Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 3rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) on getting the Bill this far.

On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) expressed Labour’s support for the Bill. That support remains. In fact, the Opposition support it so much that we tried to bring the legislation in first with an amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Given the cross-party support and the common-sense thinking behind the legislation, it was a surprise that the Government did not support Labour’s amendment on that occasion, and nor have they sought to bring forward similar legislation themselves. However, it seems—[Interruption.] The Minister chunters from a sedentary position. It seems that they are now on board, so we can all be grateful for that.

As I said, we think this is a sensible Bill, one that we hope will have a positive effect on reoffending rates, along with reducing the numbers of recently released prisoners who become homeless. Only 45% of people released from prison in 2021-22 had settled accommodation on their release. That means over half were released from prison with nowhere to go and had to use their first hours of freedom desperately searching for a safe and suitable place to sleep. Sadly, 11% of those people ended up homeless or sleeping rough. Studies have shown that safe and secure housing is key to stopping the cycle of reoffending. His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation found that

“the proportion of service users recalled or resentenced to custody within 12 months of release was almost double for those without settled accommodation.”

It is a stark contrast that a person who, until their day of release, had their housing, meals and medicine provided under one roof, is then left on a Friday afternoon with only the number of a probation officer and the address of a pharmacist. Many recently released prisoners then have a race against time to find a roof over their head, to apply for benefits to pay for food, housing and other necessities, and to visit their GP or pharmacist if they are part of a drug treatment programme. If a prisoner has willingly and successfully engaged in a drug treatment programme, then not ensuring enough time to get to a pharmacist upon release is tantamount to derailing that treatment programme.

When a prisoner is released it should be seen as a new start, where opportunities are presented and support is readily available, but all too often the opposite is true. We hope the Bill can go some way to rectifying that, but it is only a part of the picture. The rehabilitation of offenders starts within prisons, with better conditions, better education and training, support for mental health, help to repair broken family relationships, and more drug treatment programmes. If the Government are really serious about cutting reoffending, they could look at reducing the use of shorter sentences for non-violent offences. Research tells us that short sentences do not work, with 63% of those who serve a sentence of 12 months or less going on to reoffend within a year. One answer to that lies in effective community sentencing for those who commit non-violent offences. That would help to ease overcrowding and allow prisons to get their education programmes back up and running.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I feel I am digressing on to wider issues. Let me conclude by saying that the Opposition support the Bill. We think it is the right and sensible thing to do. We just add that it would be a missed opportunity for it to be thought the only thing that needs to be done to help cut reoffending.