Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

One of the things that I believe are very important as we build a system of mentoring for former offenders is that there should be someone working alongside them to ensure that they have somewhere to live when they leave prison. Of course, the Department has worked closely with the Department for Communities and Local Government to address homelessness with a strategy that contains a number of measures to help ensure suitable accommodation for offenders, such as flexibility in the universal credit system so that short-sentence offenders do not lose their tenancies when they spend a short time in prison.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that prisoners should be met at the gates by mentors—I am not sure whether he is volunteering to be one of them. Some 35% of prisoners have a drugs problem. Has he seen the latest Home Affairs Committee report, which suggests that prisoners should be compulsorily tested on exiting prison so that they can be given the support they need in the community as he has so rightly recommended?

[Chris Grayling]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s sentiment with regard to drugs, prisons and when offenders move back into the community. I have spoken to prison officers who are deeply frustrated by the fact that treatment begins in prison but then stops at the prison gate. I can assure him that one of the things we are working on is ensuring that the conditionality we introduced to surround our rehabilitation revolution will mean that treatment flows through the prison gate and continues after the prisoner has been released.