King’s Speech

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I too am saddened to hear of the death of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I did not know him well but I heard his considered wisdom in many of our debates. Indeed, it enriched them. I was also privileged to hear the maiden speeches of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Malden, and my noble friends Lord Houchen of High Leven and Lord Bailey of Paddington, all of which I thought excellent and very diverse. I am sure their presence will enrich our House.

Growth, security and taking long-term decisions to build a better future are the right priorities when inflation still stalks the land, wars are raging, and the cost of living is cutting deeply. However, the Government have also promised to strengthen the social fabric. Among the most important long-term decisions are those which help prevent families breaking down and strengthen them for the challenges ahead, and not just by increasing their reliance on the state through cash transfers.

In declaring my interest as a guarantor of FHN Holding, the not-for-profit owner of Family Hubs Network Ltd, I say that we need a forward plan for increasing the role of family hubs in local communities. They should become the delivery point for all family support services, including those which help parents and children to manage the conflict that often escalates around the point of separation and divorce.

The Government should do more to enable parents who want to look after their own children and are willing to take the massive salary hit to do so. Front-loading child benefit would recognise the considerable value that conscientious and hard-working at-home mothers and fathers add to society and the economy. Any concerns responsible professionals such as health visitors have about parents’ ability and capacity to do this most skilled and difficult of jobs, for which few of us, if any, get formal training, should be met by freely available support in local family hubs.

We must stop ignoring the widely divergent outcomes for many boys and young men, especially those from poor white communities, in our state schools and relative to their female counterparts. We need a long-term approach to address their disadvantages so that they fulfil their potential. This is no more than we want for girls and young women.

Turning to what will be in the forthcoming legislative programme, when the carried-over Victims and Prisoners Bill resumes, I look forward to the Government’s amendments to address indeterminate IPPs—imprisonment for public protection—which the Lord Chancellor recently referred to as

“a stain on our justice system”. [Official Report, Commons, 16/10/23; col. 61.]

One long-standing prison governor told me that IPPs completely removed his officers’ ability to give any hope to a prisoner, something that is already in very short supply. Former Home Secretary Jack Straw said that the state removes the liberty of those convicted of crime as punishment, not for punishment. Plunging imprisoned people into hopelessness is disproportionately punitive in all circumstances. The Lord Chancellor has already signalled his intent to curtail the licence period following Parole Board decisions to release, but obviously this will affect only a subsection of those currently serving IPPs.

Incidentally, I have recently seen peer-to-peer support programmes which impart hope, even to those serving very long sentences, for those offering the support, not just for those receiving it. Well-trained lifers, one of whom was serving a minimum of 33 years, in HMP Dartmoor found a whole new sense of purpose during their sentences by mentoring other prisoners and helping them deal with anger issues, take responsibility for their sentences and handle family relationship problems. The result is a more settled regime, as men respond differently to the rigours of prison.

However long men serve—and it is mainly men who are affected by longer sentences—the vast majority are eventually still released. Rehabilitation cannot be an afterthought, even in this pre-election year, when the three decades-long arms race, which we heard mentioned today, between political parties around who can be the toughest on crime will likely intensify. Strenuously deploying effective ways of reducing reoffending is being tough on crime.

This requires addressing criminogenic needs: the characteristics or issues in someone’s life that directly relate to their likelihood of reoffending. Relationships are the most prevalent criminogenic need for women, and the level of lack is similarly high for men. Prisoners who receive family visits are 39% less likely to reoffend than those who do not, while education and employment decrease reoffending by only 9%. Even addressing addiction cuts the likelihood of reoffending only by 19%. Therefore, measures to improve relationships—whether between prisoners who have no family, between officers and prisoners, or with families on the outside who motivate them to go straight—are not soft on crime if their rehabilitative effect means less crime, fewer victims, more motivation to earn and pay taxes, and fewer children following their parents into prison. They are indispensable policy complements to the sentencing legislation proposed.

Finally, the arms race which penal populism generates in necessarily vote-hungry politicians is, like its historical nuclear equivalent, increasingly unaffordable, both in the squandering of human potential and the ballooning costs of criminal justice. With the greatest of respect for all those championing victims, increasing the confidence of victims may sound unarguable but it costs the taxpayer £47,000 per prisoner per year.

To sum up, longer-term decisions need to be focused on mending our badly frayed social fabric and cognisant of the vast costs of ever-longer incarceration. Politicians need to take the electorate with them on these difficult but profoundly necessary journeys.