Children’s Funeral Fund

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He is right to highlight that it is not about numbers; every single individual matters. I am clear that we must deliver on this commitment. This should not and will not be about the money. I hope that all Government Departments—including the Department for Work and Pensions and, I am sure, Her Majesty’s Treasury—will wish to play their full role in ensuring that this is delivered expeditiously and properly.

Since I assumed responsibility for this, my officials have been working hard to develop both the necessary legislative vehicle and a delivery mechanism to ensure that it works on the ground. That has involved detailed discussions with the devolved Administrations, which the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) asked about, to ensure that we learn from them, that we do not inadvertently create a cross-border gap in provision and that everyone has coverage.

More than that, as I alluded to earlier, this has required close working across Government to ensure that the children’s funeral fund is compatible and works well alongside other state provision and, importantly, that it fully fulfils the vision for the scheme of the Prime Minister and the hon. Member for Swansea East. To reflect that, our intention is that provision should be universal and free at the point of need.

As I mentioned, this work has been complex. However, I want to reassure the House that we are very close to putting the final details in place for all three elements. In response to the point made by the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and others, I expect and am sure that all Departments will be equally seized of the importance of delivering this, and I reassure her that the priority I attach to this means that I have weekly project meetings with the officials delivering it and receive daily progress updates on each of the outstanding elements, so clear am I in my determination to deliver this.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I do not doubt for one second the Minister’s sincerity, or indeed that of the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince). The Minister has mentioned the summer and says he is having weekly meetings, but can he set out a more definitive timetable for when this will be implemented? “Summer” could be any time from June to September. It would give some reassurance to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East and the families if we had a more detailed date or a month.

[Edward Argar]

I cannot give a detailed date. The hon. Gentleman, as a savvy Whip, will read into this what he will. I have said that this will require a legislative vehicle, and given my determination to do this for the summer and given that the House would need to be sitting to deliver on that, that might give him an indication of my intention.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

As the right hon. Gentleman said, we have recently done a legal aid review. As part of that review, we were not obliged to look into thresholds because there were not very many changes to thresholds as part of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. However, we recognise the need to look at that because the figures have not been uprated for some time. We are undertaking that review and the timetable for that is set out in our legal support action plan.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

A recent report from Women’s Aid has set out that many women are now having to represent themselves because they do not meet the threshold for legal aid. But the report also says that the only savings the women have cannot be used because they have to be able to rehouse themselves. Can the Minister give some assurance that she is willing to look at improving the situation of these individuals, so that they do not have to represent themselves in court, which can have a hugely negative impact on the victim’s experience within the justice system?

[Lucy Frazer]

I am fully aware of the issues that these women face. I am very pleased to have held a number of roundtables, as part of our understanding for the review, with a number of vulnerable parties, including women. Women’s Aid was part of those roundtables, where we had an opportunity to hear from it directly. That is one of the reasons why we have specifically mentioned victims of domestic violence, and we will look at the thresholds in the legal aid review that we are conducting.

Recall of Women to Prisons

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this important and timely debate on an issue that does not receive nearly enough attention or the attention it deserves. I have long been deeply passionate about reform of our prisons system, particularly in Wales, and I have campaigned on the issue since first being elected to the House.

I preface my remarks by making it clear that nothing in what I am about to say undermines my fundamental belief that any person of any gender should be subject to the same consequence under the law if they commit a criminal act. My comments are not about watering down justice, but about looking at improving outcomes for the benefit of everyone: the offender, the victim and society more broadly. Central to that is a sincere belief that it is foolish and wrong-headed to continue with the “lock up, throw away the key and crime will reduce” attitude to criminal justice, which simply does not work.

Research published last year by the Prison Reform Trust showed that the number of women recalled to prison has more than doubled since the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 was passed. That demonstrates that the Government’s rehabilitation strategy is not working. The problem is worsening at an alarming rate. The message is clear: the 2014 reforms to recall must be reversed at the earliest opportunity.

There are no women’s prisons in Wales. I have said before—the Minister knows this—that I would never advocate for one to be opened, but that in itself makes things doubly challenging for women prisoners in Wales, who are uprooted and taken far from their communities, often after committing relatively minor offences. It is for that core reason that we should urgently address short sentences—their damaging impact demands our attention. I believe strongly that getting rid of those sentences and replacing them with other punitive measures closer to home would create better outcomes all round.

