Children of Prisoners

Jake Richards Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Holden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He touches on the important point behind a lot of this. When parents are imprisoned, caring responsibilities are often the last thing that the state or anybody else thinks about. We are at the crux of what I am trying to get to today.

I would like to thank Sarah Burrows and everyone at Children Heard and Seen, including my friend Ed, who drew me towards the research in this area. I thank them for what they have raised, because this is all about ensuring a child-focused approach. Too often, the children of prisoners are mentioned only in the context of maintaining relationships with the person imprisoned and ensuring that the person imprisoned has a good opportunity—this is a worthwhile thing to do—to reduce their reoffending and recidivism. One thing that has been lost to some degree in this debate is the support required for those children and young people. As the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, in some cases vulnerable adult children might also need support. That is what I am trying to highlight in this debate today: it is the children affected who are at the centre of this.

Sixty seven per cent of children do not visit a parent in prison, while 37% go further and have no contact with their parent at all. We need to focus on what is best for the child, taking into account the often incredibly difficult family relationships and the issues caused by crimes such as domestic violence—which the Minister is working on at the moment—sexual abuse, in some tragic cases, and parental homicide.

The current system is leaving some children living on their own—I will move on to some case studies in a moment, but that is one of the things that has really hit me about this issue. Children Heard and Seen has heard of multiple cases where a child has been discovered living on their own, and not in just one part of the country. If I may turn to the steps we are pressing the Government to take, that is one of the reasons it is so important that those children are individually identified, to ensure that support is there. If we do not have a national register or a system to ensure that the data is fed in, we will not understand the depth of the issues involved.

I want to pick up on a couple of case studies brought forward by Children Heard and Seen. In one case, a man went to prison for sexual offences, and it was only after the house was targeted by vigilantes that a victim support caseworker found his 15-year-old daughter living there on her own. In another case, a criminologist conducting research in a women’s prison was told by a prisoner that her two daughters were living on their own without any money for food. In another, a 16-year-old boy arrested at the same time as his parents was released shortly afterwards and became the sole carer of his eight-year-old brother. In another, an employer requested a welfare check after a woman had not shown up to work for some time. The employer reached out even though they may well have thought that she had decided to no longer be in employment. When the police went to her address, they found a 15-year-old boy living in his own with no gas or electricity. He had been getting up and going to school every day without anyone knowing that his mum was in prison.

Those are just a few of the cases that have been brought forward. They are particularly important because often in these families the children themselves will have had a difficult relationship with the state over many years. Sometimes, especially if those children are into their teenage years, they may feel able to in some way look after themselves. They could have been in and out of state care or support in some ways over many years, and might not have positive relationships—they might not have positive relationships with wider family, either. That is one reason it is so important that we get this right.

[Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I praise the right hon. Gentleman for securing this Westminster Hall debate and raising this issue so powerfully. He is right about the focus on young people, which has to be part of the commitment, but this is also about the whole family and making sure that contact between parents, children, the wider family and prisons works for the children as well. Does he agree that that will help everyone and also help to tackle reoffending?

[Mr Holden]

I cannot agree more with the hon. Member. He raises an important point—yes, in many circumstances, help for families and children of prisoners can help the prisoners—but he is also right to say that that would be a side benefit. As a country, we should be concentrating on helping the children of prisoners wherever possible—we also want wider family support and networks to be involved where possible. As in the case studies I have spoken about, there may be situations, particularly if people are somewhat estranged, where the extended family do not know that their child has gone to prison and that their grandchild is therefore trying to care for themselves at home. Some of those family relationships may have broken down. That is another area where the hon. Member makes an important point about what more we can do.

The Government recently brought forward the first published estimate of the number of children of prisoners, which is definitely a welcome step. However, what we really need is a system to identify the children involved, not just an estimate of how many there are. An estimate is useful for helping to determine some of the broader policy changes that may be required, and possibly to help the Government to calculate some of the costs involved and where measures need to be targeted. But what we are interested in—on both sides of the House, I think—is identifying the individuals who need support and ensuring that support is provided, because an estimate does not do anything to identify those most in need.

As I have said, a commitment to identify and support children with a parent in prison was included in Labour’s manifesto, and Lord Timpson has stated that it is one of his top priorities as the Minister with responsibility for prisons.

The Ministry of Justice was recently asked what steps it is taking

“to ensure that the children of those imprisoned are (a) identified and (b) offered support”.

