Prisoners: Work Programmes

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I join noble Lords in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Carlile for securing this debate and for his work with the Howard League. Its stewardship is in good hands as my noble friend hands over to the noble Lord, Lord Myners. I look forward to working with him on new initiatives. As the noble Lord, Lord Myners, pointed out, I am relatively new to this role but I have had the opportunity to visit a prison and have been looking into the initiatives. I shall share my thoughts on those over the next few minutes.

I welcome the opportunity to talk about prisoner work. I believe it is a key factor in ensuring that we deliver significantly less reoffending. Last week, the Government published proposals for transforming the rehabilitation of offenders, reinforcing the commitment to bring major change in the way we tackle reoffending. We acknowledge the contribution that businesses and community and voluntary organisations make in supporting the work of prisons and probation services. The noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, and the noble Lord, Lord Wills, mentioned some of these and I will come on to talk about specifics in a moment. The proposals will provide more opportunities for a payment by results model to generate innovation from our partners in mentoring and supporting prisoners to lead law- abiding lives. Their success much depends on finding and holding down a job. I welcome the words of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and associate myself with his concluding remarks.

In a Ministry of Justice survey carried out in 2010, 68% of prisoners reported that having a job would be important in helping them to stop offending. Some 13% reported that they had never been in paid employment. Work in prisons provides a rich environment for learning and qualifications and our current thinking places a strong focus on identifying labour market needs in the areas into which prisoners will resettle and designing the learning and skills curriculum to reflect this. Employability training will be paramount during the year leading up to release to ensure that prisoners have the best possible opportunity of finding work.

My noble friend Lord Carlile mentioned various statistics. In looking at some of the figures, I was startled to read that 58% of newly sentenced prisoners regarded themselves as having been regular truants while in the education system. Some 40% were excluded from school and 46% left school with no qualifications. That is the challenge which lies ahead.

It is not just about vocational training. We know that lots of prisoners lack basic numeracy and literacy. I saw it myself when I visited Peterborough. That acts as a major barrier to employment. We have therefore introduced a greater emphasis on assessing and addressing a prisoner’s literacy and numeracy skills when they first come into custody. Included within this is provision for foreign national prisoners for whom English may not be their native tongue. English language skills are about empowering people and empowering prisoners to become productive citizens when they leave prison. English language skills will not only be important for them in the labour market but also in helping them successfully to integrate within the prison environment, communicate with prison staff and participate in programmes that support their rehabilitation.

We have also increased opportunities for prisoners to take up apprenticeships and work is in progress to increase apprenticeship opportunities for prisoners through release on temporary licence and potentially in prison work areas. For example, four prisoners from Springhill prison are being released on licence to undertake land-based apprenticeships working on a 90-acre patch of Forestry Commission land near Henley-on-Thames.

On traineeships, the Government published a discussion paper last week. Traineeships will provide a new opportunity to help young people aged between 16 and 24 develop the skills and attitudes that employers look for. We would like traineeships to be available to prisoners, supporting them into apprenticeships and other opportunities at a later stage. We are still in the design stage, but the government discussion paper suggested three core elements: a focused period of work preparation training, including areas such as CV writing, interview preparation and job search; a substantial, high quality placement to give the young person a chance to develop workplace skills and prove themselves to an employer; and English and maths for those who have not achieved a GCSE grade C or equivalent. The availability of high quality work placements will clearly be an issue for prisoners. We would welcome ideas about how such placements might be made available. Indeed, I invite all noble Lords to contribute to this process.

Several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Carlile and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, talked about prisoners being idle. I come from a family where sitting idle was not an option; going out to work was. We must create those conditions for prisoners as well. We must do that by engaging them in the world of work. Work itself is rehabilitative, as many noble Lords have already said. But in my own brief experience of talking to prisoners, it is not just about the skills. It is about learning to get to work on time and the expectation that you are accountable and responsible not just for yourself but for the work that you do. It is the expectation that you will work a full day and then build leisure and other activities around your work, as we have all learnt to do over many years. It is about the ability, importantly, to work as part of a team taking and giving responsibility and following instructions. We must increase the opportunities for work within all prisons, and we are doing this.

We are looking to work closely with businesses as well. I was touched by my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott’s personal experience of working constructively with local and national businesses. We need to make it as simple as possible for our commercial partners to join in. This will support UK industry, enable growth and offer opportunities to deliver work in the UK, which may currently be offshore due to economic constraints and labour shortages.

