Women Offenders and Older Prisoners

Elfyn Llwyd Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Beith]

I chose my words carefully. I said not that women were put in prison for offences that were not serious—courts would normally regard either the offence or the fact that they are repeat offences as a serious matter, underlining their decision to give a custodial sentence—but that many of the women, if they were not in prison and were otherwise effectively supervised, would not constitute a danger to the public. That is not true of them all, which is why there will always be some women in prison, some for very long periods, but those numbers will be relatively small.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

In support of what the right hon. Gentleman says, in the 12 months to June 2012, 81% of women entering custody and starting a sentence had committed non-violent offences, compared with 71% of men.

[Sir Alan Beith]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point and gives highly relevant figures.

In 2012, we decided to undertake an inquiry to review progress since the Corston report and to examine current strategy and practice. We held five oral evidence sessions. We visited prisons and women’s centres. We received more than 60 pieces of written evidence. We reported in July 2013, and the Government published their response in October. We visited HMP Styal, where the six deaths that prompted the Corston report had occurred, but in the inspection report on the prison published two years ago, Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons commented that it was

“disappointing to find, and to be told of by the governor, too many cases of women, some of whom were clearly mentally ill, serving very short prison sentences which served little purpose except to further disrupt sometimes already chaotic lives.”

During our visit, we saw a new unit that has been created in an effort better to meet the needs of these women, but questions were raised by our witnesses about why women with such complex needs continue to be sentenced to custody. However, those of us who visited Styal saw some genuinely good work going on there. Styal has featured so much in this history that I would not want the impression to be given that there is not some very good work indeed taking place there.

The fact that we were holding an inquiry at all seemed to stimulate the Government to take a number of positive steps to prioritise the requirements of female offenders. After we had announced the inquiry, the Government allocated ministerial responsibility for female offenders to the then Minister in the Department and former member of our Committee, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant). They announced a review of the female custodial estate, published a statement of four high-level strategic priorities, and created an advisory board to oversee the work streams stemming from those priorities.

Our report was very wide ranging, and I cannot pick up all the threads, but let me start with the overall governance of these issues. We said in the report:

“It is regrettable that the Coalition Government appears not to have learnt from the experience of its predecessor that strong ministerial leadership across departmental boundaries is essential to continue to make progress, with the result that in its first two years there was a hiatus in efforts to make headway on implementing the important recommendations made by Baroness Corston”.

We in the Committee were particularly struck by Baroness Corston’s own evidence that under the previous Government it was not until a group of women Ministers worked together to take issues forward that that Government made significant progress in this area. We welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald was appointed, but of course she has now moved to another ministerial position. I hope that this Minister will clarify, when he responds to the debate, just how overall leadership will be achieved in this area.

We say in our report:

“We welcome the production of a set of strategic priorities for women offenders but they need to be given substance”.

In the Government response, we were told that there would be further progress towards meeting the strategic objectives, and that there would be a report to Parliament on that in March this year, so we are getting quite close to that.

We say in our report:

“We do not consider that substantive changes to the…sentencing framework would be helpful…and recommend that emphasis is placed on ensuring a greater consistency of provision to the courts to enable them to sentence from a range of options specifically appropriate to women, including robust alternatives to custody.”

We say:

“We welcome the Sentencing Council’s inclusion of primary child caring responsibilities as a mitigating factor in sentencing guidelines”.

However, more than half the women sentenced to custody still receive short sentences. There appear to be several explanations for that: the absence of adequate and available community provision, the court perhaps not knowing whether there was adequate provision locally, or the court not being confident that the community provision was appropriate or acceptable to wider public opinion by being sufficiently robust. We were concerned that the agenda on that had not progressed sufficiently quickly.

We questioned women offenders and ex-offenders—they came before the Committee—who made it clear to us that they had preferred prison to community sentences. In at least one case, they had committed further offences because prison was easier than a community sentence that challenged them to change their life and also, of course, offered some support to enable them to do so.

Our report says:

“Women’s community projects are central to providing a distinct approach to the treatment of women offenders. They offer a challenging environment for women to serve their sentence as well as a broad range of practical and emotional support”.

