Sentencing White Paper

Lord German Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Yes, prisons need investment. That is why we are putting in £2.5 billion to be spent on prisons, not just for additional places but for upgrading prisons that need upgrading. It is important that young people in particular get individual services to ensure that they do not keep reoffending and get the services they need in the community to help them come out of crime.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s expressed intent in this White Paper of reducing and tackling reoffending, but it is against the delivery of that intention that they will be judged. I note the issue of handovers, which suggests to me that an offender will be passed from one person to the next rather than having a seamless route through training and support. Nowhere in the chapter on reducing reoffending, other than in the title of the government department, is there a mention of engagement with local government. It has a key role here: housing, community and social care responsibilities. The words “local government” do not appear in this chapter. Is that a deliberate omission, an oversight or a mistake?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, as someone who has spent 25 years in local government, I am sure it is understood that local government is important in delivering. As the noble Lord said, it is about housing and drug and alcohol support. It can even be about education, particularly basic skills that some of these young offenders—or older offenders—often do not have. I quite agree with him and will take that back.