Prisons: Population

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of the Youth Justice Board. As the noble Baroness said, during its time it has overseen a very welcome drop in youth offending. It is not disappearing: its work will be reabsorbed into a unit within the Ministry of Justice.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, of course it is common sense that if reoffending rates fall, fewer people will go to prison. However, how are the Government planning to get reoffending down when the comprehensive spending review plans to cut 10,000 jobs from the Prison Service and the National Probation Service? Does the Minister understand—I am sure that he does—that it is utterly and completely unrealistic to argue for cutting the number of prison inmates by 3,000 while at the same time decimating the National Probation Service?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, first, the job figures cover a five-year period, and in some cases the reductions will be absorbed by natural wastage. Some of the excessive language that has just been used ignores the fact that the Administration will genuinely look at alternatives to prison. What has struck me in the very short time that I have been in this job has been seeing examples—often very small examples—of interventions with prisoners that have an extraordinary impact on reoffending. There was an example on “Today” last week of a charity finding accommodation for prisoners before they were released. Among the prisoners with whom it was working there was a 20 per cent reoffending rate rather than the 80 per cent in other categories. I believe that there are alternatives and I hope that the Green Paper will give scope for an intelligent and non-hysterical debate about these factors.