Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. It is important to bear in mind that restorative justice is a right for victims. I believe that if, in the circumstances described by the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero), a victim wished to exercise the right to engage in restorative justice and to demand an account from an offender who was pleading guilty or had been found guilty, he or she should have the opportunity to do so. The victim impact statement, as part of the restorative justice process for the benefit of the victim, must become a much clearer element of our justice system.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I agree with the Minister that restorative justice can be a positive intervention, and I was pleased to be able to attend a restorative justice session in Wormwood Scrubs organised by volunteers from the Prison Fellowship on 28 March. Unfortunately, however, it was the last such session to take place in a prison in the London region. Can the Minister explain why that is, given that it is agreed that restorative justice can be an effective intervention? Is this yet another example of the gap between rhetoric and reality?

[Mr Blunt]

No, it is not. The hon. lady is referring to a decision by the management of London prisons, which are principally local prisons, to focus on short-term offenders who are incarcerated in London as well as in local prisons supporting the courts. We are going to change the system so that restorative justice is embedded in the criminal justice process from beginning to end. The hon. Lady supported her party for a very long time in trying to get that done. I assure her that we shall absolutely deliver it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I share my hon. Friend’s view. It is important for the pathway that leads the offender through the custody system—and, indeed, the supervision system in the community—to assist his progress towards rehabilitation, and that must be done through the delivery of learning and skills and education. Prisoners should be given effective work that enables them to make proper recompense to their victims, and learning and skills associated with that work will be an important rehabilitative tool.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

While in government Labour increased the offending learner budget by 300%, and I am pleased to hear that the Minister is building on that. Does he agree with his hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who on 9 March was quoted in the Daily Mail as saying that offender education was

“yet another example of gold-plated rights for convicted criminals”,

and that prison education

“sends out the signal that crime pays”?

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I will be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and colleagues from Staffordshire. Prisons and probation trusts already work with a large number of community organisations, but the Green Paper makes it clear that we want an ever-wider range of community organisations and individuals to become involved in helping ex-offenders to lead law-abiding lives. The system change that we are making, which I am happy to discuss with my hon. Friends, will enable the big society to help us to deliver a revolution in rehabilitation.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not understand that all his good intentions and fine words will be swamped by the massive spending cuts that his Department is taking? Closing three prisons and cutting the building programme will worsen overcrowding, and cutting 23%—some 10,000—of the front-line prison and probation staff will reduce the number of opportunities for prisoners to train and work. When will he come forward with a credible strategy?

[Mr Blunt]

We are about to come forward with a credible offender learning strategy. The budget will remain very much the same as that which we inherited, because we realise that that strategy is a priority. Unfortunately, a significant amount of the money spent under the previous Administration went to waste. If the hon. Lady reads the reports from independent monitoring boards, she will see repeated complaints about the quality of offender learning in prisons under the previous Administration. We will put that right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

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

My hon. Friend alights on a significant problem. I am in discussions with the Department for Work and Pensions and I hope that we will be able to bring forward proposals that will address that issue.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

In view of the serious riot at Ford open prison, does the Minister wish to revise the statement issued by the Ministry of Justice when announcing its public spending cuts—including a reduction of 10,000 in the number of front-line staff—which said that by taking such “tough decisions” it will be able to

“punish and rehabilitate offenders more effectively”?

[Mr Clarke]

The National Offender Management Service is undertaking a full investigation into what happened at Ford. Obviously, the behaviour there was deplorable and we must learn every lesson we can about what happened and how we can minimise the risk in future. So far as I am aware, the prison was staffed at its normal level and we had made no changes since we took office to the arrangements under the previous Government. We should not start leaping to conclusions about whether anything was at the heart of these events other than the appallingly bad behaviour of people who had been acquiring alcohol in the run-up to new year’s eve. We are looking carefully at all the circumstances and will draw the proper lessons from that.

[Helen Goodman]

Of course it is important to wait until the inquiry, but does the Secretary of State honestly think that Ford would be adequately managed if the number of staff on duty were reduced to four or five to supervise 500 people each night?

Probation Service: Employment

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Ministerial Corrections

[Helen Goodman]

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many people were employed by (a) Durham and (b) Teesside probation areas on 31 December 2009;

Cutting Crime (Justice Reinvestment)

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Main.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to welcome the Justice Committee’s report. I congratulate Committee members on producing what all hon. and right hon. Members have agreed is a thoughtful, considered study. In the 19th century, the Quakers were in the lead on penal reform, but it seems that the Methodists are in the lead in the 21st century.

