Prisons: Secure Colleges

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister’s reply is matched for opacity only by the very similar reply given yesterday by his colleague Mr Selous to my honourable friend Dan Jarvis. That reply said that:

“The Coalition government legislated for secure colleges and we are now considering the next steps. We remain clear that education should be at the very heart of youth custody”.

What next steps are the Government contemplating? Is it a possibility that the Government will resile from their ill-informed and ill-advised policy of establishing a massive secure college on the Glen Parva site in Leicestershire?

[Lord Faulks]

The difficulties that exist with youth custody are well known, such as reoffending. Of course, as the House will be aware, the good news is that the number of those in youth custody has reduced from 3,000 to 1,000. This means that those in various forms of youth custody present real problems and real challenges. The secure college pathfinder was a solution favoured by the last Government. We have not ruled out using a secure college. It has not yet received approval at Treasury level, but all of the ideas which it incorporated have not been abandoned. They contain many sound approaches to providing the right answer to this difficult problem.