National Life: Shared Values and Public Policy Priorities

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I always look forward to the most reverend Primate’s annual debate because he invariably chooses an important subject that does not feature in the day-to-day business of this House, and today is no exception. I begin by expressing my thanks to him for giving me the opportunity to say some things that are close to my heart, and in doing so I salute him for all that he does for our national life and the way that he does it, endorsing the wisdom of my noble friend Lord Luce’s selection.

I hope that I will be forgiven for basing my contribution on my reflections on one aspect of our national life, namely the current crisis facing our prisons. Sadly I have had to conclude that, had certain values which I will outline underpinned the shaping of priorities concerning prison policy, the crisis might have been avoided.

The ethos of my regiment, The Rifle Brigade, was laid down by an ancestor of mine, Sir John Moore, who was killed at Corunna. The regiment was to be united by a mutual bond of trust and affection between all ranks, which the officers had to earn. The first standing regulations, published in 1801, began with the following:

“For a subject to meet with attention, it is necessary that the principle upon which it is founded should be thoroughly understood.

Experience has taught all those who have fully considered the nature and composition of armed bodies of men, that the most effectual and the most just mode of securing Discipline … is by establishing such an exact gradation of responsibility, from the Field Officer who commands the Corps to the Corporal who directs the squad, that not only every individual entrusted with command knows his precise station, and what is required of him, but performs his portion of duty cheerfully, when convinced that that portion is peculiarly his share, and is not oppressive to him, the rank immediately above him being equally subject to the authority of the next in superiority”.

Prisons are not armed bodies of men, but they are operational organisations, staffed by people who, being people, respond to the leadership of other people far better than they do to impersonal instructions issued on paper. Leadership, which has been most ably mentioned by my noble friend Lord Dannatt, has in too many instances become something of a dirty word in too many parts of the public sector, being replaced by the cult of managerialism, practised by bureaucracies.

When I was colonel commandant of the Royal Green Jackets, into which the Rifle Brigade was merged, the honorary colonel of our territorial regiment was a lovely man called Richard Wood. He had lost both legs in the war at the age of 21, and subsequently became a Conservative MP and Minister of Pensions. When I asked him whom he wanted to make the speech at his retirement dinner, he replied that he would like the person to whom he gave their first ministerial job, Margaret Thatcher. She spoke of the Ministry of Pensions as being a very happy place in which to work because Richard knew everyone and it was like being in a large family, which was not possible now because ministries had become so vast and impersonal. “Whose fault is that, Margaret?”, interjected Richard. But the point of the story is that the Prison Service, part of the vast and impersonal Ministry of Justice, is not managed by an “exact gradation of responsibility”—an essential if staff are to be led to protect the public by rehabilitating prisoners.

Among the statistics that should send shivers up the spines of those responsible for shaping public policy are those showing the current skills shortages and the appallingly low levels of literacy and numeracy among young people. The educational state of those received into young offender institutions is nothing less than an indictment of the educational system in this country. Those responsible for shaping public policy should reflect on this, because it suggests that they, and too many of their predecessors, have not understood the values that underpin national life.

On the day that I was appointed Chief Inspector of Prisons, someone told me that I should look out a speech made on 20 July 1910 by the then Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, in a debate on prison estimates. I did so, and it remained on my desk for the next five and a half years. Among the hallmarks of a decent and humane criminal justice system, he included,

“an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man”.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/7/1910; col. 1354.]

The only raw material that every nation has in common is its people, and woe betide it if it does not do everything possible to identify, nurture and develop the talents of its people—all its people. If it does not, it has only itself to blame if it fails. I fear that this has been ignored by too many policymakers, such as those who decreed the demise of vocational education or who pretend that everyone has the same academic ability. If only educational policy included aptitude testing, so that the innate treasure in the heart of every child could be discovered early enough for it to be nurtured and developed, there would not be such a hideous number of those who cannot read or write and those who do not have any skills that can be gainfully employed. I shall never forget the beam on one young offender’s face when such a test identified a talent, which the staff said they could develop—and then did, by finding a potential employer, who sent in teachers to increase his skill level. He left prison for secure employment. Why is there not more of this?

I rest my case, but I beg those responsible for shaping public policy to remember that people are not things and that, by ignoring proven values, they risk undermining national life.