Oral Answers to Questions

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to encourage the inclusion of peer mentoring in prisons as part of the training of prison officers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

Prison officer training aims to give officers an awareness of the benefits of peer mentoring currently provided by voluntary sector and faith organisations, such as the Shannon Trust’s toe-by-toe reading plan and the Samaritan-trained listener scheme. Our rehabilitation policy will encourage and facilitate mentoring for offenders by ex-offenders and other members of the public, as all parts of the justice system focus more on outcomes than inputs. The early payment-by-results pilots at Doncaster and Peterborough prisons both use peer mentoring, and the experience of these and all other pilots will guide future training and practice.

[Guy Opperman]

Does the Minister believe that the expansion of private provision in prisons and the payment-by-results scheme will lead to more peer mentoring and better prison officer training, and that rehabilitation rates will improve as a result?

[Mr Blunt]

Yes, but the payment-by-results scheme is not limited to private sector prisons. We are piloting it in two public sector prisons as well. The National Offender Management Service is to contribute £1.4 million to eight voluntary sector organisations to help with mentoring, and is also involved in a Europe-funded project that is assessing the relative benefits of mentoring by peers and non-peers.