King’s Speech

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish the new Minister well. He started very well, and I am delighted that all the effort that many of us put into canvassing during the election resulted in people like him getting to where he is; it was all worth while. I differ very much from the previous contribution, but I am not sure this is quite the occasion when we can debate it. I welcome the chance to debate it on another day.

I want to talk a bit about justice and a bit about asylum. I clearly understand why the Government have had to go in for the early release scheme. I remember when I was in the Commons in the early 1980s, and the prison population went up from 40,000 to 44,000. We thought that we were heading for a disaster. Where are we now? We are getting nearer to 90,000. I do not understand why, relative to our population, we have the largest prison population in Europe. Surely our fellow citizens are not more criminal than those of other countries.

I am concerned about the extra pressure that the prisoner release scheme will put on probation officers. I know the Government are going to recruit some more, but there is another issue. I understand that the function or the role of probation officers has changed in recent years. It has become more limited and more a matter of making sure that people behave when they are under probation. I think probation officers had a wider remit in the past. I wonder whether my noble friend would look at that as part of his remit.

Some time ago, I spoke to a police officer who told me of a very distressing incident when a young man mugged an elderly woman quite seriously. The police officer said to me, “Yes, the young man was caught and will end up in Feltham”. The police officer also went to the home of the young man and found a terrible situation. There was just his mother, who was spaced out on drugs. The place was completely derelict. The police officer said to me, “After Feltham, that young man will go back to the same environment, and it won’t help at all”. Unless we tackle the environment and do something about distressing situations such as that, we will have the revolving door revolving and revolving.

We need a more radical approach than just an early release scheme. I know my noble friend is aware of that, but we do. A friend of mine, Andrew Coyle, wrote a book called Prisons of the World. I especially commend a chapter called, “Towards a better way”. I cannot paraphrase him, so I quote him:

“We need a more radical solution to the current prison crisis and it may lie in what has become known as Justice Reinvestment. Very broadly, this is a process which involves assessing the total resources, financial and other, that are currently expended on the criminal justice system; evaluating what benefits members of the public and taxpayers get from this expenditure; and considering whether there might be other ways of distributing these considerable resources to provide a better return on the investment”.


One day, when we have a longer debate on penal reform than is possible just now, I will develop those arguments. I think they may be helpful.

I turn to asylum seekers and refugees. The Home Secretary probably has the toughest job in government, and I very much welcome the advice she gave me over the years when I contributed to debates on this issue. Of course we are all shocked that the total cost of the Rwanda scheme has been £700 million. I am delighted the Government said, I think today or yesterday, that the 125,000 or so people who were prevented from claiming asylum by the Illegal Migration Act will now be able to do so.

I was in Calais a few months ago. It was a very depressing situation. Some of the people there said that they could not apply for asylum in France because they were fingerprinted on arrival in Greece or Italy. That meant they were virtually precluded from claiming asylum back in Greece or Italy, or from coming to this country.

I also met some young people, again in Calais, who had no money to pay traffickers. They said to me that they were hoping to be offered a free lift on a boat on condition that they steered the boat. They would be regarded as traffickers by us, but actually they are young people who have been caught in this very dangerous situation.

We need safe routes for child refugees. We need to establish a better way of achieving family reunion. I agree with the comments made about a better relationship with France.

One last challenge is that we need to find a way of supporting local communities who want to welcome asylum seekers, refugees and others in such a way that we have proper community cohesion. That is a real challenge for this Government.