Prisons

John Glen Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate. When I was first elected as a Member of Parliament, I remember being taken to a police station and seeing a room with 18 faces on the wall. The police officer said that when a large number of those people were on remand or in prison, crime went down, but that the opposite happened when they were not. I served as a magistrate in Westminster for six years. Although we had very strict guidelines, and we obviously listened carefully to the excellent probation officer before giving sentence, I was always aware that we would not know the outcome of the judgment that we were making.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit the Amber Foundation, which is a very worthwhile charity in Exeter—it has a number of sites—that works with ex-offenders to give them a pathway back to full citizenship. I want to use the time available to talk about the importance of education. Education and rehabilitation have to be the Department’s major focus, because unless we get this right, we will be in the awful cycle of putting people away and then releasing them, only to have them go back in again, which has a very poor impact on crime levels and on those individuals for the rest of their lives.

I hope that the Government will continue their ambition to give prison governors real autonomy so that programmes that are put in place will work for their institutions and can command authority to drive real change. We also need to be realistic about the complexity of reforming prison education. What incentives is the Minister considering to ensure that prisoners will choose to take part in educational and vocational programmes? I am pleased to hear about apprenticeships, but given that so many prisoners have learning difficulties and no formal education, will he allow them to have increased pay, time out of their cell or even early release in exceptional cases? We must contemplate radical policy options if we are to see a step change in this area.

What is the Department’s view of the balance between providing holistic education that is focused on developing potential, including in the arts as well as in basic literacy and numeracy, and vocational programmes that are focused on local labour market outcomes after prison? Will the Minister give local governors sufficient autonomy on that issue? We need to bear in mind that a very high proportion of prisoners have special educational needs and therefore need individual attention, which is expensive. What plans do the Government have to help with the recruitment of those with the specialist skills to work in what is a very challenging sector? I welcome the announcement on investment and increased resources, but let us be under no illusions about the complexity of the challenge. I hope that the Minister will give some detail when he responds to the debate.

I congratulate the Government on getting to grips with many of these issues and the original thinking that I am hearing from the Dispatch Box.