Prisons are increasingly structuring their regimes to accommodate longer working hours; for example, by moving recreation activities to evenings and providing for prisoners to eat lunch in work areas. This has helped to increase the number of hours worked by prisoners and the number of prisoners working the average length of a working week across the prison estate.

The right reverend Prelate raised the issue of new prisons. I fully concur with his experiences and I assure him that any new prison will be designed to provide sufficient activities for those in custody to ensure that we get the best out of prisoners for their constructive benefit for the future.

As well as engaging prisoners in delivering production and service work there are substantial numbers of prisoners who work within prisons, as we all know, to keep them running—serving meals, in maintenance and cleaning. Indeed, I have seen that for myself. Many more prisoners participate in a broad range of activities to tackle their particular needs, including addressing thinking skills, anger management and so on and so forth.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, drew particular attention to training shortfalls. The important thing is that this is not a one-size-fits-all for every prisoner. We need to identify prisoner training needs and prisoner abilities as soon as they enter the prison environment so that they can live productively with tailored programmes suited to them.

If I may touch on the issue of tax and salaries, are prisoners paid for undertaking schemes? Certainly, prisoners who work outside the establishment in paid jobs pay national insurance and tax, while prisoners who are employed inside the prison are exempt from national minimum wage legislation. There are added elements, but in view of the shortage of time, I will write to noble Lords specifically on the issue of pay and tax.

However, as many noble Lords have mentioned, we cannot stop at the prison gate. This was a point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Myners. We want to ensure that offenders are better supported on release. Those prisoners who are eligible to claim jobseeker’s allowance are now immediately referred to the Government’s Work Programme. Work Programme providers are also encouraged to work with prisoners prior to their release, together with a number of other local partners, including Jobcentre Plus, the National Careers Service and education providers, who are all working collaboratively across clusters of prisons between which prisoners often transfer, to share information and drive this work.

We also mentioned different innovations in prisons. As I alluded to earlier, when I visited Peterborough prison, I was very impressed with its post-release support service, where ex-prisoners can call into a centre outside the gate, to receive help, information and support. The new reforms that we are proposing will look for and allow similar schemes to be replicated across the country.

My noble friend Lord Addington talked about dyslexia and learning disabilities. Making Prisons Work calls for a new focus on assessing and then addressing the needs of those with learning difficulties or disabilities. Again, referring to my personal experience in Peterborough, I learnt about issues such as resistance in the classroom. The classroom environment was created within the prison to help prisoners, but not in an intimidating way, to ensure that there was one-on-one training. Peer mentors are also very effective, involving prisoners who understand and have been through those experiences and share them. Most important is the element of trust; I saw that working well in Peterborough. I am sure that other prisons across the country replicate similar schemes.

The noble Lord, Lord Wills, talked about Fine Cell Work. I have read with interest about the work of that particular initiative. I assure him that I would be quite happy to put Fine Cell Work in touch with officials of NOMS; I am keen to learn more about this service. Indeed, as I was leaving Peterborough I was handed a pair of cufflinks made by the Jailbirds initiative, which are quite quaint. I should have worn them for this debate, but perhaps I will wear them another time. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, who made reference to the particularly notable feature of Women in Prison, that we are also reviewing the women’s estate to ensure that it is organised as effectively as possible to meet gender-specific needs, including learning and development activities.

My noble friend Lord Carlile and the noble Lord, Lord Myners, touched upon the whole issue of Titan prisons. It is a bit of a scary term in itself. I assure both noble Lords that no decision has been taken on the potential size of any new prison. The Secretary of State has announced a review to examine the feasibility of constructing a new prison.

Let me assure your Lordships’ House that this is a very important issue. In my short time in charge of this brief, I have committed to seeing that we make progress, and I believe that noble Lords across the Chamber have much to offer in this respect. I would encourage them and I look forward to working with them. Our rehabilitation revolution is being supported by other initiatives such as the provision of more support and challenge to get prisoners off drugs, building on the success of the drug recovery wings and a review of the Incentives and Earned Privilege Scheme. I will continue to welcome all views, as will the Secretary of State, on taking forward this important policy initiative. Perhaps I may close by using his words when he launched the Transforming Rehabilitation consultation:

“Transforming rehabilitation will help to ensure that all of those sentenced … are properly punished while being fully supported to turn their backs on crime for good—meaning lower crime, fewer victims and safer communities”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/1/13; col. 19WS.]

Those are sentiments which I am sure will resonate across your Lordships’ House.

House adjourned at 9.04 pm.