Those projects, often delivered through women’s centres, offer a range of services and courses of the kind that Corston recommended: a punishment element; probation; community payback; addressing offending behaviour; anger management; domestic violence; drug awareness; supporting women who have offended, including in relation to housing and issues with children; parenting courses; social services; and a crèche.

A woman who attended Eden House in Bristol said to us in evidence:

“The sort of women coming here, if they went to prison they would only get a couple of weeks, or a six month sentence and serve half. That’s not enough time to make a difference. They just carry on as they did before. But with Eden House, you get structure, a variety of things to do, and the help and support of staff. These are all things you don’t get inside”.

We found evidence such as that very persuasive.

A lot of data have been collected by the National Offender Management Service in the past year about women who have been referred to women’s community services. Those data will be analysed, I think, this summer, and we look forward to seeing the results.

We say in our report:

“We are unconvinced about the extent to which the approach set out in the Government’s strategic priorities for women offenders is…integrated”

across Government and across Departments. We wanted the advisory board to

“map the confusing array of Government initiatives that”,

if brought together,

“have the potential to benefit vulnerable women and girls at risk of offending and specify how these should integrate with the strategy for women offenders.”

We drew attention to the fact that successful women’s centres were ensuring that some women on the periphery of the criminal justice system were being diverted away from crime, to the benefit of the community.

We note the inclusion in the Offender Rehabilitation Bill of the requirement for arrangements for supervision or rehabilitation to identify how they meet the needs of female offenders. The Government say in their response to us that they have produced guidance for new providers on gender-specific services, and that contractual arrangements are in place to ensure that those needs are met. We very much welcome that.

We made recommendations about the custodial estate. We are to conduct a more general inquiry into the prison estate, and we will look further at the provision for women offenders when we do that.

NOMS’ stocktake of women’s community provision was very positive in tone and concluded that

“services for female offenders for 2013-14 have been strengthened and that there will be greater access to gender specific services across the country.”

I am not sure that the picture painted by our witnesses was quite as positive as that. In any case, a stocktake looks at what is there, not at what is missing and still needed. A further analysis may be required to establish an evidence-based approach to the issue.

In general, the Government’s response to our report was thorough and constructive and set out clearly how our concerns could be addressed. The key question remains how real leadership will be provided—across Government, not just in the Ministry of Justice—to maintain momentum and put in place a range of services and interventions that can change the lives of women and girls who offend. Our constituents will benefit if, instead of paying the bills for the punishment of offences committed by women, we greatly reduce the number of those offences and offenders.

I want to talk about older prisoners, because this group is growing in the prison population and seems likely to continue to grow. It was no part of our report to argue that these are not people who should be in prison. It is very obvious, from what we know about the reasons for that growth, that for very many if not all of these people, there are very strong reasons to keep them in custody. I am referring to people with a record of violent offences.

However, older prisoners are and will continue to be a growing group. This population is added to, of course, by prosecutions in relation to historical sex offences. Older prisoners present a real challenge to the Prison Service. Some prisons are making substantial efforts to adapt their facilities to meet the needs of older prisoners, but of course for some prisons that is almost impossible because of the nature of their buildings. They may be multi-storey buildings. There may be a cell in which two beds cannot be put, but there are two prisoners, neither of whom can climb into an upper bunk. Physically, the facilities may not be suitable.

We thought that NOMS needed to ensure that all prisons have a policy that provides age-specific regimes. More prisons should establish day centres and regimes that provide for the needs of older prisoners, without necessarily segregating them entirely. We found problems with older prisoners’ access to health care services. We found, as in other areas of prison life, a large unmet need in relation to mental health and that there should be more consistent awareness training for prison officers about that.

We wanted prison and community health care IT systems to be better connected to minimise disruption. There was one really serious problem, which the Government have tried to address: the lack of provision for essential social care for older prisoners, and confusion about who should be providing it. We had a situation in which it was not clear whether a prisoner with acute social care needs was the responsibility of the authority from which they came, if that could be identified, or the authority in which the prison was located. The Government have dealt with that in clause 75 of the Care Bill, but we still need clarification on what happens to local authorities with a large prison population, because meeting that requirement will place considerable demands on their social work provision. Some places, such as the Isle of Wight, have gone some way to recognising that, but they will have total responsibility in this area under the new legislation.

