Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords]

Guy Opperman Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who is a bright beacon when it comes to this issue and the safeguarding of children—the most vulnerable in our communities up and down the land. I am tempted to say in passing that, at a time when our politics and this House are so divided on other issues, debates such as these remind us of one of the benefits of this job, which is the coming together of the House to discuss in a united, informed and respectful way an issue that matters to the future of our country and can certainly be deemed to be for the public good.

I listened with the most careful attention to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). It was interesting that she used the term “prehistoric” to describe the way that this House can often look. It is not the first time that I have made this comment: I am the Member for North Dorset, and not everything that comes out of Dorset is Jurassic.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

You are!

Prisons and Courts Bill (Sixth sitting)

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Stringer. I associate myself with all the Minister’s remarks. I, too, thank everyone who has contributed to the Committee’s sessions. When I came up to Westminster from south Wales on Tuesday morning, I thought that the Committee would dominate my week and some other weeks, but events have intervened. The sessions that we had were very positive. There was a large measure of agreement but, at times, robust debate too, which I am sure will stand all the various issues in good stead for the future.

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury (Guy Opperman)]

Given events and with the leave of the Committee, I wish to move a motion.

Ordered,

That the Committee do not proceed with further consideration of the Bill.—(Guy Opperman.)

[The Chair]

The Committee must now agree a special report to be made to the House.

Ordered,

That the Committee agree the Special Report as on the paper before the Committee and that the Chair do report the Bill, so far as amended, to the House.

Bill, so far as amended, accordingly to be reported to the House.

Prisons and Courts Bill (First sitting)

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st Sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Are there any hon. Members who want to declare an interest before the end of the sitting?

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Guy Opperman)]

I declare an interest as a non-practising former barrister. I am still owed certain fees by the state and insurers even after seven long years, and I wrote a book called “Doing Time”, which unaccountably has not sold out, on prison reform—so I declare its existence.

[Richard Burgon]

I am a former practising solicitor—I am non-practising now. I used to be an employee of Thompsons solicitors who have an interest in matters discussed this afternoon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. You are quite right that there were more questions in that sally than in a multiple-choice maths GCSE paper.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman still wouldn’t know the answers.

[Michael Gove]

Yes; I hesitate to say what the mark would be.

We moved as expeditiously as possible to suspend the charge. The best legal advice available to the Department suggested that this was the most effective way of relieving magistrates of the obligation to impose it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

As the hon. Lady knows, we will not be placing girls and young people under the age of 15 in the secure college when it starts, and those issues will be subject to a vote of both Houses of Parliament. At the moment we spend an average of £100,000 a year to keep a young person in custody, and we have a reoffending rate of 68%. We need to try something better, and putting education and skills at the heart of youth justice so that we turn young people into productive members of their community is the right way to go.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

What plans does the Ministry of Justice have for alternative custody in the form of a secure residential drug treatment centre for young persons and adults? That could be piloted as an alternative for the future so that we can have better treatment in the longer term.

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is right to mention drugs in prisons as that issue is of great concern to the Ministry of Justice, not least because of new psychoactive substances that are getting into prisons. Our existing prisons have drug treatment programmes, and we are considering how we can continually improve and make that work more effective.

Prison Communications

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It is difficult to be certain, but I suspect that it is not a problem right across the prison estate. We will have to ensure that the standards in the best prisons are spread to those that are not meeting those standards. It is difficult to know at this stage whether it is a matter of inappropriate staff training or just of it being difficult to spot the name of an MP if they have not been identified. I expect that Nick Hardwick will give us that information and enable us to make appropriate changes.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his speedy response and on the choice of Nick Hardwick, who is clearly the most appropriate person to conduct the review. Will he confirm one final point, which is that no prisoner-lawyer matters are outstanding and that all such matters have been dealt with?

[Chris Grayling]

I am not aware of any outstanding matters. On my hon. Friend’s point about Nick Hardwick, I should tell the House that the reason I did not ask the surveillance commissioners to carry out this piece of work is that they are the auditors of the process. I felt that it was better to have somebody who was not the auditor investigating this matter because we must also check that our audit processes are robust enough.

