Sentencing White Paper

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the White Paper’s proposal to stop sending lower-level offenders back and forth to prison, and to develop more effective, non-custodial sentences. This is something that has been called for over for many years, but the call has gone unheeded. I ask the Minister why, in contrast, so little is being done to improve the regime inside prisons where, for example, a lack of good-quality education and training, and effective work programmes, means that rehabilitation is compromised, and over- crowding, self-harm and violence are increasing. Would she agree that ever-longer sentences and ever-worse conditions can lead only to very poor outcomes?