Prison Reform

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolf (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry, but if we are going strictly in turn, it is the turn of the Labour Benches. However, I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has been trying to get in. Therefore, if we go next to Labour, I suggest that we then go to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf.

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords, the Minister will know that in the nine years since the publication of my report, the reason that the number of women in prison has decreased is because of the establishment of a network of community women’s centres, which have been used by the courts to help those women turn their lives around. Under the new community rehabilitation contract regime introduced by the coalition Government one women’s centre, Alana House in Reading, has been closed because its CRC, MTC Novo, has refused to fund it. Other women’s centres do not even know what their funding is going to be after 1 April. Does the Minister agree that the inevitable result of this will be an increase in the women’s prison population?