent, and it does not mean that we do not need to review and change things. In government, Labour improved the quality of training for lay magistrates, which means better and fairer decision making and gives us confidence to rely more on what has been a mainstay of justice for 650 years. We also set up the Supreme Court, a body that within a few years has become central to the administration of justice in the UK.

I give credit to the Lord Chancellor—[Interruption.] Will the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), allow him to have my attention? I give credit to the Lord Chancellor for some of the steps that he has taken to promote open justice. Publishing comparative data is a good way of examining the performance of individual courts and measuring consistency. We can cautiously welcome the televising of proceedings. Provided that it protects witnesses and victims and does not sensationalise crime or allow defendants to grandstand, it will be a welcome extension of the principle that the default position of the English courts is that they operate in public.

Perhaps in return, Government Back Benchers will give some acknowledgment of the record of recent Labour Governments, although I doubt it. We inherited a poor record in criminal justice, as we did in health, education and policing. We had communities in thrall to crimes that all too often went unsolved and unpunished and a sentencing policy that was too inconsistent and unscientific, lacking any coherent vision of how to deal with criminals and the revolving door of recidivism. Vulnerable young people were being recruited into crime at ever younger ages. In Moss Side, Liverpool, Newcastle and London, people knew that the Tories could not be trusted on crime and justice. Poorer communities suffered more from the effects of crime, and were abandoned by a succession of Tory Governments who either would not or could not turn things around. It was not only Liverpool that the Thatcher and Major Governments condemned to managed decline.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

rose—

[Rehman Chishti]

rose—

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[Mr Slaughter]

I took only two notes when the Lord Chancellor spoke, one of which was on that point. It was a bare-faced cheek for him to talk about the early release of prisoners by some days at the end of their sentences under the Labour Government and then immediately to decry indeterminate sentences for public protection, which ensure that violent and dangerous sex offenders are kept in prison until they are not a danger to the public. Does the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) want to intervene?

[Paul Maynard]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Slaughter]

The hon. Gentleman can make his point in his own time.

Labour’s legacy was somewhat different from that of the Thatcher and Major Governments. The current Government published statistics that show that over the last Parliament, there was a 43% reduction in first-time youth offenders—down from 107,040 per annum to 61,387. As a result, there was a 34% reduction in offences committed by young people, down from 301,860 per annum to 198,449. As a result of that, there was a 15% reduction in young people in custody, down from 2,830 to 2,418. That trend has continued to date. Those are long-term changes in behaviour, in opportunity and diversion from criminality, not the quick-fix methods of trying to shave numbers off the prison population that the Justice Secretary favours.

Youth offending teams—multi-agency partnerships embedded in local authorities—dealt with young offenders from arrest to court to managing their punishment in the community or the securest date for reintegration. As the teams bedded down in their core statutory functions, the previous Government added prevention work to their remit and resourced them with expertise on gang behaviour and restorative justice. We also gave them considerable latitude for innovation to allow for the development of new ideas and local solutions. At the same time, we created the Youth Justice Board to ensure that places in custody were commissioned efficiently and effectively to co-ordinate best practice among YOTs.

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[Philip Davies]

They must have had to commit an awful lot of crimes to get themselves into prison, because it is very difficult to get sent to prison in this country.

Let me emphasise the point. In 2009, according to the Ministry of Justice, 2,980 burglars and 4,677 violent offenders with 15 or more previous convictions were still not sent to prison. Today, the Secretary of State was saying that if someone commits a burglary they should expect to go to prison. In one year, however, 2,980 burglars with 15 or more previous convictions still were not sent to prison, which seems rather to defy the message that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed is trying to give.

[Paul Maynard]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there are prisons, secure children’s homes and independent institutions where people, on their release, knock on the door begging to be taken back in? Those settings were the only place in which they received the care and support that they needed to be a meaningful member of the local community on their release. Does he share my concern?