We want good liaison with local authority social care teams. In the Isle of Wight, we saw that there had been good experiences as a result of placing social workers in prisons. That is not a luxury; serious problems can result from prisoners with serious personal care needs and limitations becoming excessively dependent on either prison officers—who have other responsibilities to carry out—or other prisoners. That is a dangerous situation in a prison.

We also looked at issues that arise when prisoners are terminally ill. We found that perhaps too little discretion had been given to experienced officers over when handcuffs might reasonably be removed from a terminally ill prisoner in a hospital bed, or when a governor, with the Minister’s approval, might grant release to a palliative care unit when no such facility existed in a prison.

We found problems with resettlement. Many long-term prisoners will be released at some point, and by the time they are released, they may have no contact with their home at all. The nature of their offence may have led to a complete break with their family. Where should they be placed if they are not to be at risk of committing further offences? We have asked the Government to do further work on a number of aspects of that problem. It was alarming to find that older prisoners were still being released to no fixed abode, which is neither acceptable nor in the interests of public safety and the community. The growth of the older prisoner population suggests to us that there ought to be a national strategy, but the Government did not accept that recommendation.

The Government response generally engages seriously with each of our recommendations, however. The Government agree that a formal analysis should be undertaken of prison accommodation to assess its suitability, and they have committed to doing that by the end of the year. They have committed to adapt prison regimes, and serious consideration is being given to improving health care. There is an acceptance of minimum social care needs and the care passport system. However, the response does not address the real concern about how local authorities will deal with large numbers of older prisoners for whom they acquire social work responsibility. The statement:

“It will be for each local authority to consider how best to meet need within a prison, and the role that social workers will play”

does not really tell us anything at all. In relation to the use of restraints, the response states:

“NOMS’ escorts policy is currently under review”.

The response on meeting accommodation needs on release does not promise a lot either. The outright rejection of the recommendation to introduce a national strategy on the grounds that it is “not possible to generalise” about the needs of older prisoners ignores the fact that there are common problem factors among most groups of older prisoners, as we saw when we visited several prisons. A strategy that worked its way through the prison system might be of considerable benefit, not only in managing prisoners more effectively but in making the prison system work more effectively. I commend our report to the House, and recommend that for both reports, hon. Members look carefully also at the Government response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The first report to which the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) comprehensively referred surveyed the provision for female offenders within the system in England and Wales, with the particular aim of finding out what had happened since the landmark report by Baroness Corston in March 2007. By and large, the Justice Committee was disappointed to learn that the Government were still not investing enough resources in tackling the causes of female offending, as opposed to helping women already involved in the system. The Government have made progress in several areas, but the Committee warned that

“there is little to signal a radical shift in thinking”

about what generating a whole-system approach actually meant for tackling female offending.

As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed has said, since the inquiry was announced the Government have appointed a ministerial champion for women in the criminal justice system, announced a review of the female custodial estate and published their priorities for women offenders. That is all to the good, except that we are now suffering a hiatus because the former member of our Committee who held that post of ministerial champion has moved on. I have no doubt that the current Minister will respond in due course to the points that the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed has made. I say in passing that the Minister must have been a very bad man in a past life, considering all the briefs that he has had to deal with this week. I am pleased to see him in his place.

There is a fear that progress may be undermined by the reforms—here we go again—to offender management and rehabilitation in the Offender Rehabilitation Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament. In the debate on Report on Tuesday evening, we had a short debate about Government amendment 7, which introduced the need to comply with the Equality Act 2010 and the need for the Secretary of State to identify anything in the arrangements that was intended to meet the particular needs of female offenders. As I said on Tuesday evening, I think that is all to the good. That triggered a response from the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that stunned the Chamber into complete silence. He said, in effect, that he thought women were treated more leniently in the system than men.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will make his own speech, and we will listen intently to what he has to say, but I have to tell him that there is little support for what he says. He seems to have missed an important point, namely, that sentencing a woman to custody has profound consequences that may not arise in cases involving men. There are questions about housing and care for children; there is the possibility of children being taken into care; and, overall, a huge wave of anguish surrounds such families. It should be noted that those additional and serious consequences will present even when a woman is given a very short sentence. As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed has said, often that is the case, but the damage is still done.

