Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I want to make a very brief point in support of my noble friend Lady Corston. She talked about how we cannot leave the issue of women in the criminal justice system to the Ministry of Justice alone. My noble friend Lord Judd made the case for an interdisciplinary approach. Many women get caught up in the criminal justice system because their crimes are crimes of poverty. Women are more vulnerable to poverty than men, and many women in this country are experiencing poverty. They have to manage poverty while looking after their children. As well as a criminal justice system better attuned to the needs of women, we need an anti-poverty policy better attuned to the needs of women. A unit such as this could link the two.

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, this amendment does not ask for much. It is indeed modesty itself. It asks for a focus, a group of people in the Ministry of Justice whose job should be to carry forward the excellent policies that the Minister told the House about in Committee. It makes it clear that the Ministry of Justice cannot do this on its own and calls for the Ministry of Health, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office to be involved—a point that has just been ably made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. It makes it clear that they should report to a ministerial group and that there should be an annual report.

This amendment is not a criticism of the Government’s work so far, nor of that of the previous Government. It is recognition that this is a particularly intractable problem. Efforts are made by many people, and the situation gets a little better, but then it reverts. The Minister will know, because he has just kindly answered a Written Question that I asked, that the Chief Inspector of Prisons said of the Keller unit at Styal prison that it constitutes,

“a wholly unsuitable place to safely hold and manage very seriously damaged and mentally ill women”.

The conditions in which such women are held in Styal prison have been criticised on and off for many years. On 15 February, in Committee, the Minister said that,

“one does not need to visit many women’s prisons to see that far too many prisoners should not be there”.—[Official Report, 15/2/12; col. 876.]

Ministers have said that before. This is not politically contentious. There is wide agreement about what should happen but sadly it does not change or it changes at the margins—one aspect improves while another deteriorates.

That is why there is wide support among those who are concerned with this issue for a statutory framework, a strategy, a focal point and an annual report that will allow Parliament to see if at last we are moving forwards and seeing improvements that last. I very much hope that the Minister will support this modest proposal.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, welcome this proposal. All of us have been talking about this area for so long, it is not true. The point about action now, which was made by various speakers, is entirely right. My noble friend Lord Wigley has quoted a number of horrendous figures, which I will not quote again, but the fact that 5 per cent of women’s children stay in the family home should be enough to indicate just how disastrous the effect of imprisoning women is on family life and on the futures of those children.

I very much hope that the actions already begun by this Government, and those started under the previous Government, to do much more to keep women out of prison will continue, which is entirely the right way to work. There needs to be intensive work and support at differing levels, both at professional and volunteer levels, to see the women out of these crises. Women prisoners outnumber men who self-harm, have mental health problems and so on. The situation is horrendous.

Without overemphasising absolutely everything about this issue, I hope that all departments will come together. I want to see good examples of what can happen in a women’s prison, but I also want to see it as an example of what would be effective for a number of men as well, particularly young offenders. I hope that the Minister and all those involved in this issue will treat it with urgency.