Prisoners: Work Programmes

Lord Bishop of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Liverpool]

My Lords, although I am very sorry that we shall not be hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, this evening, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wills, not least because one of my Christmas presents this year was an embroidered cushion from Fine Cell Work. It has attracted lots of comment as it has pride of place in my study. I am very grateful for this opportunity to commend the excellent work about which we have already heard.

This is a timely debate as old prisons are closing and new prisons are opening. Our old prisons were built on monastic lines with cells modelled on monastic cells so that prisoners would be encouraged to contemplate their crime, and reform. While we should never lose sight of that purpose, the architecture of new prisons should reflect the evidence that training and work programmes for prisoners can be transformative in rehabilitating offenders. Therefore, my question to the Minister is: will the architecture of new prisons reflect this aspect of government policy?

In my capacity as Bishop to Prisons and in the process of making a series of programmes for BBC Radio 4 last year called “The Bishop and the Prisoner”, I have observed closely two retraining and work programmes: the Clink and the Timpson workshops, about which we have already heard. In both cases, training of the prisoners is done on the job, skilling them for future employment.

The Clink is a high-quality, West End-style restaurant created inside a prison, with professional chefs training prisoners to cook and serve paying clients. Two restaurants are already established in our prisons and a further eight are planned. Of the 35 prisoners who have been through the Clink and released, 29 have found jobs and only three have reoffended. Those are remarkable statistics. If those statistics are replicated in the planned further eight prisons, the Government must surely take note of the success of this programme. I have not only seen the statistics, I have tasted the food—I suppose that I ought to declare an interest. I have also met the prisoners without any staff being present and have seen the impact of this programme on their lives in improving their self-esteem and raising their aspirations.

The Timpson workshops, to which the noble Baroness referred, operate in three prisons at the moment. These prisoners learn to repair shoes and as they learn they are paid for their improving productivity as they gain more competence. The brilliance of these schemes is that when they leave prison, the best get jobs in the Timpson business. In other words, the job in prison is the pathway to employment on the outside. It is a great incentive for these offenders to work and retrain. I have listened to prisoners in these workshops and seen how acquiring a skill for the first time is transformative of their outlook and prospects.

I underline the fact that this is all to the credit of NOMS. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has visited many prisons and so have I. It is clear to me that the determining factor in each prison is the visionary outlook of the governor. These schemes have benefited from the enthusiastic endorsement of the governors of the prisons concerned. Although Mr James Timpson, who provides much of the dynamism for these projects, says that from time to time his experience of getting NOMS to be more commercial is a bit like asking the North Korean Government to run Disneyland—to use his phrase—I am sure that NOMS will take that in the spirit in which it is offered. However, that comment highlights the fact that there is great scope within NOMS for a visionary governor to come alongside Fine Cell Work as well as the commercial enterprises and to use these to the benefit of offenders and to address the Government’s hope of reducing reoffending. Will the Minister engage the visionaries behind these and other projects in the design of prisons so that transformative training and work can be at the heart of prisons, both physically and metaphorically?