I believe that we must treat women differently for those and other reasons. That was the basic ratonale for our research and report. We are seeking not necessarily the soft option but the appropriate option, which I for one would like to see implemented. I am sure that there are ways of doing it, and if we concentrate on the special problems that arise when women are sentenced to custody, I am sure that we will be able to improve the situation drastically.

I am not going to deal with the whole report, obviously, but I would like to highlight one or two issues arising from it. On trends in women’s offending and sentencing, the Committee agreed that women required a distinct approach from those who engaged with them in the criminal justice system. As I have said, we found that women tended to be the subject of shorter community orders and were less likely to be sentenced to custody than men. In 2011, 3% of females were sentenced to immediate custody, compared to 10% of males. That is partly to do with the types of offence commonly committed by women. Our report states:

“In the 12 months to June 2012, 81% of women entering custody under sentence had committed non-violent offences, compared with 71% of men.”

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I have here figures from the Ministry of Justice that were provided in a written answer to a parliamentary question I asked, so I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept them. Does he accept that for every single category of offence, a man is more likely than a women to be sent to prison? The figures on that point are laid out starkly by the Ministry of Justice.

[Mr Llwyd]

If the official figures show that, I am not in a position to argue with the hon. Gentleman, but does he accept that 81% of women entering custody under sentence have committed non-violent offences and are therefore not a danger to the community? Perhaps he will address that when he makes his speech.

[Philip Davies]

I will.

[Mr Llwyd]

Okay. Our report goes on to state that

“over half (52%) of women sentenced had committed petty offences”—

relatively petty—

“related to theft and the handling of stolen goods, compared with one-third (33%) of men. In addition, over a quarter (26%) of women sentenced to imprisonment had no previous convictions, more than double the figure for men (12%).”

The Select Committee agreed that the majority of women offenders posed very little risk to public safety and that imprisonment was usually an ineffective response. After all, women have a very different experience of custody from men. Unfortunately, in their response to our report, the Government said:

“there should be one justice system for all offenders who commit crimes.”

The Government would do well to recognise that one size does not fit all when it comes to tackling offending.

Since 2008, the gender-specific standards in custody have provided gender-specific programmes, recognising the fact that female offenders’ needs are usually very different from male offenders’ needs. For example, female offenders are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to suffer from anxiety and depression and are more likely to report having used class A drugs in the four weeks prior to custody. Female offenders are also more likely to have suffered abuse in childhood or in their adult lives.

Our inquiry found that the Government’s gender equality duty had not been implemented robustly enough and was not persuading enough commissioners to provide gender-specific services for women offenders. In their response to the report, the Government conceded that there were problems with the public sector equality duty.

The Government also refer to female offenders in their document, “Transforming Rehabilitation.” I was glad that they amended the Offender Rehabilitation Bill on Tuesday, but, as a member of the Justice Committee and a barrister of some years’ experience, I still have serious concerns about the potential effect of the proposals on provisions for female offenders, or the lack of them in future. I believe it is more likely than not that the private companies that win the contracts for supervising the under-12-month cohort will have little interest in investing time and resources in rehabilitative programmes, but we will wait and see, as no one has a definitive answer on that yet.

[Sir Alan Beith]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an important point. Does he agree that in some of the women’s centres we saw really innovative work by the voluntary sector? If companies and consortia want to succeed in reducing reoffending, they must make good use of the kind of skill and level of care that we saw working to such effect in Liverpool, Birmingham and Belfast.

[Mr Llwyd]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. Quite honestly, the work in some of the centres was so good that it was astonishing. I well remember the visit to Liverpool—I have had some contact with the manager since then, as it happens—as well as the experience of Belfast and other places. What is vital, of course, is that whatever the structure for the immediate future, such centres are brought into the core of the delivery of services. They make it possible not to send young women away, to keep them with their family units and to turn them around in the most remarkable way. The problem we have—I probably speak for all members of the Select Committee on this—is that there are so few of them to rely on. Alas, at this stage, some centres are suffering from financial pressure. However, there is no doubt at all that if the new landscape is to work, those centres must be major players in providing such vital services, whether on their own or in concert with others. I agree entirely with what the right hon. Gentleman said.