The response was that it is

“working closely with the Department for Education to determine how to effectively identify these children and provide support”.

I really hope that, as the MOJ does that, there is no need for a lengthy consultation, because there are children out there today who need such support. It has been suggested that half of prisoners have children under the age of 18. If that is correct, we are talking about tens of thousands of young people, of whom perhaps hundreds or even thousands might not be receiving any proper support.

I say to the Government that there does not need to be a lengthy consultation. Children Heard and Seen has a readymade solution. In collaboration with Thames Valley police, it has created, in Operation Paramount, the first mechanism ever to identify and support children with a parent in prison. Operation Paramount cross-references data from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service with existing police data to identify children who have been left behind, right from the point that an individual enters the prison system. Data that previously had been used only to track a prisoner’s movements through prison to their eventual release can now be used to identify vulnerable family members who were left behind when an individual was imprisoned.

If this system was rolled out nationally and schools were involved, it could essentially act as the national identification system that I hope hon. Members from across the House want to see. There would be two parts. The system would be used first of all to identify these children and young people, and secondly to provide support for them.

When an adult is sentenced or remanded in custody, a combination of the existing data from the Prison Service, the police and the relevant local authority should be used to identify the home address of a child linked to that offender. I do not think that is too much to ask for, because all that data already exists.

Secondly, a designated safeguarding lead at the child’s school should be notified before the start of the next working day. Registered nurseries, pre-school settings and childminders could also be informed. I am also particularly interested in the point that the hon. Member for Strangford made about considering other cases, too, perhaps where there is a special need. Within the education setting, the DSL should then be able to liaise with other members of staff and external agencies, if necessary, to deliver the appropriate support for the child in question.

Thirdly, I would ask the Government to consider whether children with a parent in prison should be made eligible for pupil premium funding, as we do in other circumstances. That might be worth considering given reoffending rates, because if we can get some of them down, that would be a very good long-term investment. Although I am obviously speaking as a Back Bencher today, this is something that might receive cross-party support in the future.

Fourthly, we need to ensure that children with a parent in prison are not left to live on their own. If we could identify them and provide the necessary support at the earliest stage, we could help to mitigate some of the impacts I talked about in my opening remarks—children living in absolute poverty, going on to become offenders themselves or being left vulnerable to crime in their homes and communities. We could ensure that, at the earliest possible stage, they are supported to mitigate the impact of their parents’ imprisonment and wrongdoing. In this day and age, we should not punish children for the crimes of their fathers or mothers.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Jake Richards Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

Robust safeguards for the sick and dying are vital to protect them from predatory relatives, to protect them from the state and, above all, to protect them from themselves. There will be those who say to themselves that they do not want to be a burden; I can imagine myself saying that in particular circumstances. Others will worry about assets they had hoped to leave for their grandchildren being eroded by the cost of care. There will even be a handful who will think they should not be taking up a hospital bed.

[Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend makes her case powerfully. Can I ask her to comment on the current situation whereby people ask themselves the question she just asked today? What safeguards are there for those people? What inquiry is made before those people pass away, often having taken the most drastic and horrific action to do so?

[Ms Abbott]

But if the House passes this legislation, the issue that I have raised will become foremost in people’s minds even more so.

We are told that there is no evidence of coercion in jurisdictions where assisted suicide is possible, but people do not generally write letters to sick relatives urging them to consider assisted suicide and then put those letters on file. Coercion in the family context can be about not what you say but what you do not say—the long, meaningful pause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I welcome the contributions to this debate from all sides of the House. This is Parliament at its best. I support the Bill and am proud to co-sponsor it. We have all received emails from constituents with harrowing stories of the agonising final days and weeks suffered by loved ones. I have no doubt that those stories will weigh heavily on each of us, however we vote today.

Fundamentally, I believe that if we are able to safely offer peace and empowerment to those at the end of their life, then we have a moral imperative to do so. We are lawmakers, and I also fundamentally support this change because our current legal framework is simply not fit for purpose. Our criminal law is a mess. Four former Directors of Public Prosecutions have told us that change is needed. It is pretty unprecedented for four former Directors of Public Prosecutions, the sole people who make decisions about prosecutions in such cases, to urge Parliament to take action.

