Prisoners: Work Programmes

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on bringing this subject forward. Whenever we discuss, do any work on or pay attention to the subject of prisons, we are always struck by how repetitive the problems are, both for the people concerned and for those of us who have been talking about them over time.

Generally speaking, you take into prison someone who is an educational failure and has usually finished their education—at their own decision, or that of their group—at the age of about 14. They commit a series of petty offences and most are on a roundabout of increasing but short-term sentences. They usually finish their offending pattern by the age of about 35. By that time, they have no work pattern, they have broken down several family relationships, and the best that they can expect is a life on benefits. That is a depressing scenario on which there is absolutely no disagreement in this debate. I agree with the suggestions that have been made by my noble friends and everyone in the House who has spoken on this; getting people into a pattern of work is probably the most important thing that can happen to them. If we are to try to achieve any form of preparing people for adult life, that is a very good way forward.

One of the things that initially attracted me to this debate was the problem of getting training and qualifications for that group of people. In the debate and my preparations for it, I realised that the idea of providing the activity and experience of work—particularly given what the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, has said—is a positive step forward because this group is probably one of the most difficult to train. What attracted me initially to the activity within prisons, and led to my ongoing interest in it, was the incredibly large number of people there with special educational needs, particularly dyslexia. My interests in dyslexia have been broadcast far too often in this Chamber.

Most of the assessments reckon that 50% of the prison population are within the dyslexia spectrum. The lowest figure that I have seen is 30%, and that was on an assessment of a group of 300. Assessments could not be carried out on 200 of them because they were too violent. Why does that not surprise anyone who has worked in this area? It is for the simple reason that if you have to admit that you cannot do the basic functions of reading and writing, you are going to resent someone who presents you with something on which you are going to be tested. You might not be dyslexic; you might just be stupid in the way that you have always been told.

I could give examples from my life, such as the discovery that my daughter could spell better than I could when she was seven. This is something that I never thought I would do but I recommend to noble Lords a programme on channel Five about Shane Lynch. I do not know if the House of Lords has a large following of the band Boyzone, but he is one of its members. He made a moving and articulate programme about someone who is dyslexic going through the problem of having to admit, “What if I am not dyslexic? What if I am thick? What if I have failed?”. This was someone who had a soft landing. He was going to get involved in the garage that his father ran and that was his way forward. The music opportunity came along and he went off there. However, that very successful, rich and well known person was literally terrified at the thought that he might actually just be stupid in the way that people had told him, or in the way that he had assumed he was. In our prisons, we have people who have gone through the justice system for whom the idea of picking up a pencil and writing in public is a humiliating and painful experience. You have to reach them.

Recent government publications now mention special educational needs and take that idea on, but the one place that you cannot get this group of people into is a classroom—not unless you drive them there with whips and guns. For them, it is a frightening place where you reaffirm an unpleasant experience. It is quite obvious, once you think about it. Dyslexics are not the only group affected; you will find an overrepresentation of people with ADHD, Asperger’s and head injury. People who cannot communicate do not handle the criminal justice system well.

I recommend a document, Dyslexia Behind Bars, which is the result of a study run by someone I saw in Chelmsford prison that initially looked at head injury and dyslexia. Here, successful intervention was achieved, primarily by developing and training mentors to go in, speak to a prisoner on an equal level and communicate. Once you have that level of communication, other things become possible. Formalised training and help become possible, but only once you have established that degree of communication. The formalised classroom will not achieve this because people will not use it.

I hope that the Government will embrace the Chelmsford project because I presented a copy of the report to my noble friend Lord McNally, in the company of my noble friend Lady Hamwee, who is much missed. It describes how, when you go in and talk to people on their own level because they trust you, you can begin that communication process. If you are going to strive for formal qualifications in the modern world, you generally have to pass a written test or know how to say why you should get help with that test. In both cases you need information.

I hope that when the Minister replies he will pay attention to the very high number of people in prison who need help with accessing all forms of formalised training and, indeed, with filling out benefit forms when they leave. If we do not pay attention to this, we will create more trouble.