The Committee drew attention to the perverse incentives that will be given to private companies not to provide appropriate services for women under the new reforms, since such services are not always presented as measures to reduce reoffending but rather as more holistic and costly care. In their response, the Government did not exactly contradict that point. However, they did claim that there would be

“advantages for providers of offering sustained support to all offenders within a cohort…including those with more complex needs.”

Once again, we will have to wait and see how that plays out in practice. I have doubts, but I hope that I am wrong.

One of the principal things that the Committee wanted to point out was that the transforming rehabilitation agenda has clearly been designed with male offenders in mind. Women offenders are possibly an afterthought. We said:

“Funding arrangements for provision for women appear to be being shoehorned into the payment by results programme”.

We also warned of the danger of

“sentencers using short prison sentences as a gateway to support”,

which would completely undermine

“the post-Corston direction of travel”.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the fact that the Committee took evidence that suggested that the system had been designed with only men in mind. However, I would draw his attention to the fact that, under the transforming rehabilitation proposals, the use of innovative small providers might bring innovation and be a good influence on dealing with women offenders. I am not sure that the whole Committee shared the right hon. Gentleman’s view, but I accept that it was expressed strongly in evidence.

[Mr Llwyd]

The hon. Gentleman is an assiduous member of the Justice Committee. He and I do not share views on this particular agenda, but I accept what he says. The problem we have, however, is that the small providers to which he referred are currently withering on the vine. I can think of very few in north Wales that would actually be able to deliver. In some areas I am sure that what he said is right, but after all is said and done, the Bill is meant to cover the whole of England and Wales. I take his point. Yes, there is a role—for sure—for small providers. The problem is that there are too few of them.

[Nick de Bois]

I will use this opportunity to stress a point that I have repeatedly made in the Select Committee, for the Minister’s benefit. One of the ingredients for success of the new proposals will be that procurement allows for innovation and small providers. Some of those small providers who are struggling now may benefit if they are engaged on contracts that help to deliver the responses that the right hon. Gentleman wants.

[Mr Llwyd]

The hon. Gentleman’s point is very timely. The Minister has heard it, and I accept that it is an important point.

The Government have not agreed with our analysis of the post-Corston direction of travel. However, they have assured us that after contracts have been awarded, account managers within the Ministry of Justice will monitor the provision for female offenders. Hopefully, from time to time there will be reports, both to the Committee and to the House, on how these reforms play out.

Speaking of short-term sentences, one of the principal recommendations of Baroness Corston’s original report was that, because short-term prison sentences were doing more harm than good for most female offenders, community sentences should be awarded where appropriate. The Committee found that some improvement was being seen, albeit slow, but more than half of women sentenced to custody still received short sentences, during which it is virtually impossible to do anything with them. I was glad to see from the Government’s response that they are addressing that issue under the enhanced community provision workstream of its advisory board. The Government expect to

“establish an early adopter region”

where they can pilot

“the outcomes of early intervention with female offenders”.

The Government also noted that they would be producing

“awareness raising materials for decision-makers in the criminal justice system on the…needs of female offenders.”

Again, that is welcome. It is timely that we should be having this debate the day after the Report stage of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill. The efficacy, or otherwise, of many of the recommendations that our report makes will hinge on how those proposals are put into practice.

The Committee’s second report is on older prisoners. One of our main concerns was the extent to which much of the prison estate and its regimes were unadapted to the needs of older prisoners. On the visit to Dartmoor, for example, we found that a considerable amount of the Dartmoor estate was totally inaccessible to wheelchair users because the doors were too narrow. We found that absolutely unacceptable. However, we understand that Dartmoor is a listed building and, to be honest, there is very little that can be done. Nevertheless, it greatly concerned me and other members of the Committee that that should be the case.

We noted that the National Offender Management Service’s responsibility to provide for the physical adaptation of prisons to suit older prisoners’ needs is not being met universally; I have already given the example of Dartmoor. Our report said:

“We recommend that NOMS should conduct a comprehensive analysis of prisons’ physical compliance with disability discrimination and age equality laws.”