[Philip Davies]

I share many of my hon. Friend’s concerns and I am certainly concerned that many people are anxious to get back into custody. There are an awful lot of reasons for that, one of which he has given. Some might argue that another reason why people are so keen to get back into prison is that their quality of life in prison is far better than their quality of life outside prison. When 4,070 prisoners enjoy the luxury of Sky TV in their cells—not even in a communal area—we know that something is fundamentally wrong with our criminal justice system.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have this wretched organisation, HM inspectorate of prisons, the members of which come down from their nine-bedroom mansions in Oxfordshire, go around the prisons and say, “Oh, it’s jolly awful in here, isn’t it? Absolutely terrible.” If those same people came from the same crime-ridden estates that people in prison tend to come from, they would probably say, “It’s jolly nice in here.” There is rather a big disconnect between the backgrounds of the people in prison and of these do-gooders, the prison inspectors.

[Paul Maynard]

As one of those do-gooders—I realise that that might be a matter of concern to my hon. Friend—may I ask whether he has any proposals on how we could improve local authority accommodation for young people, for example, to ensure that the communities where they live are safer for them than a secure custodial setting? What positive proposals does he have in addition to his House of Commons research?

[Philip Davies]

My positive proposal appears to have escaped my hon. Friend. I think I am right in saying that he is a member of the new 301 group, which I thought referred to the number of seats we had to win at the next election; I did not realise it was the target for the number of people we should have in prison, which seems to be the approach advocated. What about the quality of life of many law-abiding people in this country? We talk about the rights of criminals, but what about speaking up for the law-abiding people who think that their quality of life would be improved if more people were sent to prison in the first place? Not only are all those people not being sent to prison, but we still have a system in which someone who goes to court with 100 previous convictions behind them is still more likely not to be sent to prison than to be sent to prison. How on earth can we have a criminal justice system in which that is the case?

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[Philip Davies]

The figures my right hon. and learned Friend dismissed are the ones supplied by his Department. All I can do is give the figures as they are. They indicate that of the 206 people who have been released having served an IPP sentence, only 11 have reoffended. It is up to hon. Members to draw their own conclusion from those figures. The principle that we should not release people from prison until it is safe to do so strikes me and my constituents as a rather good one to have in the criminal justice system. His suggestion that we should release people from prison regardless of whether it is safe to do so seems rather bizarre.

[Paul Maynard]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Philip Davies]

If my hon. Friend does not mind, I will make some progress, because many other Members wish to speak and I want to draw my remarks to a close.

My final point is on the automatic release of offenders halfway through their sentence, which is one of the shameful things the previous Government sneaked through in the last Parliament. Prisoners are now not just eligible for release halfway through their sentence; they are automatically released. I think that that is a terrible situation. When I visited Denmark, whose criminal justice system is always seen as very liberal, I found that they do not have that system. They have the system we used to have, whereby prisoners became eligible for release halfway through their sentence. In fact, 30% of their prisoners were refused parole altogether and served the full sentence handed down by the courts, and they think that that is one of the major reasons why they had such low reoffending rates. I urge the Secretary of State not to have a system where we automatically release prisoners willy-nilly halfway through their sentence and irrespective of their behaviour in prison or their risk of reoffending. We should make proper judgments about people’s fitness for release before we agree to release them. I think that we can learn from Denmark in that regard.

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[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I must apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for not being a lawyer but daring to participate in this debate. I hope he will forgive me. I must also apologise for not living in Oxfordshire or in a nine-bedroom mansion. I live in a two-bedroom ex-council flat; I hope that does not exclude me from this debate.

I represent the fourth most deprived Conservative-held seat in the country, and I hope that allows me to participate in the debate because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) has just pointed out, it is the poor who suffer most as a consequence of crime.

I should like to question some of the comforting nostrums that have been floating around the Chamber. Those who have read their New Statesman this morning might call it “reassurance” politics—saying things to make ourselves, rather than those we seek to represent, feel better. That is my primary concern. Language is crucial in this debate. We have to be judicious and proportionate in everything we say, but I sometimes fear that is rather difficult.

I also believe that victims have to have a crucial role in this process, not because I believe, as I fear some do, that victims will automatically demand the harshest judgment possible—far from it. We can all swap polling and survey evidence, but I want to highlight a survey I saw from 2009, which said that only 11% of the victims questioned felt that sending more offenders to prison would “do most” to reduce crime. That is not to say that people should not go to prison or that prison should not be unpleasant, but it does indicate that the comforting nostrum that all victims are slavering for the chance to see those who have caused them harm swing high simply is not the case.

