Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Lords Hansard - part one & Report stage
Monday 10th January 2022 Lords Chamber

I submit that the possibility for rehabilitation of female offenders should not be compromised. Their lives are not turned around if, as was acknowledged in the FDJ v SSJ judgment, these women are living in a state of fear and anxiety. My amendment ensures that the needs for the privacy, dignity and safety of all prisoners can be met; I commend it to the House and I beg to move.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I was very glad to add my name to my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s amendment, which he has moved with a convincing and passionate speech. I agree wholeheartedly with all that he said. My own views were reinforced in the last debate when the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, talked in rather chilling terms about his visits to women’s prisons; I have heard similar accounts from others, both within your Lordships’ House and outside. It seems to me that we add to the uncertainty, mental tension, fear and all those other things if we house in women’s prisons those who are physically male but proclaim themselves female.

Of course, the safety of a prisoner, no matter their sex, is important to us all—a point that some of us touched on in Committee. I put forward then a suggestion that perhaps these people should be separately treated and looked after. After all, the aim of prison—I had two prisons in my former constituency—is often lost sight of: sending to prison is the punishment and rehabilitation is the aim. You are much more likely to get rehabilitation if the atmosphere is calm and subdued and there is not rampant fear in the prison. I believe very strongly, as does my noble friend Lord Blencathra, that the solution is to treat those who are particularly vulnerable in such a way that we take as many safeguards against their vulnerability as possible. To me, that leads logically to a solution where those who were born as women, and who are women, are in women’s prisons, and those who are still physically male are, if necessary, housed in a separate unit.

I do not buy, any more than does my noble friend Lord Blencathra, the talk of travelling great distances. Of course the aim should always be to try to have prisoners as close as possible to their loved ones and the community that they know, but it is not always possible. My noble friend Lord Blencathra referred to the fact that there is no women’s prison in Wales, and so a woman sentenced to jail there can be sent 150 or more miles away. We also have to remember that people are sent to prison because they have done something detrimental to society. It may be a heinous crime or not such a heinous crime, but having to travel a certain distance may be part of the price one has to pay.

I am a great believer in community restorative justice. I believe that we send far too many people, both male and female, to prison, and that we should be much more adventurous in the way we treat those who are not, by their physical violence, an obvious danger to society; of course, they must be securely housed, wherever and whoever they are.

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister. I attended the teach-in on Zoom—it would have been much better if only we could all have sat down together, but it was on Zoom. I do not doubt for a moment my noble friend’s passionate commitment, but I had to say to him on the day that I was wholly unconvinced; I think he respected that.

I believe that we have to grasp this problem. Like my noble friend Lord Blencathra, I had dozens of letters and messages from those who had listened to the debate —it is remarkable how many people suffer from insomnia in this country—and who wanted to say thank you for standing up for womanhood and motherhood and for not making women feel disparaged. We went through this last year, when we had the extraordinary maternity Bill to, quite reasonably, give maternity leave to the Attorney-General. As a Bill designed to give maternity leave, it did not mention the words “woman” or “mother” until it had left your Lordships’ House, where we talked a little sense into it.

This is something that we have to grasp as a society. I believe that it is totally wrong to put women in a threatened position by having housed next to them people who are still physically male. Protect them all, yes, but, in particular, let us have regard for the women. I believe that the amendment put before us by my noble friend Lord Blencathra this evening is worthy of your Lordships’ support. If it does not receive that support tonight, this is an issue that will not go away; it is a series of big accidents waiting to happen if we are not careful. I am glad to support my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I am very happy to stand up for womanhood and motherhood, but this amendment is very puzzling indeed. What it would mean is that even if a person born male has lived as a woman for 20 years, even if they have undergone sex reassignment surgery, even if they have a gender recognition certificate, and even if they are assessed as posing no risk whatever to other women, the Home Office would be obliged either to place them in a men’s prison or put them in specially segregated facilities. The former option of putting them in a men’s prison would be a disaster; it would obviously be enormously dangerous to such a person. Placing them in specially segregated facilities would be demeaning; it would fail to recognise what legislation in this country has recognised for the last at least 15 years: that people who happen to be born in the wrong sex deserve our compassion and deserve recognition of their position.

I suggest to the House that these issues are far better addressed, as they are at the moment, by Home Office policy that considers the circumstances of the individual case, rather than by broad amendments of this nature, whatever the good faith of those who put them forward.