We also recommended that

“NOMS should determine which prisons simply are not able…to hold older prisoners and it should then no longer hold older or disabled prisoners in these institutions.”

I was glad to see that the Government agreed that such an analysis needed to take place and that they have committed to conducting an assessment of the current accommodation needs across the prison estate and of its suitability for prisoners with specific needs, reporting by the end of this year.

In principle, the Government have also agreed to keep the time spent by prisoners in unsuitable accommodation to an absolute minimum, which is clearly welcome. The Committee recommended that older prisoners should be assessed before entering prison, to ensure that their needs were met. In their response, the Government said that

“social care needs assessments will be the responsibility of local authorities”

after the provisions of the Care Bill come into force in 2015. I am not particularly satisfied with the lukewarm assertion that

“NOMS will work with NHS England to consider ways in which prisoners’ initial health assessments could lead to a referral”

and that the Government will

“explore whether age could reasonably mean that such a referral is automatic”.

These prisoners cannot be allowed to fall between two stools, and it is surely the Government’s responsibility to ensure that they do not do so.

I would also like some clarification about what the situation will be for older prisoners in the prison estate in Wales, who will rely on NHS Wales, and for older prisoners from Wales who are incarcerated in England and who will consequently use the NHS in England.

One thing that has not emerged hitherto is that the largest increase in the prison population is in the over-55 cohort. For various reasons—historical sex abuse is a prominent one, but there are many others—that is the growth area in terms of prison numbers. Therefore, the treatment of older prisoners is an urgent issue, which should be addressed with due priority.

We wanted to stress that older prisoners should be able to use their time in prison as productively as younger prisoners, if they so wish, and that NOMS should put in place older prisoner policies in every prison, to provide for age-specific regimes for this cohort. The Government refused to concede that latter point, and I am afraid that I do not agree with their assertion that

“A requirement for every prison to have an older prisoner policy detailing age specific regimes would reduce the ability of prison governors to provide regimes which reflect the actual and specific needs of prisoners.”

I do not think that promising that

“NOMS will explore opportunities to adapt regimes in prisons where the needs of the population require it”

goes far enough to address this problem. Prisoners will fall through the cracks if a uniform policy is not adopted across the prisons estate.

I was glad that the Government accepted in principle the Committee’s recommendation that there should be enhanced training of staff in the mental health care needs of older prisoners. Once again, however, the Government have said that

“NOMS will look to work with NHS England developing training packages”,

and I would be grateful to know what discussions the Government will have with the Welsh Government to ensure that work is co-ordinated, so that no older prisoners miss out on this provision.

I shall make a few comments about how our recommendations about the resettlement of older prisoners were received. In our report, we praised the resettlement services in HMP Dartmoor and Isle of Wight, mainly because they provided comprehensive resettlement and care plans for older prisoners. We suggested that NOMS should roll out such services in all prisons where there is an existing population of older prisoners. The Government again said that, in light of the passing of the Care Bill, local authorities would have a responsibility to provide a care plan in those circumstances and that NOMS would work with local authorities to support that process. Again, I would like clarification about how that will work with regard to Welsh older prisoners, whether they are incarcerated in England or in Wales.

Finally, we said that it was imperative that older prisoners were registered with a community GP after release into the community to ensure continuity of care. It is vital that services are linked up in that fashion. In their response, the Government once again referred only to NHS England, and I seek further information about what discussions the Government will have with the Welsh Government to ensure that adequate information is given to GPs in Wales about older prisoners when they are released, whether—as I have already said—they are incarcerated in Wales or in England.

I am sure that the Minister will respond in his usual assiduous manner to the various questions that I have put today. However, I need to place on record my apology, as I will not be here for the wind-ups; I have a televisual appointment later on this evening. I am grateful to you, Mr Bone, for allowing me to make this speech at this stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I suspect that I have already had it as bedtime reading, because I seem to have read almost every report going on these matters. We can have an argument on the effectiveness of prison per se at another time. I am a big fan of sending more criminals to prison: for example, each year some 3,000 burglars with 15 or more previous convictions are not sent to prison, which is a national scandal, and I suspect that most of my constituents think so too. We can discuss that on a different occasion, and perhaps the Select Committee might want to consider why so few persistent burglars are sent to prison. My constituents would welcome that.