Imprisoned Foreign Nationals

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

It is a huge pleasure to serve under your distinguished chairmanship, Mr Caton. I thank Mr Speaker for granting me the honour of securing today’s debate. I welcome to the debate my right hon. Friend the Minister, who serves in both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. I know that he takes a great interest in these important matters.

My contention on behalf of my constituents in Kettering is that far too many foreign national offenders are being held in British prisons. Do not get me wrong: it is excellent that so many criminals are being caught and sentenced, but such people need to serve their sentences in secure detention in prisons in their own country, because the cost to the British taxpayer is north of £300 million a year. At a time of severe constraints on public expenditure, that is far too large a bill to ask British taxpayers to pay.

My understanding is that England and Wales have a prison population of something like 85,000 prisoners; no doubt the Minister will be able to update the House with the very latest figures when he responds. I understand that 10,834 of those 85,000 are foreign national offenders; again, I am sure that the Minister will want to provide the House with the exact figures. I am a bear of little brain, but I estimate that that means that foreign national offenders make up something like 13% of our prison population.

Both the number of foreign national offenders and the total number of prisoners in British prisons have increased markedly since the early days of the previous Government, thanks in large part to the tougher criminal justice policies pursued by the previous Conservative Government, the previous Labour Government, and the current coalition Government. That is a good thing; criminals are being brought to justice and are serving longer in prison, and my constituents support that. However, having almost 11,000 foreign national offenders gives us huge problems. Our prison system is basically full, yet 13% of prisoners are foreign nationals. Public expenditure is tight, yet we are spending more than £300 million a year on these people. I understand that a number of Her Majesty’s prisons are devoted entirely to housing foreign national offenders. I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that HMP Canterbury and HMP Bullwood Hall are devoted entirely to housing foreign national offenders.

Our jails are host to foreign criminals from 160 countries around the world; indeed, 80% of the world’s nations are represented in British prisons. Something like a third of them have been convicted of violent and sexual offences, a fifth have been convicted of drugs offences, and others have been convicted of burglary, robbery, fraud and other serious crimes. Although 160 countries are represented in our prisons, something like 57% of the total foreign national prisoner population comes from just 12 nations.

I shall read out the list of shame: top of the polls is Poland, with 938 foreign national offenders in our jails; second is Ireland, with 779; third is Jamaica, with 737; in equal fourth place are Romania and Pakistan, each with 547; sixth is Lithuania, with 502; seventh is Nigeria, with 469; eighth is Somalia, with 430; ninth is India, with 426; 10th is Bangladesh, with 276; 11th is Albania, with 275; and 12th is Vietnam, with 247. I am sure that the Minister will correct me if any of those numbers are wrong or should be updated, but those 12 countries have the biggest national populations in our prisons, making up 57% of the total—that is 6,174 prisoners.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing such an important debate and addressing an issue that affects a lot of us. Does he agree that one way to resolve the problem is to use the budgets of both the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Justice to improve prisons in countries such as Jamaica—I have visited Kingston prison, where some UK nationals and almost 1,000 Jamaicans were being held—thereby allowing prisoners to be returned to a human-rights-compliant jail in their homeland?

[Mr Hollobone]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention; he knows a lot about the subject, and I congratulate him on taking the initiative to visit the prison in Kingston. There cannot be many Members of the House who have visited Kingston prison, so I applaud my hon. Friend for his endeavour. He makes an extremely sensible suggestion, but I must say that I do not think that my constituents in Kettering are particularly fussed about the human rights of foreign nationals who commit crimes in this country. However, I understand that, as things stand, we operate under human rights legislation introduced by the previous Government and are not allowed in law to deport criminals to non-human-rights-compliant prisons.