In the 2014 Nicklinson judgment, the Supreme Court urged Parliament to take action because the law was not working in this area. The law is chaotic, particularly in how it relates to the argument around coercion. If we vote against this legislation today and it falls, do not think that vulnerable people at the end of their lives will not be subject to coercion this weekend and over the coming weeks. The police will investigate, a coroner will undertake an inquest into the circumstances of any suicide and a prosecution may begin, but all these processes will occur after the individual has died. This Bill would shift the emphasis of such inquiries to before the event, which is more logical, more rational and more humane.

Let me quickly deal with the procedural argument. As the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) mentioned, private Members’ Bills were sufficient to reform our abortion laws, abolish the death penalty and change our divorce regime, and a private Member’s Bill was good enough when the issue was last before the House in 2015. I have read every single word of that debate, and there was not a single word of opposition to a private Member’s Bill being the mechanism for such change. Since 2015, there have been Select Committee reports and more evidence from around the world, as other jurisdictions move in the direction of assisted dying. One begins to wonder whether opponents to change are grasping at procedural straws, rather than taking on the principle, as we should at Second Reading.

I appreciate that the decision is difficult for colleagues and I respect views on all sides of the debate, but these moments do not come around often. I urge colleagues to seize the moment, shape the world around us and provide for compassion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jake Richards Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

It sounds like an interesting approach. I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman wrote to me so that I can look into it and write back to him. It is certainly the sort of thing we need to be looking at.

[Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I join the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) in calling for the Government to consider the children of prisoners. I met the children’s Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), just last week, and I know it is very much on her radar. However, this is an urgent issue. This week, I have been told about a child who had been living alone for months because the authorities simply did not know that their parent was in prison—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is not relevant to the question. Minister, would you like to respond? No. In which case, we will leave it there.

Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Jake Richards Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The hon. Gentleman makes good point. The Texan model is of interest because it sought to incentivise the positive behaviour that reduces reoffending and ultimately cuts crime, and Texas saw some pretty spectacular results. There is no exact read-across from that model to our system, and it will be for the review to consider that model and others around the world to see what approaches might work here. It is imperative that any measures we take retain the confidence of victims and the wider public. Any punishment that takes place outside a prison needs to still look and feel like proper punishment to every community in our country. That is non-negotiable. Public confidence must be maintained, and that speaks to the hon. Gentleman’s second point. Evidence is important, and in my experience, when victims are engaged in the process, they appreciate the need to reduce reoffending, because they do not want other people to be victims. Their voice will be heard in the review; I hope that reassures him.

[Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

In June 2019, David Gauke made a speech as Lord Chancellor on smarter sentencing. It was a helpful, coherent, cogent, evidence-based speech about sentencing reform. Four Conservative Prime Ministers later, no progress has been made, so I am pleased that the Labour Government will grasp the nettle. We were just discussing the Texan example of problem solving and sentencing, but can the Lord Chancellor reassure me that the review will also consider family, drug and alcohol courts, and the progress and positive results that we have seen in the family courts?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend makes the case well for why David Gauke is the right person to lead this review. As I said, he brings deep expertise to this debate. I am sure that the sentencing review panel will be interested, as many are, in some of the pilots that are being run on problem-solving courts, and also in the family courts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jake Richards Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones]

The work that Hourglass and many others do is outstanding, and I place on record my thanks to it for championing the rights of older victims across the piece. The Ministry of Justice provides police and crime commissioners with annual grant funding to commission local practical, emotional and therapeutic support services for victims of all crime types. I am hearing loud and clear the calls from the sector, but it would be wrong of me to pre-empt the announcement of funding after March 2025. We cannot agree that before the spending review, but the Ministry of Justice has allocated £1.2 million of funding over two years to support the training and infrastructure of ISVAs and IDVAs and to support fantastic organisations such as Hourglass that do such brilliant work.

[Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

Another forum in which domestic violence is litigated is private children’s cases in our family courts. The Secretary of State and Ministers will no doubt be aware of the huge delays that families are suffering in having their cases heard and then those cases being decided. At the heart of that are children waiting for a conclusion. What steps are the Government taking to try to expedite those cases, in particular working with other agencies across government including the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service and local authorities?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

The Government recognise the importance of supporting separating families and, where appropriate, helping them to resolve their issues quickly and without the need to come to court. This is a complex area. My officials and I are working closely on it, and I would be happy to update my hon. Friend with a more thorough review soon.