One point that crops up time and again is the idea that women offenders are, by definition, more vulnerable than male offenders and therefore need special protection. I want to address that first because I believe that much has been made of the special case of women offenders, but next to nothing has been said about the problems that men face. I have been interested to discover that some of the facts show that much of what is being said could apply equally to men. The House of Commons Library, for example, says that almost the same proportion of sentenced male prisoners as of sentenced female prisoners ran away from home as a child—47% compared with 50%. The Library also states that, although a third of female prisoners were excluded from school, a larger half of male prisoners were excluded from school. A quarter of both male and female prisoners are thought to have been in care when they were growing up. Although about one third of female prisoners admit to hazardous drinking, it seems that the figure for men is more like two thirds.

When we talk about those figures, we have to bear in mind the overall prison population figures. For the record, as of last Friday, 10 January, there were 3,845 women in prison and 80,413 men. Clearly half of the male prison population is a very large figure and half of the female prison population is a relatively low figure, so if campaigners are really concerned about the personal circumstances and vulnerabilities of individuals, they perhaps ought to be clear that far more men than women are in the position they describe of being vulnerable prisoners. On sheer numbers alone, one would therefore think male prisoners would be given far more attention than women prisoners.

Of course, the favourite subject among some campaigners is mental health, which is also mentioned prominently in recommendations 1 and 2 of the Select Committee report, and it is addressed in the Government response. Of course the figures in the report are only for women offenders, so in the interest of ensuring that we have the real picture, and not the one that some would like us to be left with, I will compare female offenders with such problems with male offenders in the same position.

In 2011, two women committed suicide in prison. I do not know the circumstances of those cases, but one might conclude that they were clearly vulnerable individuals. In the same period, 55 men took their own life. That is a stark example of the most serious end of the argument and it shows why it is unbelievable that so much time is spent compiling reports about vulnerable women, yet so little time is spent considering the hard facts about the deaths of male prisoners.

Even more recent figures show an alarming trend of which I hear little mention. Although the number of female self-harmers decreased from 1,429 in 2005 to 1,065 in 2013, the number of male self-harmers increased in that period from 5,692 to 6,823. Perhaps more starkly, over the same period the number of female self-harm incidents decreased by half, from 12,014 to 6,236, while the number of male self-harm incidents increased from 10,109 to 16,741. Again, according to the Ministry of Justice, 145 female offenders who self-harmed in 2013 required hospital treatment, whereas 10 times as many male offenders who self-harmed had to be taken to hospital. If people are concerned—and it may well be a legitimate concern—that women are vulnerable in those circumstances, surely men in such situations must be of equal concern. If that is the case, why do we have Select Committee reports simply on female offenders? Why do we not have the same reports on male prisoners, which we never seem to get?

[Mr Llwyd]

The hon. Gentleman is an intelligent man, but his last point is rather stupid. In our report we were considering the circumstances of female offenders. As the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) told him, there have been other reports on the male occupants of the prison estate. Saying that because we are considering the situation of women, we could not care less about men, is absolutely ridiculous.

[Philip Davies]

I am afraid we hear that time and again in the main Chamber. Questions focus on female offenders, female offenders, female offenders; there is never the same focus on either offenders overall or male offenders. All I am trying to do is introduce some balance to the debate. Actually, all of the things that people mention also apply to male offenders and, just because of the sheer numbers, in many more cases. I would like to see the same focus—arguably, a greater focus—on all of those issues in relation to male offenders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Later, I will discuss whether it is justified for special circumstances to apply when deciding whether to send women to prison.

[Mr Llwyd]

For clarification, I said in my speech that women are less likely to be sentenced to custody than men. In 2011, 3% of females were sentenced to custody, compared with 10% of males. I know that the hon. Gentleman is obsessed with his own argument and does not want to listen to the other side of the argument, but that was said, and it is on the record.

[Philip Davies]

If the right hon. Gentleman is listening to my speech, he will have heard me say at the start that I thought I was making some headway because this debate is the first time that I had heard him acknowledge that fact. It is not that I am not listening to him; it is a question of him not listening to me.