I commend the Government for publishing more local, transparent data on sentencing. That is vital to improving not just transparency but public confidence in the system. I firmly believe that a transparent and consistent sentencing policy will be possible only if we start to reduce the prison population. Unlike some hon. Members here today, I do not believe we should seek to turn this nation into a gulag with as many people as possible crammed in.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

My hon. Friend and I heard the interesting and often entertaining speech of our hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who mentioned the Netherlands. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) agree that if the Netherlands can close eight prisons because they do not have enough prisoners to fill them, and if their apparent crime rate and their apparent imprisonment rate are half of ours, on a population basis, we have a lot to learn from those who agree that we need to cut crime, cut the number of victims and cut the number of people in prison as well?

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[Paul Maynard]

I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. I have always believed there should be a strong correlation between the amount of crime being committed and the number of people being sent to prison. If one is going in one direction, I fail to understand why the other is not going in the same direction, but it is not. There are now twice as many people in prison as when Michael Howard announced that “prison works”. I therefore believe that for certain categories of prisoner it is essential to look at alternatives to custody that are robust without being harsh and that have lower reoffending rates. Indeed, the Lord Chancellor pointed out that that was one of the crucial indicators he had placed at the heart of the Ministry of Justice’s work. In my view, that means we should start to focus not only on how many people reoffend after longer sentences but at what we mean by a short sentence and what is an appropriate sentence.

I might just about agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley that sentences of less than 12 months are almost decorative. People at the young offender institutions I have visited say that the most they can do is fix people’s teeth in that time, if they are lucky. Perhaps the shortest sentence should be 12 months, but that does not absolve us from trying to confront what we do in the community. I do not support the idea that anyone who is found guilty should be sent to prison, no matter what their crime. That simply is not the way to go. Within the youth justice system, there has been a 30% fall in the number of children in custodial settings without any increase in youth crime. That is an important example to which we should hold true. It is possible to reduce incarceration levels while keeping crime levels low. Once again, the two are not connected. Indeed, the Government have been able to cancel plans to build a new young offender institution at Glen Parva, thereby creating savings for the taxpayer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley was rather dismissive of my participation in the 301 project. I hope he is not similarly dismissive of our participation in “No Turning Back”; indeed, perhaps he is a fellow member. I hope he shares my concern for effective financial management and good stewardship of taxpayers’ money. One of my key concerns about the approach to criminal justice that he advocates is that it pays no attention to the cost to the public purse.

I make no apology for that consideration. Only yesterday, we spent time agonising over the Welfare Reform Bill and the deeply difficult cuts that we are having to make that will affect some very vulnerable people. Those are difficult decisions, which we do not take with any great pleasure. If we give that level of scrutiny to our welfare system, I strongly believe that it is incumbent on us to look with equal forensic attention at how much we are spending on our prison and criminal justice systems.

[Philip Davies]

I asked the Ministry of Justice what was the highest number of crimes that somebody had committed while still not being sent to prison—the number of previous convictions. The answer was 578. Somebody with 578 previous convictions was not sent to prison. That was 300 for shoplifting, 131 for drunk and disorderly behaviour, 79 for public disorder, 18 for breach of bail, 14 for criminal damage, nine for assault, eight for robbery, four for possessing an offensive weapon, one for actual bodily harm and 14 others. Does my hon. Friend agree that that person should still not have been sent to prison?

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[Paul Maynard]

When I see my hon. Friend flicking through sheets of paper, I can always guarantee that a demon statistic is on its way to disprove the point being made by a hapless Back Bencher. Such is my lot.

The average cost of a year in prison is £45,000. Effective, intensive community sentences can cost as little as £5,000. I stress the word “effective”, because I accept that much of our community sentencing is not very good at all. It does not do what it is supposed to do and is regarded as a joke, but there are intensive alternatives that have been shown to work. That is where we should focus our attention, not just on banging up everyone who has ever looked at us askance. Indeed, in a world governed by my hon. Friend, I might fear for my own liberty. It would be deeply concerning to end up in the Shipley gulag.

