Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Andrew Selous and Kate Green

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

As the hon. Gentleman has rightly pointed out, we have lamentably failed to reduce reoffending over a very long period. In addition, we spend a huge amount of taxpayers’ money per place to achieve very poor results. I have seen good education in our current establishments, but I believe we can do better. The time is ripe for us to try something different, based on sound principles, putting education and health at the heart of what we are doing, and making appropriate interventions, all of which will be in place. We are confident that secure colleges can not only meet the needs of girls and younger children in custody, but improve on the education and reoffending outcomes that current facilities achieve.

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

I agree with the Minister that we should put education at the heart of the rehabilitation agenda for young people. Will he say what educational qualifications the staff at the secure college will have?

[Andrew Selous]

As the hon. Lady may know, we are going to run a competition, which I will describe shortly, to find an education provider. But we are committed to increasing the amount of time in education and we want innovative responses to raise standards further because, as she will know, the results at the moment are simply not good enough.

As I have said, at this stage the Government have plans only for a single secure college pathfinder that will open in 2017, and it has been designed so that it is capable of housing about 300 young offenders aged 12 to 17. It is true that the majority of the young people in this first secure college will be boys aged 15 to 17, but that does not mean that girls and under-15s could not be safely accommodated on the same site and provided with the tailored services required to rehabilitate and educate them. Girls and boys aged 12 to 17 are already safely accommodated together in secure training centres, as well as in secure children’s homes.

Our designs for the secure college pathfinder have been specifically developed to ensure that if girls and under-15s were to be placed there, they would be accommodated in separate and smaller living units, entirely distinct from the accommodation for the majority of older boys. In our consultation on our plans for secure college rules, we also proposed a rule that girls must be separately accommodated from boys.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Selous and Kate Green

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is rightly proud of her constituent, and the objective of the Ministry of Justice is to make sure that people do turn their lives around, as her constituent has done. All credit to him, and we believe our transforming rehabilitation reforms will do that for many more people.

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

T7. There have been reports that a number of offenders remain unallocated to supervising officers following the division of the probation service into probation and community rehabilitation companies, with obvious concerns for public safety. The Secretary of State has said that he will only proceed with the transforming rehabilitation programme if he is confident it is safe to do so. Will he now undertake to publish the findings of the test gates, including the upcoming test gate 4, so that the public can have that reassurance?

Finance Bill

Debate between Andrew Selous and Kate Green

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

I am very sorry to have missed the contribution of the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh), but I should point out my own credentials—something that I do not often do. I bring to the House, if not exactly an interest, probably a bias. For four years I was proud to be the director of the National Council for One Parent Families. I worked with hon. Members, including Conservative Members, on what happens when relationships break down and children are involved. I know that I speak for hon. Members across the House when I say that our fundamental concern in this debate must be the well-being of children. I know that we come at that from different positions, but it is the debate that I think it is important we have this evening. The debate is not—however much hon. Members may, with the best of motives, care about it—about the social role of marriage and the societal messages that we send. I am interested in the well-being of children. It is incredibly important that we examine what we know about what marriage means for the well-being of children, what drives the factors that improve the well-being of children and the role of the financial position of families, and particularly of mothers, in the well-being of children.

I have had the pleasure of talking to hon. Members about this over many years, including Conservative Members. It is important for us as a House that we put it on record that this is what we really care about.

[Andrew Selous]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

I will with great pleasure give way to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I have had many important conversations on this point.

[Andrew Selous]

I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s considerable expertise, as I have been the beneficiary of some of it in the past. Does she agree that we should not set up a position of false opposition on this matter, and that many single parents are probably passionate supporters of marriage and might well like to get married again? We need to be a bit careful how we relate to this issue.