It would make sense to use the huge and increasing international aid budget to build suitable prisons in countries that provide us with a large number of prisoners. That is a good idea. Indeed, earlier this year I asked the then Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), how much we give in aid each year to Jamaica, Pakistan, Nigeria, Somalia, India and Bangladesh. The answer was that for 2012—one year—we gave them £973 million. Those six countries provide us with 2,900 foreign national offenders, which is more than a quarter of the total number of foreign national offenders. It costs this country more than £100 million a year to incarcerate these people in our jails. It would be a good idea to spend some of that £973 million on building prisons in those six countries.

[Guy Opperman]

What my hon. Friend is describing is not a novel idea. The Government have supported similar ideas in other countries: I believe that Haiti is one such case, and the Jamaican example is the one that is closest to happening. I hate to say it, but the project has stalled because there have been difficulties with the MOJ and DFID budgets and with driving the matter forward through civil servants and Ministers, and there have also been problems with getting agreement with the Jamaican Government. Nevertheless, where there is a will to deport these gentlemen, there is definitely a way.

[Mr Hollobone]

That is absolutely right. In that regard, I have great hopes for my right hon. Friend the Minister, because I am sure that if something can be achieved, he will achieve it. I would go so far as to say that we should make our international aid to these countries conditional on their acceptance of a prison-building programme—we should not give them international aid if they do not co-operate with us on this issue.

Again, I would be happy to be corrected if I am wrong, but I understand that we have been pursuing a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement with Jamaica for ages, but it is still subject to ratification by the Jamaican Government. We have only a voluntary prisoner transfer agreement with Pakistan. We have, at last, a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement with Nigeria, and I hope that the Minister will tell the House how many hundreds of Nigerians await deportation to that country. We do not have a prisoner transfer agreement of any sort with Somalia or Bangladesh, and we have only a voluntary prisoner transfer agreement with India. These six countries provide us with 25% of our foreign national offender population; we give them the best part of £1 billion a year in international aid; yet they are not co-operating with us in any sensible, meaningful way on taking back their nationals who have committed criminal offences in this country.

There is good news on EU criminals in our jails—it is not good news for them, but good news for us as British taxpayers—because there is now an EU-wide compulsory prisoner transfer agreement, whereby EU nationals convicted and imprisoned in our country can be sent back against their will to their country of origin. That applies so long as prisoners come from another EU state. However, my understanding is that only 14 of the EU states have ratified that legislation. Again, I would welcome an update from the Minister on that.

Poland, which is top of the list with almost 1,000 of its nationals in our prisons, has a specific derogation from accepting prisoner transfers under that EU agreement until the end of December 2016. That is an absolute outrage. Why should we pay to accommodate criminals who have come to this country from Poland? Poland should be securing those people in secure detention back in Poland, at the expense of Polish taxpayers. It is okay for there to be no restrictions at all on eastern Europeans coming to the United Kingdom; apparently that is fine—more than 1 million people from eastern Europe live, work or claim benefits in this country—but we are not allowed to send back to eastern Europe, and Poland in particular, nationals from those countries, including Polish nationals, who have been convicted, found guilty and imprisoned for serious criminal offences, and who are incarcerated in jail in this country. My constituents in Kettering, and I suspect most of the population at large, are outraged that this situation has been allowed to develop.

I am sure we can all agree that this is a serious issue that needs to be tackled; indeed, some distinguished figures have said as much. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice told me in November 2012:

“The prisons Minister…and I have met our Jamaican counterparts during the last few weeks. We are focusing our efforts to negotiate compulsory transfer agreements on the countries where the problem is greatest.” —[Official Report, 13 November 2012; Vol. 553, c. 165.]

That is great, but we still await these compulsory transfer agreements.

The Prime Minister said to me on the Floor of the House in July 2013:

“We have held specific National Security Council discussions about prisoner transfers and about foreign national offenders, because I think that we need to do much better in getting people out of our jails and back to the countries where they belong. We are making some progress, but it is hard work. This European Union agreement is a potential benefit for us and we have to do everything we can, both at the European Council and bilaterally with other countries, to get them to sign and implement. That is a programme that the Government are very much working on.”—[Official Report, 2 July 2013; Vol. 565, c. 773.]