The criminal justice system has several distinct objectives: to protect the public, to deter crime, to punish offenders, and to reform and rehabilitate them. All those objectives must be taken into account in the criminal justice system. At times they may be supportive, and at other times, they may seem to conflict, but I do not believe that any should be pursued to the exclusion of others. That is what makes the task of running the criminal justice system so complex and difficult.

The Committee’s report concentrates on the importance of diverting people from entering the judicial system, and improving support and guidance offered to those who commit custodial offences to prevent reoffending. The report argues that two key challenges—prehabilitation and rehabilitation—need greater attention, and it is clear that greater success in those areas would have a major impact on cutting crime and improving our judicial system.

I welcome the report’s emphasis on providing community-based solutions and improving the interconnections between local services. I agree that, wherever possible, prisoners should be detained in and remain in prisons near their family and local community, because clearly that can help offenders after release.

I am glad that the report emphasises the need to reduce young adult offending, and to divert more young people from the prison system. I first worked on that issue about 10 years ago when I was at the Children’s Society, and I am particularly pleased that the Committee took evidence from the society in its project with young people.

I also believe that justice mapping is an approach with great potential, because when thinking about how different parts of the criminal justice system inter-relate, it is important to remember that some communities, notably poorer communities, tend to suffer most from crime and its consequences. The criminal justice system must work in those communities, which must have confidence in it.

Before I comment further on the report’s specific recommendations, I want briefly to address the wider issue of prison numbers, which has received considerable attention this afternoon, and in recent days and weeks. Everyone would like there to be fewer crimes, fewer criminals in our communities, and fewer people residing at Her Majesty’s pleasure and at taxpayers’ expense, but it would be wrong to set an arbitrary ceiling on prison numbers, or to identify an optimal size for the prison population. Yet that is precisely what the report does by suggesting that the prison population should be capped, and then reduced to two thirds of its current size.

The comprehensive spending review statement yesterday made it clear that the Government are planning to cut the prison population by 3,000 over the next four years. Given that that includes offenders on short sentences, will the Minister tell us how many people will not now go to prison who otherwise might have done? Is the figure about 6,000 a year, or is it higher? Plans to put back the prison-building programme will result in 10,000 fewer places in the estate than under previous plans. That suggests an even greater reduction in numbers. I have several questions, and if the Minister cannot answer them this afternoon, I shall be pleased if he will write to me and other Committee members.

The plans reveal that what may seem to some Committee members to be a small reduction would in fact have a radical influence on how the criminal justice system is run. How will the reduction be achieved? The Times today seems to be considerably better informed than Parliament was yesterday, and listed the following options: those pleading guilty early on, those on indefinite sentences, some remand prisoners, a lower level of recall, drug addicts and foreign prisoners. Can the Minister disaggregate reductions into those categories? Perhaps most important, does he believe that the reduction in the prison population will take place against a background of rising or falling crime rates? Given that, is he confident that he can guarantee public safety?

[Sir Alan Beith]

The context is of falling crime rates with an 8% fall in recorded crime and a 4% reduction according to the British crime survey. That is the current decline in crime rates.

[Helen Goodman]

Of course. I shall come to that in a moment.

The overriding point is that we are not convinced that it is for politicians, civil servants or committees—even the Justice Committee—to decide what the prison population should be. It is for the Government of the day to provide prison places in line with need because the justice system is at heart a process. If justice is to be done and seen to be done, people must be confident that it is not subject to artificial constraints. I am worried that setting a target for prison numbers and then adjusting sentencing policy and conviction rates accordingly is putting the cart before the horse, and may do nothing for public confidence in the judicial system,

[Dr Huppert]

There seems to be an implicit assumption in what the hon. Lady is saying that sending people to jail is a good way of reducing crime. I am worried about that. She is also talking about setting conviction rates to suit, and I do not where she got that from. I am not aware of any suggestions that people would be found guilty or not guilty based on prison availability.

[Helen Goodman]

My overriding point is about a target for the prison population irrespective of what is happening to crime rates. I agree that crime rates have fallen, and they did so in large measure because of the Labour Government’s excellent policies over the past 13 years. The hon. Gentleman is laughing, but the truth of the matter is that if policy has an impact on behaviour, that is as true of the policies that have been pursued over the past 12 years as it is of any that may be in his mind.

[Alun Michael]

We are in danger of losing track of the key point because of the slightly partisan approach. Surely, as my hon. Friend says, setting arbitrary numbers is not what will bring success in reducing offending or prison numbers. Doing the right things will reduce offending and reoffending. I suggest that that is the key point of the report.

