Baroness Berridge
Main Page: Baroness Berridge (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Berridge's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(2 years ago)
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Lord Bellamy (Con)
My Lords, in relation to specific costs, no, but in relation to the general question of whether we should improve and develop educational facilities in prison, particularly so that prisoners can read, yes, the Government entirely agree with that aspiration.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I serve on the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill, which has been mentioned before. In a secure mental health hospital, there will be prisoners who are civilian patients as well as people who have been transferred from the prison estate. Hopefully, of course, they are treated and then are well enough to go back into the prison estate. However, do we have an issue here of people still being within secure mental health hospitals, where beds are scarce, because they cannot be moved back into the prison estate?
Lord Bellamy (Con)
We do have an issue, as my noble friend puts it, around managing mental health in the community and among prisoners. I hope the Mental Health Bill will help to address that. This is an ongoing problem of which the Government are well aware and to which we are working towards solutions.