Prisons: Education

Baroness Murphy Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Murphy (CB)]

My Lords, I have witnessed the transformational impact of a sophisticated education programme in a regional secure unit for mentally disordered offenders, but I also know just how difficult it was to extend the learning from that programme to other, similar units. The problems experienced in regional secure units are quite similar to those experienced in prisons.

I welcome Dame Sally Coates’ review of this area, but the problems she faces are utterly daunting. Many prisoners, as we know, spend most of their day lying on a bed—a criminal waste of human potential and a lost opportunity to improve their lives. Everyone knows that there is good work, but it is very patchy.

I suppose that my first point is to challenge the Ministry of Justice strategy documents that link education, training and work, as if education’s sole function is to enable prisoners to find work and rehabilitation. This is an admirable aim, but education is valuable for its own sake—for example, prisoners learning to read and write. As we have heard, about half of prisoners have very little, except basic, education and cannot read and write, so they cannot write a sophisticated letter, for example. It does not really matter what they are learning, as long as they are engaged in it. That is where the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about the method of engagement are so important.

My second point is that any serious review will quickly come up against the principal barrier to improvement, which, as I have said, is lack of time spent out of cell. Reduced budgets and staff shortages, coupled with a prison population that shows little sign of falling, conspire to make it difficult for many prisons to offer meaningful education or work. There is also the perennial problem that what prison management wants and what prison officers make it possible actually to deliver may be far apart. Winning the hearts and minds of prison officers is crucial to make education a reality. The Prisoners’ Education Trust and the Prisoners Learning Alliance have told us the detail of what is required, but solving this problem will require much more radical action that addresses high prison numbers.

The idiotic introduction of advanced learning loans has wiped out many of the advanced level 3 courses that used to be available to prisoners. It is crazy to apply a loans policy to prisoners to support parity with learners in the wider education system. Prisoners are at such a disadvantage, as we have already heard. The benefits of prisoners gaining higher-level qualifications far outweighs the cost, whether it contributes to their rehabilitation or not.

Finally, we need to change the incentives in prisons for prisoners to take learning seriously. If they are paid more to do menial work then they will take that modern option of sewing mailbags, rather than learning.