That was in July 2013, but not much progress has been made since then, because the figures I have show that in March 2013 there were 10,735 foreign national offenders in our jails, whereas I think the latest number is 10,834.

The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice said to me in June:

“This is a matter of great concern to Ministers. We are also seeking to speed up the formal deportation process through the Home Office. We need to reduce the numbers significantly, but it is proving to be a more stubborn and difficult task than any of us would wish.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 852.]

That is right, but we need to co-ordinate our efforts as a Government to tackle this problem. That is why I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims is in his post, because he has a desk not only in the Home Office but in the Ministry of Justice, and so is uniquely placed to knock heads together in the two Departments to ensure that action is taken.

I am not a lawyer, and I am rather proud of that fact. I do not understand all the legal niceties about the differences between deportation, transfer, removal and repatriation. Apparently, all these terms have highly technical and specific meanings, but basically my constituents in Kettering and I want to see these foreign national offenders removed from here to there, and incarcerated at the expense of their own taxpayers.

More than that, once those people have left our shores, we want them to be banned from ever returning. That is why I introduced a Bill in the last Session of Parliament, called the Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill, which would exclude those people from the UK once they had been found guilty of a criminal offence on our shores and basically been forced to leave. I do not see why they should ever be allowed back into our country once they have been found guilty of, and imprisoned for, a serious offence.

This is an issue of serious concern. If we get it right, we would not only free up almost 11,000 spaces in our overcrowded prisons but save the British taxpayer north of £300 million every year. Some of the most senior politicians in the land have said that they recognise that this issue is a problem, and that they want to solve it. I say to them, through my right hon. Friend the Minister, that they have had long enough to do that, so please will he put a rocket under this issue to ensure that it is tackled once and for all?

Oral Answers to Questions

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We will leave it there for now, but the hon. Gentleman will be heard. I feel sure of that—he always is.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I have constituents in HMP Northumberland and I visited the prison this summer. May I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests? When I met the management and individual prison officers this summer, I was impressed by their hard work, dedication and commitment to the prison. Does the Minister agree that we should get behind them and not endlessly snipe at the prison and its staff?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

We have looked carefully at this matter, as have the ombudsman and a number of others. There is no common pattern to the suicides.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

May I ask the victims Minister to meet me and to review the handling and sentencing of repeat antisocial behaviour offenders? In my constituency, there are two cases of people on year-long ASBOs, but the victims feel that the sentencing has been carried out solely on the basis of the most recent offence rather than the pattern of behaviour.

[Mike Penning]

As well as being the victims Minister, I am also the police and criminal justice Minister. I am sure, given that portfolio, that my hon. Friend and I will have a very good meeting.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I also begin by thanking Members from both sides of the House who have worked extremely hard during the passage of the Bill. The respective Front-Bench spokesmen have given a lot of time to the Bill and the various officials, Clerks and Members’ advisers have also worked hard.

There is no point beating about the bush—this is a poor Bill. We know that the Justice Secretary was sucking up to the Prime Minister when he begged his Cabinet colleagues earlier this year for Bills—any Bills—to fill the gaping hole in the parliamentary schedule. What he brought forward was a mish-mash of leftovers. Ministers have thrown into the Bill their scrag ends and afterthoughts, making for an incoherent mess. It is a Christmas tree Bill on which many baubles have been hung.

The Bill includes proposals for toughening up sentences. No one disagrees with the need to keep the public safe, but part 1 is about repairing the damage done by the Lord Chancellor’s predecessor, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who abolished indeterminate sentences for public protection—IPPs—in 2012. The Justice Secretary is clearly embarrassed now by the actions of his predecessor, but he was not embarrassed when he marched through the Aye Lobby in support of the abolition of IPPs in 2012. Were it not for the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, there would be little need for part 1 at all. Madam Deputy Speaker, you know, from your long experience, that a Government are in a mess when they reverse legislation that they themselves passed only two years ago.