Simply put, locking women up for a few months many miles from home leads only to increased alienation, increased problems for families and carers, and, perhaps most damagingly, an increased likelihood of reoffending and recall. They should not be in prison to begin with. Indeed, the Government’s own female offender strategy underlines that shorter sentences are far less effective than non-custodial sentences such as community orders. It also hammers home the point that early intervention is key to reducing the number of women who enter the penal system in the first place.

We know that homelessness is a big catalyst for reoffending and recall to prison. Six out of 10 women prisoners have no home to go to when they are released. Given that the nearest prison for women living in my constituency is more than 50 miles away, in England, that can force women on to the streets, far from their own communities and any support networks they may have.

I urge Members to take a second to try to put themselves in the shoes of a woman who is convicted of theft and given a prison sentence of less than six months. In that time, that woman will be unable to pay her rent and will be evicted. She will have no money to secure a new property, and little or no means of travelling back to the community she lived in and any fragile support systems she may have access to. It is no exaggeration to say that the prospect of going back to prison eventually becomes appealing compared with the terrifying alternative. In its recent report, “Broken Trust”, the Prison Reform Trust stressed that the lack of housing post-release needs to be addressed urgently.

The huge distances women are placed from home can have a terrible impact on their ties with family and friends, with bonds often shattered during their imprisonment. Children, loved ones and friends face long, expensive travel and short visiting hours, and the ensuing relationship breakdowns can easily escalate into the breakdown of formal support networks. Too often, women are left in truly hopeless situations, facing the most appalling isolation. The 2014 recall reforms mean that if a woman in a vulnerable situation commits even the most cursory transgression, she can find herself back inside, and back in the well-known cycle of institutionalisation, with all the perils that poses.

Our criminal justice system should, at its core, be about reducing crime, yet the situation as it stands is pure smoke and mirrors, with the supposed short-term win of detaining women for short periods masking the actual impact. The longer-term cost of that—namely, an ever greater number of potential victims of crime—is not only counterproductive but, frankly, shameful.

The 1997 Labour Government were famously elected on a promise to be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”. Although that Government’s record in this area was sometimes chequered, they had at their heart an understanding that the causes matter as much as the crime. We must address the elephant in the room: why do women commit relatively low-level crimes in the first place? Lots of Members have referred to that, and I make no apology for reinforcing what they said. A six-month prison sentence will not help a woman who was forced to steal to feed her children. A short time inside will not help a woman who has a long-standing addiction to drugs, alcohol or gambling. Being put behind bars will not help a victim of domestic violence who lashed out in response to years of oppression. We need to look again at the causes of crime rather than having ridiculous blanket sentencing regimes.

In 2017, the charity Women in Prison found that 84% of women entering prison had committed a non-violent offence. It is precisely for such crimes that women receive relatively short custodial sentences. In the same year, the Ministry of Justice itself found that shorter sentences were

“consistently associated with higher rates of proven reoffending”.

I am pleased that this week the Justice Secretary mooted a move away from short prison sentences but, as with everything with this Government, we will have to wait to see whether the reality stacks up to the rhetoric—perhaps the Minister will give us some assurances about that. But—it remains a but—if what the Secretary of State said this week is true, we might at last have a real opportunity to start turning around the damaging trend among female offenders.

The Prison Reform Trust’s “Broken Trust” report is a call for action that the Government would do well to heed. I support the trust’s call for the establishment of women-specific community services, including multi-agency outreach services. The complex nature of crime and its causes demand such a multifaceted approach. We cannot blindly continue to treat prisoners as a tick-box exercise, assuming that they will integrate well into society after they leave the prison gates. Far greater attention therefore needs to be paid to work with local authorities and the devolved Administrations.

There are pressures on housing throughout the country, but until we integrate housing services with the prison system properly, we will never sever the link between women leaving prison and elevated levels of homelessness. Too many of us see the blooming numbers of rough sleepers on our streets, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. However unpalatable some might find this, women leaving prison have just as much right to council services and support networks as any other residents in need.

Justice Ministers must work much more closely with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that those prisoners who are eligible to claim welfare support when they are released have the right information well in advance of the day they walk out of the prison door. Given the plethora of issues with universal credit, I do not hold out much hope of the Government taking action on that—they have consistently let down the most vulnerable in society.

Time does not allow me to discuss all the Prison Reform Trust’s recommendations, but if the Minister will do one thing today, please let it be this: agree to implement each of the report’s recommendations or, if he feels that any cannot be implemented, to explain why not. Some recommendations will cost, but failing to act will have far more significant financial implications for the Treasury long into the future.

