Offender Management: Checkpoint Programme

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bates, on securing this important debate. It is clear that our justice system is not working. We lock up too many people. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, referred to the quality of mercy. I fear that is not a word we are likely to hear very much from our current Home Secretary, but we should find a way to use it.

Almost two-thirds of adults released from prison after sentences of 12 months or less go on to reoffend, so the Durham experiment is clearly a step in the right direction, but four months’ rehabilitation is just the start of turning people away from a life of crime. The crucial thing is getting offenders into employment. Ministry of Justice statistics show that only 17% of offenders get a job within a year of leaving prison. Those not in regular employment are almost twice as likely to reoffend. That is why, in its 2017 manifesto, the Conservative Party pledged to give employers a national insurance holiday if they took on any ex-offender. Last year, I asked what had happened to this manifesto promise and the Government told me that they were consulting on it. Is consultation yet about to turn into action?

Women who leave prison and fail to secure employment are just as likely to reoffend as men and, although the numbers are much smaller, the effects are potentially even more damaging. Every year, imprisonment of female offenders separates more than 17,000 children from their mothers. I applaud the efforts of Working Chance, a charity that helps female offenders into jobs. Its supporters include Pret a Manger and Virgin but, sadly, a lot of the companies that the charity has approached fail to see that this would help them and their staff, but ex-offenders become very loyal workers as the Timpson example has demonstrated. Only 4% of people that Working Chance has placed in a job go on to reoffend, which demonstrates why it makes such sense to fund organisations like it.

A survey by the Government in 2016 found that only half of businesses would consider employing an ex-offender. Can the Government tell me what they will do to encourage businesses to take on these people and help society in general?