[Mr David Amess in the Chair]

I am grateful, however, because we are starting to make some progress. Everyone appears to be falling over themselves to say that men are more likely to be sent to prison than women. When I made that comment the other day and in previous debates, I have been told that that clearly is not true. Now, everyone is falling over themselves to say that what I am saying is right, and that they were there first. I do not want to be precious about this, and do not want it to seem that I was there first; if people want to claim the credit, I am happy for them to do so. I am just pleased that we are making some headway, and that the facts are for once beginning to rear their ugly heads.

The Ministry of Justice answered a question that I asked in September about pre-sentence reports and its recommendations for sentences in court. It was confirmed that probation staff are twice as likely to recommend custody for male offenders due to be sentenced in Crown court cases than for female offenders. For men, the figure is 24%, while it is just 11% for women. Even repeat offenders are more likely to fare better if they are women. For those who have committed more than 15 offences, pre-sentence reports recommend custody for 39% of men, compared with 29% of women. All that shows that it is wrong to say that women are more likely to be sent to prison than men. We seem to have agreed among ourselves that men are more likely than women to be sent to prison for committing exactly the same offence. That is the reality.

It is also true, however, that men will be sent to prison for longer than women. I refer again to the Ministry of Justice’s published figures, which state that women given an immediate custodial sentence for indictable offences receive shorter average sentence lengths than men. It is 11.6 months for women, compared with 17.7 months for men. That is not a minor difference. That figure shows that the average male prison sentence is over 50% longer than the average female sentence. That is something that those who allege that they are keen on equality may want to think about.

Not only are women less likely to be sent to prison and more likely to be given a shorter sentence, but they are more likely to serve less of the sentence in prison than men. The Ministry of Justice helpfully points that out in its offender management statistics:

“Those discharged from determinate sentences…had served 53 per cent of their sentence in custody… On average, males served a greater proportion of their sentence in custody—53 per cent compared to 48 per cent for females”

in the same period. It continues:

“This gender difference is consistent over time, and partly reflects the higher proportion of females who are released on Home Detention Curfew.”

Other published Ministry of Justice figures confirm that. In fact, there is quite a disparity. In the past few years for which figures have been published, women have had 50% more of a chance than men of being released from prison early on home detention curfew. I hope that we have finally nailed the idea that women are treated more harshly by the courts than men. Men are clearly treated more severely by the courts when it comes to being sent to prison.

The other myth that we hear—the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd hinted at it earlier—is that most women in prison are serving short sentences for petty, non-violent offences, and that they would be better off being dealt with elsewhere. Let us take a snapshot of the sentenced female prison population at a moment in time and look at the detail of all these “poor women” who are serving prison sentences and who should—apparently—be out and about in the local community. Which women prisoners do those who advocate reducing the female prison sentence want to let out? I asked that question of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who has been good enough to come back again today, for which I am grateful. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd gave the impression—although he perhaps would not want to subscribe to this—that as much as 80% of women prisoners should not be in prison. That was the impression that he wanted to leave us with when he made his comments.

I have the latest Ministry of Justice figures on the female prison population, and I want to know which of these people the right hon. Gentleman and others think should not be in prison. Is it the 231 who are in there for murder? Is it the 61 who are in there for manslaughter? Perhaps it is the 73 who are in there for other and attempted homicides. Is it the 391 who are in for wounding? Is it the 52 in for assault? Perhaps it is the 56 who are in prison for cruelty to children, or the 85 who are in for other violence against the person. Maybe the 83 who are in there for sexual offences should not be in prison. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman has in mind the 328 who are in prison for robbery. Is it the 208 who were unlucky enough to be sent to prison for burglary? They must have been persistent burglars to have been sent to prison.

The right hon. Gentleman probably does have in mind the 508 women who are in prison for theft and handling stolen goods, but maybe it is the 574 who are in for drug offences; perhaps they are the ones who he thinks should not have been sent to prison. Maybe it is the 86 women who are in prison for arson, the 24 for criminal damage, the 12 for blackmail or the 37 for kidnapping. Maybe the right hon. Gentleman has those people in mind when he says that these women, who apparently pose no danger to the public, should not be in prison. When those numbers are added up, they make up far more than half of the female prison population. Let us hear which ones should not be in prison. I would like to know.