Armed Forces: Military Corrective Training Centre

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 25th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am grateful for the positive response from my noble friend. The programme of educational courses and military training that detainees undertake reinvigorates them with the military ethos. On return to their units, the vast majority go on to achieve promotion and to have a successful military career. Direct comparison with the civil sector is difficult because those in Her Majesty’s Prison Service have committed criminal offences, while the majority of those at MCTC have committed non-criminal conduct offences. However, last year 13% of detainees at MCTC had previously served periods of detention whereas some 90% of those sentenced in England and Wales in Her Majesty’s Prison Service had offended before.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the statistics are even better than that because quite a lot of people sent to Colchester serve time there and are then sent for discharge, so of those who are able to go back the percentage is even higher?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very good point. Indeed, the latest report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons is exceptionally positive and has graded the centre as good for its four tests of a healthy custodial environment: safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement—something that it very rarely does.