In truth, although it might not always be popular to advocate increasing funding to help released prisoners to reintegrate, it remains the right thing to do. Nine years of Tory austerity make the case even more strongly. The fact remains that investing in rehabilitation and specific support services for women who are in prison and, crucially, who are leaving prison, will reap economic rewards as well as social dividends. Reducing the rate of recall to prisons will, in the long run, slacken the strain on our Prison Service, which is reaching breaking point in many places—in some places, it is broken already.

We have heard from the Prisons Minister that he is prepared to resign should he fail on prison safety, which is a major problem. However, it is just as important for the Government to get to grips with the issues outlined today, not least because if prisoner numbers constantly increase in the long term—increase as the Government fail to get a grip—prison safety will only worsen.

My remarks are not a counsel of despair, and the Justice Secretary’s comments this week give rise to some cautious optimism, albeit after significant pressure from the Opposition. Warm words, however, mean nothing if they do not translate into meaningful action. I hope that my message to the Minister is clear: this week’s welcome news cannot simply be about giving the Government a good news day amid the Brexit chaos; the Justice Secretary’s words must translate into real investment in support services and rehabilitation, with a nuanced focus on women and their individual needs. Only then will we truly begin to start reversing this deeply worrying trend.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I will do my very best to attend that meeting.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Wales has the highest incarceration rate in western Europe, which has risen to 154 per 100,000 of the population. Custodial sentences are also up in Wales but have dropped 16% in England. What more can Ministers do to bring about a bespoke solution for Welsh prisoners and to try to improve the criminal justice system in Wales?

[Rory Stewart]

The big transformation that will take place in Wales is bringing probation back fully under Government control, so we will have a much closer connection between prisons, probation and the devolved authorities. In the Welsh context, we think that is particularly suitable for the devolved Administration and should address some of those concerns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

As the hon. Lady will be aware, the Government have welcomed the independent review of the Mental Health Act and have rightly committed to reform mental health legislation. Some of the review’s recommendations, as she alludes to, have particular implications for civil justice and particular reforms to the Mental Health Tribunal. My Department is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care to consider the review, its recommendations and implications in detail and we will respond shortly.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Today, it has been confirmed that three quarters of all Welsh female prisoners are serving a custodial sentence of less than six months. There is no women’s centre in Wales, so may I ask the Minister to introduce new funding for a women’s centre in Wales, so that we are able to have different ways of putting women forward, other than custodial sentences, because it is not working?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Something that runs through our female offender strategy is moving away from short sentences to alternative provisions. He highlights a particular issue in the context of Wales. It is something on which I have had discussions with the previous Cabinet Secretary, Alun Davies, and I look forward to meeting his successor in that role to have further discussions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

In the justice system, we are reforming the courts. We are investing £1 billion in that process. That is not austerity. On staff, we are modernising and bringing in technology to make our systems work more effectively. That is in the interests of victims, witnesses and defendants. We are making our court processes much more effective. There are some reductions in staff as a result of that, but we are increasing access to justice.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

19. What recent steps he has taken to implement the female offender strategy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)]

Our female offender strategy, which was published in June, is clear that, while custody should always be an option when the severity of the crime justifies it, we wish to see fewer women sentenced to prison for short periods, and we set out a plan to deliver robust and effective alternatives to custody. Last week, the Secretary of State and I announced the allocation of the first tranche of funding, totalling £3.3 million, to organisations around the country doing great work to further drive forward the implementation of the strategy.

[Chris Elmore]

Today’s Guardian reports research by Dr Laura Abbott, a specialist midwife and senior lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, who found that some female offenders give birth in prison cells and do not have access to midwives, even when babies are born prematurely or breech. I am sure the Minister agrees that that is a serious flaw in the medical treatment female offenders receive. If we are to get female offending right and improve outcomes, we must start with very basic maternity services.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the report by Dr Abbott referred to in The Guardian, which I read about this morning. I reassure him that our key focus is ensuring that all prisoners, female and other, have access to the medical services they need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

5. What assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of sentences of less than three months in reducing reoffending.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

18. What assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of sentences of less than three months in reducing reoffending.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Gauke)]

As I have said recently, there is persuasive evidence that short custodial sentences do not work in terms of rehabilitation. In certain circumstances, community sentences are more effective in the reduction of reoffending and therefore keeping the public safe. The reoffending rate of offenders who serve fewer than 12 months is around 65%, but earlier research has shown the reoffending rate for similar offenders who receive a community penalty to be lower. We will look at what more we can do to emphasise that short custodial sentences should be viewed as a last resort.