The Justice Secretary’s secure college plans in part 2 are supported by no one. He calls them borstals when speaking to his Back Benchers, but uses softer language when he is talking to others. He is fooling no one. There is no evidence base to support the model. He has no justification for spending £85 million on a 400-place youth prison when the numbers of young people behind bars are down 65%. Nothing has been said on whether girls and the very youngest offenders will be thrown into the same prison, putting them in danger. The plans are so rushed and half-baked that the use of restraint being proposed is illegal. Yet Ministers have pushed ahead, with contracts being agreed on the construction before Parliament has even approved the measure—a discourtesy to colleagues in the Commons and the other place. This teenage Titan prison is a monument to the Justice Secretary’s ideologically fuelled hobby horses. The money would deliver so much more if spent on education, training and skills in existing establishments rather than on an unsafe vanity project.

On judicial review in part 4, the Lord Chancellor continues with his assault on our citizens’ rights. Not content with trying to dismantle legal aid and railing against human rights, he is now trying to limit judicial review as a means by which communities and citizens challenge the illegality of actions taken by public authorities, citing one or two bad cases to justify changes that affect many other potential good ones. I will not rehearse the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) and I have already expressed on these judicial review changes during the Bill’s passage, but it is ironic that on the eve of the Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary, when the Prime Minister is claiming to want to teach our children of its significance, the Government are depriving citizens and communities of their rights to challenge power.

We should not forget the 18 new clauses and schedules that the Justice Secretary tabled on Report—14 for today’s debate alone, some of which we have not even discussed. Those have received no decent scrutiny form the House. That indicates the disdain that the Justice Secretary shows towards this place.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I was unfortunate enough to practise at the Bar when the previous Government had 13 years and dozens of criminal justice Acts, most of which were highly inefficient and a great bar to proper justice. In relation to judicial review, what was the situation compared with Magna Carta 800 years ago and prior to 1971? We still have a judicial review system, however imperfect the right hon. Gentleman may think it is, and to criticise it as something that Magna Carta would lose by is laughable.

[Sadiq Khan]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has read the Prime Minister’s article that was published on Sunday in which he talked about the importance of citizens’ rights and of empowering citizens, reminding us of a 13th-century king who gave citizens power to challenge power. The Justice Secretary clearly does not understand that it is ironic that, at a time when Ministers are reminding citizens of Magna Carta, they are taking away and diluting some of those citizens’ rights to challenge power. If he thinks that is acceptable, that is for him to explain. In the context of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, the changes to legal aid, and the attacks on human rights, the hon. Gentleman will accept when he is outside the Chamber—

[Guy Opperman]

rose—

[Sadiq Khan]

I appreciate that a reshuffle is due and the hon. Gentleman needs to impress the Whips, but he will recognise during a quieter moment—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

I was not able to be here earlier in the consideration of the Bill, so I will speak briefly on Third Reading—to the delight of colleagues, I am sure.

I welcome the Bill. I sat on the Public Bill Committee. As ever, the Opposition are full of criticism but short on solutions. The shadow Secretary of State spoke fondly of a reshuffle. Of the two of us, it is more likely that he will be reshuffled than I. The idea that Magna Carta will be so affected by the Bill is as laughable as some of his earlier suggestions. Magna Carta survived very well for several hundred years before the reform of judicial review and the like, and it will continue to survive very happily on the back of the Bill.

I should declare that I have practised in the fields of judicial review and criminal law. The previous Government, in their 13 years and with their dozens of criminal justice Bills, were, without a shadow of a doubt, the worst Government there has ever been in respect of criminal justice. I assure the House that that view is shared universally by one and all at the criminal Bar.

My last client in a judicial review was the shadow Chancellor. I represented him when he was Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. In that judicial review, the feeling was shared by one and all that far too much judicial review was going on and that it needed to be reformed. I welcome the fact that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice has tackled something that has been patently obvious to High Court judges, practitioners and everyone who has been involved in the payment of taxpayers’ money for judicial review.