If I understand the complex legal world correctly, a community order can comprise 12 different elements. Some of them are relatively familiar: for example, curfews and unpaid work, which make up slightly over 30% of many community orders. What concerns me is that the more technical, specialist and difficult aspects make up less than 1% of the orders that are issued. The mental health treatment requirement is used in less than 1% of community orders, yet 40% of the offenders we are discussing have been judged as having a mental health need. There are numerous problems with that component. A high threshold is set, which requires a psychiatric report that can often result in a wait of up to 16 weeks. That may deter many magistrates from imposing an order. It also requires the psychiatrist to offer a specific course of treatment, which may not be easy to arrange, thus again deterring a magistrate from employing the order.

What worries me more than anything else is that magistrates might not fully understand the range of disposals they can use. All too often people in the criminal justice system tell me that if only they had known about this or that type of order they could have given the offender a more appropriate sentence. If I have one incy-wincy, teeny-weeny criticism of the Government, it is that cuts in training for magistrates might make it harder for them to be aware of what is available in their local area.

There are particularly good models in existence, such as the North Liverpool community court where judges remain actively involved in the offender’s future post-sentence. They can see whether the sentence they impose actually represents punishment of the offender and solves their many problems.

I must also refer, as many Members have, to restorative justice, or youth conferencing as we have seen it in Northern Ireland. It demonstrates that there is innovation out there that can deliver better reoffending figures than a custodial setting. I want the Government to follow up their work on the intensive alternative to custody pilot that was run in Manchester. They published an excellent analysis of the pilot in July 2011, but it made it clear that it was very difficult to come up with robust reoffending figures for those who had gone through the system. As those of us who participate in these debates know, winning public confidence requires robust data showing that new, innovative methods of disposal actually work. It is difficult to provide robust figures for the intensive alternative to custody.

We need to understand reoffending rates far better, because these models can offer much greater cost-effectiveness. As I said earlier, we cannot look only at the criminal justice and public spending elements as if we are just warehousing criminals for two years or so for public protection, because they will just emerge ready to reoffend, and that will not provide the satisfaction—I use the word in precise terms—that a victim deserves.

Despite the fall in child custody, one in 10 prisoners are still in the 18 to 20 age group. Admittedly, this has spiked because of the riots, quite correctly in my view. However, the independent panel that looked into the riots identified the lack of support for young people moving from the youth justice system to the adult justice system as a contributory factor to the occurrence of the riots, which is worth bearing in mind. The Barrow Cadbury Trust found that almost half of those in the 18 to 20 age group were in local authority residential care and 40% had suffered some sort of domestic violence. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has stated in a Centre for Social Justice report that

“increasing penalties for offenders will do little to stop the next generation of prisoners and unlock the cycle of deprivation which so many young people are trapped in, unless it is accompanied by an attempt to tackle the underlying drivers of crime.”

That is why I am concerned that any model that focuses simply on imprisonment and increasing the number of prisoners will not solve the wider problem we face.

We all age physically at different speeds, but we also age emotionally at different speeds. The human brain is not mature until the mid-20s—I suspect that for certain Members it might be much older, but I do not dare to speculate. It is worth looking at the model used in Germany, where those in the 18 to 21 age group are assessed for maturity. If the individual has a communication delay or learning disabilities, for example, there is the option that they will be disposed of through the youth justice process. That has been shown to work well in solving individual problems.

It is also important that our political rhetoric in the Chamber, on both sides, is mature when we discuss criminal justice. The Prison Reform Trust—I declare an interest as a trustee—recently published a report examining the reasons for the decline in child imprisonment. It found that politicians had played no role in that at all. Indeed, the best it could say about us was that we did not impede the process. I welcome the fact that the Government and others are now rejecting the easy, knee-jerk options. The Mayor’s strategy on youth crime, for example, was notably mature and robust in how it sought to tackle the issue. Similarly, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill has made great strides in the right direction, although I am sure that we would want to see some of them move more quickly. I commend the Sentencing Council for the judicious work it has done so far, and I congratulate the Opposition, empty though their Benches are, on having done the right thing in setting it up.