[Chris Elmore]

The Secretary of State may be aware that the rate of women reoffending and being recalled to prison is higher than that of men, with three out of every five women offenders being recalled or re-prosecuted and sent back to prison. There is now a real need to implement the female offender strategy and ensure that women are given as much support as they can be given. There is also a real need for the Secretary of State to take action on short-term offences and look into other ways to sentence women, because the current approach simply is not working.

[Mr Gauke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. He referred to the female offender strategy; as he will be aware, its focus is on alternatives to custody, particularly for minor offences. There are particular issues for females offenders in respect of the nature of the offences and the issues that female offenders face, so it is right that we implement the new strategy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point. It is an example of where I hope that my Department and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service can work with employers to ensure that we help get more people into work, which is good for the individual offenders, good for the employers and society benefits as a whole because it contributes to reducing reoffending.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Justice Secretary will know that there is no women’s prison in Wales and I am not advocating that there should be one. However, that will mean that there are considerable issues of geography for some women who do commit offences, so can he set out how he is able to support women who do offend, who live in Wales and who wish to relocate there in order to find employment in communities that they know and in which they have often grown up?

[Mr Gauke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I point him in the direction of the female offender strategy, which we published a couple of weeks ago. One point that we argue in that is that, in many cases, custodial sentences are not the right approach, particularly for female offenders who, disproportionately, are sentenced to short sentences that disrupt their lives and do little to help them rehabilitate. If we can do more about helping in the community and, for example, making use of residential centres, we can help ensure that more female offenders get into work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend makes a good point and we discuss this issue with the MHCLG. We are also working with the Local Government Association in advance of its October commencement of the duty to refer under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 to improve partnership working between prisons, probation providers and local authorities.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Release from prison is particularly difficult for women, and I have raised this issue with the Prisons Minister, the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), in Westminster Hall. Will the Secretary of State set out what he will do to support women up for release, not just in respect of when they are released from prison but also in keeping the family link, which is extremely important?

[Mr Gauke]

That is an important point, and we will publish our women offenders strategy in the near future. We must address reoffending by ensuring that when people are released they are settled in the community as successfully as possible.

Prisoners: Parental Rights

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). I am pleased that she said that, in a healthy situation, it is vital for a child to have contact with their parent who is in prison. I will speak about that with particular reference to the excellent recent Farmer review about the importance of strengthening prisoners’ family relationships, where appropriate, to aid rehabilitation.

The Farmer review calls that a “golden thread” that needs to run through the prison system, along with the threads of employment and education, as a priority for prison governors. It says that that third strand is essential if we are to

“put a crowbar into the revolving door of repeat reoffending and tackle the intergenerational transmission of crime.”

I therefore urge Ministers to consider adding a new deputy director for families to the existing deputy director roles in the prison system. Before I highlight two ways in which prisoners’ family ties and, importantly, parental ties could be strengthened, I pay tribute to Dr Samantha Callan, Lord Farmer’s adviser, whose intelligent, thoughtful and dedicated contribution to the production of the review was invaluable.

First, I encourage Ministers to consider providing Skype or other face-to-face digital platforms where family visits may be difficult. BT’s slogan, “It’s good to talk”, might be a cliché, but it is incredibly important for people to keep relationships with their families or other significant individuals alive while they are in prison. Men who can ring their children every evening have a reason to stay out of trouble throughout the day. One prisoner told the Farmer review:

“If part of your prison routine is to do homework with your child or ring home regularly to hold a quality conversation with her, this is a strong deterrent to taking a substance that would mean you were unable to do that because you were ‘off your head’.”

The high cost of phone calls is frequently raised by external prison organisations such as the Prison Reform Trust as a cause of considerable resentment across the prison estate. I understand that costs should fall when the contract with BT is renegotiated in April 2018, and plans to digitise the entire prison estate with cable networks and to put a phone in every cell will further reduce call costs. However, that system will not be fully installed and functioning until 2021, and a prison service that values relationships needs to do more to help people stay in touch with their families and particularly their children.