[Helen Goodman]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am grateful to him for digging me out of that hole.

What is really valuable in the report is the clear emphasis on reducing reoffending, improving rehabilitation services for people with drug and alcohol problems and mental illnesses, and the demonstration that alternatives to custody can be cost effective. Without lower reoffending rates, it will be difficult to make progress in reducing prison numbers, and I would like to echo the Committee's contention that it should be a guiding principle of the judicial system that each offender should be less likely to reoffend after they complete their sentence than they were before. There is likely to be strong agreement on that point on both sides of the House, and I am pleased that polling shows that 72% of the public also believe that more should be done to rehabilitate offenders. Providing appropriate training and education and alcohol, drug and mental health support are all absolutely central to cutting reoffending rates. Although one would not know it from the crude depiction by the Justice Secretary and other hon. Members of the prison system under the previous Government, Labour made real progress, and the report acknowledges that.

I remind hon. Members that today’s crime statistics show an 8% fall over the past year, as well as rising confidence in the criminal justice system. Reoffending rates have fallen by 16% since 2000, and overall crime fell by more than one third over the lifetime of the Labour Government. During that time, funding for drug treatment programmes saw a fifteenfold increase, and there was a 26% rise in the number of offenders who successfully completed rehabilitation courses. We trebled spending on prisoner education programmes, and our response to the Bradley and Corston reports showed our commitment to improving mental health treatment for prisoners and the position of women offenders.

Given yesterday’s statement by the Chancellor and the savage cuts to the Department’s budget, will the Minister assure us that funding for those programmes will not now be cut? I echo the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) and the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd). If cuts are to be made, will that not undo our good work and make serious problems even worse?

We know that the number of front-line staff will be cut by 11,000. That will mean 15% fewer prison staff and probation officers, although the number of prisoners is projected to fall by 4%. Will it be possible to do more work with offenders and cut reoffending rates? The documents published yesterday said that people with mental health problems will be diverted at an earlier stage, and many hon. Members said that that would be a positive development. It will be a positive development if people in the Ministry of Justice have agreed it with their colleagues, and if the NHS has made provision for the additional resources needed. That is another point on which I would like to hear what the Minister has to say, either today or later in writing.

The report also warns that the Government should not move away from contracting probation and rehabilitation services to small organisations with a strong track record. Will the coalition’s plans for payment by results not have precisely that impact, with larger groups with good cash flows being better positioned to win contracts and squeeze out smaller competitors? The Government will not be able to make a success of their policy to reduce numbers in prison if they do not redirect resources into tackling the social exclusion that lies at the root of much criminal activity. They must provide the rehabilitative services that offenders need, particularly at a time when we can expect unemployment, and consequently acquisitive crime, to rise.

Much of that spend is outside the Ministry of Justice, but cuts to housing and youth services are likely to be a particular problem. Ministers are clearly using the well-intentioned and prudent proposal to reorientate spending as a smokescreen for cuts in spending on prison places, while failing to invest in the support services that are desperately needed if a more community-orientated approach is to prove effective.

The policy outlined by the Government of cutting spending on probation, rehabilitation and preventive services at the same time as there are significant funding cuts for prison places, is not coherent. As the Committee warns in its report, front-line spending cuts for prisons and probation would

“undermine the progress in performance of both services.”

In short, it would simply exacerbate the problems that the report seeks to remedy.

We need coherent, joined-up responses to the proposals that will allocate resources for our prison population and support the investment in prehabilitation and rehabilitation services that we need in order to reduce long-term offending and reoffending rates.

Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

My hon. Friend may know that when the then Government broadly accepted the Corston report’s recommendations, we in opposition broadly accepted them too. The female prison population rose sharply from when the previous Government took power. It had risen by 86% by 2002, although it has been broadly static since then. It is important to provide alternatives such as community projects, particularly to help vulnerable women who do not need to be in custody, although custody must of course remain for the most serious offenders.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

While obviously the Minister cannot anticipate tomorrow’s comprehensive spending review decisions, in order to fulfil the strategy set out by Baroness Corston of reducing the number of women offenders in prison, there must be good community provision. Can he now commit to maintaining the existing provision?

[Nick Herbert]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new role. We want to embed women’s community projects into mainstream service provision and provide support for women at each stage of the criminal justice process, so we are devolving both budgets and contracts to directors of offender management. They are working with the probation service, which will have the lead role in sustaining successful projects. We want those projects to succeed.