In conclusion, transparency and consistency in sentencing can be achieved only by clarity of purpose, and by an iron will not to use sentencing policy to demonstrate other supposed political virtues. We do not need to be harsh to be tough, and we must never forget that victims are humans and have needs. To be a victim of crime is more than a financial event; it is a deeply upsetting and emotional experience.

Equally, we must never forget that perpetrators of crime are also human beings. Often, they are perpetrators not because they are evil—and I do believe in evil, and that there are evil people who should be in prison—but because the state has failed them at multiple stages of their life, almost from birth, in residential care homes, education and many other settings. Those people are on the conveyor belt to crime because we in this House have failed them time and again. To put such people in prison and merely wash our hands of them is not a solution to the state’s failure to care for the most vulnerable in society.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

With reference to alternative to custody projects, Mr Paul Maynard.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Thank you Mr Speaker, and indeed it is. If we are to increase public confidence in more intensive forms of community sentencing, we clearly need to link them, as we have just heard, to evidence showing how they reduce reoffending. In the commendable analysis of the pilot in Manchester published in July 2011 by the Ministry of Justice, the difficulty of calculating reoffending statistics is made clear. Will the Minister reassure me that he will do all he can to square this circle so that we can persuade members of the public that this is the way forward?

[Nick Herbert]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes a good point. There have been difficulties, which is why we are assessing the feasibility of evaluation. We need the data for the reasons he gives: it is important that the public know how effective the disposals are and, in the future, that will be important for proposals on payment by results. Where they are successful and reduce reoffending, which we have had great difficulty delivering through short-term custodial sentences, such measures should be considered.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

That is an option. Of course, as I say, offences provoked by prejudice against disabled people are regarded as hate crimes and this is an aggravating feature in sentences, but we are examining the whole area. We have to make sure that we do not overcomplicate sentencing, because if we keep thinking of things that make the most serious offences even more serious, we threaten the consistency that has been described. However, the right hon. Gentleman makes an important point and we are reviewing this field in the light of the report we have received.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State examine the possibility of extending the concept of disability hate crime to include disability by association, thereby bringing the concept into line with the other measures in the Equality Act 2010? If he does not do that, cases such as that of Fiona Pilkington will not count as disability hate crime as she herself was not disabled.

[Mr Clarke]

I shall consider that point in the course of the work we are doing at the moment, but I do not want to encourage my hon. Friend too far because overcomplicating this does not necessarily help. What is important is that sentences should be allowed to reflect, in the most appropriate and consistent way, the disgust that the ordinary public feel when a crime is motivated by prejudice against a disabled person. It does make a crime even more serious than it would otherwise be.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I apologise for diverting the House to a rather different part of the debate, but my new clause 3, which I am pleased has support from Members across the House, is extremely important to a group of victims and their families—those for whom disability has been the motivation for murder or other violent crimes against disabled people. My new clause would apply the same minimum tariff in cases of murder in which disability has been a motivating factor as currently applies in similar cases with a sexual, racial or religious motivation. It would also shift the application of the aggravating feature of disability from being a matter of the victim being seen as vulnerable to a matter of the victim being at greater risk of harm, thereby firmly placing the obligation on the perpetrator.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I am delighted to support this new clause. Does the hon. Lady agree that although this might seem like an obtuse issue to hon. Members in the Chamber it is attracting great attention outside within the disabled community? Does she also agree that there will be utter incomprehension if we fail to make progress on this issue, which should be a simple matter of human dignity and equality?

[Kate Green]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and he has raised this issue in the House and with the Lord Chancellor before. Many disability organisations and the families of victims of such crimes have contacted him and me to express their very deep concerns. I am particularly indebted to the Disability Hate Crime network, to Katherine Quarmby, an independent journalist, and to the Royal Association for Disability Rights. I am also especially indebted to Christine Oliver, the sister of Keith Philpott, who was a learning disabled victim of murder, for taking the time to talk to me about her family’s experience in relation to my bringing the new clause before the House.