Although phone calls are highly valued, the prison service should consider adapting to new forms of communication that are becoming commonplace in the community. That is not about giving every prisoner an iPad, although I have been told that women in some high-security prisons in the US have access to iPads in the interests of staying in touch with their children. Virtual video visiting is gradually being made available in prisons in Northern Ireland, such as Magilligan Prison. Although I would be concerned if we got to the point where that replaced face-to-face visits, Skype-type technology can enable prisoners to “visit” their own homes and see their family members in that context, and remind them of what they have to gain by settling into their sentences, getting out as soon as possible and not returning.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I am sure the hon. Lady is aware that children whose mothers are in prison are, on average, 64 miles away from them. I agree wholeheartedly with what she says, particularly about electronic interaction. Does she agree that, if we are to overcome the sheer distances, particularly for Welsh prisoners—there are no women’s prisons in Wales, although I am not advocating for one—we must find new technologies to enable mothers to interact with their children?

[Fiona Bruce]

I absolutely do. Although keeping prisoners close to home has to be the goal wherever possible, the challenges of the prison population make that hard, so it is not unusual for prisoners to be some distance from home—so far that families may even have to stay overnight if they visit. I wholeheartedly concur with the hon. Gentleman.

Technology that is being put into prisons to facilitate virtual court appearances could be adapted to improve contact for families on the outside who may otherwise have to make a superhuman effort to come into prison. Foreign nationals are unlikely to get visitors. In his report, Lord Farmer mentions meeting a man in prison who had been in local authority care since he was a child and whose only relative was his 93-year-old grandmother. It is impossible for her to visit, but if someone helped her with Skype she would at least be able to see him again. Imagine an A-level student close to her exams who was unable to visit her dad in prison but could communicate with him using a tablet, or a mother with a child with a health problem who would otherwise have to choose between visiting her partner in prison or keeping a vigil by that child’s bedside.

Of course there have to be safeguards. The Farmer review recommends that, in the interim period before full digitisation, empowered governors should be able to make Skype-type communication available to the small percentage of prisoners whose families cannot visit them due to infirmity, distance or other factors. A booking system and application process would mean that prisoners’ requests to access video calling technology had to be cleared by the governor. Alternatively, tablets could be made available in visiting halls, as apparently happens on the juvenile estate in Tasmania. Family members might need help to access video calling technology. Funds from the assisted prison visits scheme could be made available to people who needed to travel to a local voluntary organisation for help to make a call, for example. Will the Minister consider what can be done between today and full digitisation to ensure that families can maintain contact through these innovative means?

The second point I will make—more briefly—relates to the use of ROTL: release on temporary licence. The latest, up-to-date policy on ROTL procedures is unpublished and awaited by governors. I urge Ministers to ensure that it is published as soon as possible. Research indicates that the use of ROTL to maintain and develop family ties contributes to reducing reoffending. Respondents to the Farmer review—prisoners, families, organisations and academics—considered that it should be used more. They told Lord Farmer that that would give prisoners the opportunity to adjust gradually to family life outside of prison and to spend more time in responsible roles such as parent or partner.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing the debate and on her powerful and important speech. I also put on record my agreement with what she and the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said. I very much welcome the debate. Its title is on the parental responsibilities of prisoners, but like others I want to look at this through the lens of children’s rights and their best interests. Hon. Members agree that those interests are rarely served by the incarceration of a parent where contact and the relationship with the parent is healthy. That is especially true of mothers in prison, because they are almost always the main carers of children.

My starting point is to do what we can to keep mothers out of prison. The Minister has heard me say that on a number of occasions, and I am afraid I will be repeating myself. We need stronger community alternatives to custody for women, and especially for mothers. We need a presumption against short custodial sentences, as has now been introduced in Scotland. I know the Minister has looked or is due to look at what is going on there, so perhaps he will update us on that. I repeat to him: please do not build new women’s prisons. It is the wrong use of money—we could spend that money much better. There is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something good for women offenders, and building new prisons is the worst possible route.

In fact, many more women, and particularly mothers, continue to be incarcerated. The Prison Reform Trust estimates that each year about 18,000 children under the age of 18 are separated from their mothers due to incarceration. Two thirds of women in prison are mothers of children under 18, and one third are mothers of children under the age of five. The numbers in mother and baby units are decreasing, and it is not clear what happens when a child becomes too old to remain in the MBU—the mother and child will sometimes be separated at that point.

