Queen’s Speech

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, as the Minister forecast, with the time available, I shall concentrate on only one issue. It will not surprise your Lordships to learn that that issue is imprisonment.

I entirely accept that the Government’s No.1 priority in this whole legislative package is costs. In that regard, I am very concerned about the costs of imprisonment. If you have, as was the position last week, 87,212 people in prison, at a cost of £37,573 per prison place, the total cost is well in excess of £3 billion. I suggest that a great deal of that is wholly unnecessary because those people need not be there.

I note that the gracious Speech mentioned that the Government’s legislative programme would focus on economic growth, justice and constitutional reform, which is entirely understandable. It also stated that,

“my Government is committed to reducing and preventing crime”.

I was very glad that, although for the first time in many years a separate criminal justice Bill is not forecast, there is a criminal justice system element in the Bill that the Minister mentioned. I look forward to taking part in that.

In considering the costs of imprisonment and its impact on the prevention of crime, or the prevention of re-crime which is the role of the Prison Service, I shall draw attention to five limiting factors which should be considered carefully if they are not to inhibit the Government’s ability to deliver what they want.

First, I refer to an interview given by Sir David Latham, the recently retired and excellent chairman of the Parole Board, which was reported in the Times on Monday. He said that the Secretary of State for Justice believes strongly that the country cannot afford to keep on jailing more and more people, that he has a desire to stop people being put in prison as much he possibly can, and that he has been frustrated in not being able to persuade the Cabinet to do the things that he wanted to enable the prison population to stabilise and decrease. I could not agree with that sentiment more.

One aspect of that, which we debated during our debates on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill and which brought it into stark relief, is the issue of indeterminate prisoners: people not knowing when they are likely to get out. There are 6,017 of them at the moment—a considerable number—and a lot are already over tariff. If, at £37,000 per year, you have people who need not be there, you now have the added burden that some are suing for compensation because of the delay in their release. The country is having to find £300 for over six months and £1,200 for over two years, and there is likely to be an increase of 30% in such claims during the coming year. That can hardly be a sensible cost. It must inhibit the ability of the Prison Service to do what the Government say they are committed to doing—preventing re-crime.

The second issue was introduced in the recent Act: the victim levy of 40% imposed under the Prisoners’ Earnings Act. Interestingly, today the Chief Inspector of Prisons has published his report on the inspection of HMP Standford Hill, a resettlement prison in Kent where sending people out to work is an absolutely key part of the resettlement process. He said:

“The levies deducted under the Prisoners’ Earnings Act”—

40% of the prison wage, deducted as pay back to victims of crime—

“had begun to mean … that prisoners could no longer afford to meet the travel costs of getting to work, which meant they lost the work and the resettlement opportunities”.

That ought to be thought through carefully. The imposition is affecting the ability of the prisons to do what the Government want.

I also refer to the recent reports on two prisons in the prison newspaper, Inside Time, this month: HMYOI Brinsford, where young offenders are held, and HMP Durham. In each, the reports said that one area of concern is the lack of time out of cell. In Brinsford, one-third of the young men are locked in their cells during the core day and in Durham prisoners spend 16 to 20 hours a day locked up two to a cell designed for one. I mention that because if they are locked in the cell doing nothing, nothing is being done to resettle them.

However, with regard to what is possible in resettlement, a report just published by the Prisoners’ Education Trust, which surveyed 500 prisoners from 81% of the prisons in the system, said that, when applying for a course in the education department, you are put on a waiting list but not told that you are on one, how long the list is or where you are on it. One man said that he had been on the list for two and a half years to do a health and safety course. I am sure that that is not true everywhere but it is a cautionary tale. If education is a vital part of resettlement and preventing re-crime, surely it is important that this aspect is looked at.

Finally, I mention the issue of women, which has been raised many times in this report. Women in Prison has recently reported that of the 43 recommendations in the admirable report of the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, seven have been implemented, there has been some progress on 18 and no progress on another 18.

I do not want to be a Jonah about this because I believe passionately in the rehabilitation revolution and that it is perfectly possible for prisons to do more to help the Government achieve their aim of reducing and preventing crime. However, they must be enabled to do so and that means that, before legislation is introduced, the impact assessment of what is proposed is carefully looked through. In this case and in this Session, that should include careful post-legislative scrutiny of what has been introduced to see that it is fit for purpose to do the job for which it was designed.