I welcome the proposals that we dealt with in Committee on drug testing in prisons. The idea that we are proposing a mini-Titan prison—I think I caught those words correctly—is a dramatic misunderstanding of what constitutes a Titan prison and what constitutes a reasonably sized prison for young offenders. I also welcome the changes to electronic monitoring.

Finally, on knife crime, I welcome and support the changes that have been brought about by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who has done a great service to the House.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Buckland]

I rise to speak to amendment 19, which is tabled in my name, relating to the issue of accountability for special educational needs in the proposed secure colleges. The amendment would make the principal of the college responsible, first for reviewing the SEN provision available in the college; secondly for identifying whether the work force are appropriately skilled to support young people with SEN; thirdly for working with that young person’s home local authority when they might benefit from a new education, health and care assessment, which was established by the welcome Children and Families Act 2014; and finally for undertaking those duties with advice from the secure college’s special educational needs co-ordinator.

It is worth reminding the House once again why special educational needs in secure colleges is such a fundamental issue. Research suggests that 60% of children in custody have communication difficulties; a quarter of children in the youth justice system have a learning disability; three quarters have serious difficulties with literacy; and 17% of young offenders have a statement of SEN, compared with 3% of the general population. Those difficulties are often not identified until the young person enters custody. Ensuring that a young person’s SEN needs are recognised and supported is essential to the success of the Government’s stated aim in introducing secure colleges: to put education at the heart of youth custody. I fully support that aim.

We had a short debate on these issues in Committee, and I listened carefully to the Minister’s response to the concerns raised about SEN provision. He said that he would expect potential education providers to demonstrate that they could provide the necessary support for detained young people with SEN, and I am sure that he would agree that training for staff in that discipline is crucial. However, I understand that the Government do not want to constrain innovation by putting into statute too many specifications on what providers must deliver and that the more detailed requirements on provision will be included in the contract.

That is why my amendment does not specify the detailed SEN provision or training that must be provided; rather, it seeks to place duties on the principal to keep that provision and training under review. That has several advantages. It is a means of ensuring that contractual commitments relating to SEN are delivered on the ground. It creates a strong statutory framework around which the provision of SEN support and training can be provided, but it does so without being restrictive or prescriptive in the way the Minister was concerned about.

One of the major challenges we face is linking up provision in custody and provision in the community. We do not want to see progress made by a young person while in a secure college to be lost after he or she is released, because for many detained young people—this is a sad reality, but it is true—custody might be the first time in many years that they have engaged in education. For far too many it is the first time their special educational needs are identified. It is therefore crucial that any information identified in a secure college is passed on to the home local authority so that there is continuity in ensuring that their needs are met. Upon release, those young people might be eligible for an education, health and care assessment from their home local authorities. That might need to begin before they are released so that a proper package can be put in place to prepare the ground for that transition. That is why my amendment would require the principal of a secure college to pass any information on a child’s special educational needs to their home local authority, building on the great strides that have been made in the 2014 Act.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his eminently good speech, which, as always, draws upon his expert knowledge of SEN. Is he not describing an integrated form of education whereby what takes place inside one particular institution is transferred seamlessly to other institutions involved? Is that not what we should be aiming for in all education across the prison system?

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Already in the debate we have heard, in speeches and interventions, about the relatively short period of time that young people spend in custody. That continuity is absolutely essential if we are to take meaningful strides not only in dealing with rehabilitation, but in reducing reoffending rates, which concern all of us and are a priority for the Government.

My amendment is a probing amendment, but I am keen for my hon. Friend the Minister to consider further these proposals in relation to SEN provision in secure colleges: that education providers in those colleges be required by contract to put SEN at the heart of their education provision; that those providers also be required by contract to ensure adequate and proper training for staff so that they can properly identify special education needs and meet that need when it is identified; and finally, that we give further thought to exactly who in a secure college should be responsible for working with home local education authorities when young people either have education, health and care plans, or might be eligible for them. I commend those points to the House.