We can all agree that separation due to incarceration will often be harmful for children. As Common Weal, the Prison Reform Trust, Epstein and Baldwin, Barnardo’s and many other organisations and researchers have shown, children will experience trauma, confusion, an adverse impact on their educational performance and behavioural problems. The care arrangements made for children whose mothers are in prison are particularly worrying: only 5% remain in the family home, and 9% continue to live with their fathers. Many live with grandparents, which is often positive, and some live with older siblings, but sometimes siblings are separated and put into different homes while their mother is in prison. Most worryingly of all, some incarcerated mothers report that they do not know where their child is being looked after or by whom.

Common Weal has shown that half of children who have a parent in prison have to change school because of changes to their care arrangements. That is very disruptive for children, too, yet despite all those adverse effects, mothers continue to receive custodial sentences without sentencers properly considering the impact on their children. The sentencing guidelines make clear that, if an offender is on the cusp of receiving a custodial sentence and custody would be disproportionate in terms of its impact, alternatives should be considered, particularly with reference to the wellbeing of children. However, sentencers are not required to be proactive in making inquiries about what will happen to children when considering sentencing a parent. We need a sentencing structure that is much more focused on the best interests of the child.

I therefore say to the Minister that we need to ensure that sentencers are presented in every case with child impact statements. We need an obligation on sentencers to consider alternatives to custody. We need clearer, much more high-profile guidelines and better sentencer training, and we need the Government as a whole to have an overview of the impact on children of mothers’ imprisonment. In a recent written answer, I learned that the Government have made no such assessment. It is time they did, particularly in the case of mothers being placed in prison on remand, because that is extremely disruptive for their children, and those mothers will often not go on to serve a custodial sentence. It is particularly important that the impact on children is considered in such cases.

As the hon. Member for Congleton said, when mothers are in prison, maintaining good-quality contact will be both important and positive in the majority of cases. It is therefore pretty concerning that the Government do not know how many visits to mothers in prison have taken place and how many mothers have been visited, as a written answer to Baroness Fall on 29 November shows. Visits are difficult, and the hon. Lady rightly referred to a number of problems that need to be resolved, such as the distance from home many women are serving their sentences; the fact that women cannot hold or touch their children during visits; the lack of activities for children to participate in during visits; the lack of support for visits; and the lack of privacy. I understand that, in the case of women in approved premises, visits from children are not permitted at all, which is very concerning. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that and take action.

We need more creative and focused solutions to maintain and facilitate that contact. The hon. Lady rightly spoke about some of those, such as the use of technology—Skype and videos. We need more opportunity for overnight visits such as those trialled at Askham Grange. We need special additional family visits, not as a privilege for the offender but in the best interests of the child. We also need good pre and post-visit preparation for both mother and children. What learning have the Government taken from the excellent programme “Visiting Mum”, which is run by the Prison Advice and Care Trust at Eastwood Park Prison? Do they intend to roll out that learning and provide such support in all women’s prisons?

Women and mothers also need better preparation for release. Once children have experienced the trauma of losing their mother to incarceration, they will often find it quite traumatic when mum returns home—they may be aloof, angry or clingy, and we have a problem in ensuring that those mothers are able to resume their parenting role. Housing is still a problem for women on release from custody. They cannot get priority for housing if their children are not living with them, but their children cannot live with them if they do not have a home. That that conundrum is still happening—I saw it for myself during a recent visit to Styal Prison—is shocking. Surely we can resolve that difficulty. In Greater Manchester we are trying to do that by bringing together housing and justice leads, but the through-the-gate services that ought to be sorting that out are failing. I hope the Minister will take a careful look at that.

[Chris Elmore]

My hon. Friend may be aware that in a past life, before serving in this House, I led children’s social services in a local authority. One concern about family breakdown when a woman leaves prison is that sometimes the children have become looked-after, and it is extremely complex for the mother to gain access to their children through the looked-after children’s system. That adds another dynamic, because the mother may never have had to deal with those services before she was sent to prison, which can cause even further family breakdown on her release.

[Kate Green]

That is an important point. As we know, outcomes for looked-after children are often poor, and we should be doing everything we can to return that child to the family unit, and to support the family in parenting and raising that child.

In conclusion, my message to the Minister is this: do not send mothers to prison. If that happens, can we ensure that the sentencer has fully assessed the impact of that sentence on the woman’s children? For those who are sentenced, can we facilitate good-quality contact between mother and child during the period of incarceration, as that is in the child’s best interests, and put in place structured, high-quality preparation for the reunion of the family on release? I am grateful for the chance to speak in this debate. I know other colleagues wish to make further contributions, so I will end there.