Prisons and Probation

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and one that I will come on to.

If the Lord Chancellor is a prison reformer, as he is now billed, we are prepared to work with him. He could start with the Prison Reform Trust report, “Correction or care? the use of custody for children in trouble”, published last year, which looked at successful models around the world. Successful prisons are becoming smaller, more focused and more rooted locally, which is why he is right to abandon his predecessor’s plans for a new borstal. Although he is also to be commended for wishing to close unsuitable prisons, if, as a consequence, prisons are built a long way from friends and family or we move from local to titan prisons, that will have its own drawbacks.

We need prison watchdogs with real teeth and independence. The outgoing inspector, Nick Hardwick, has done a great job in spite of, not because of the Government. This brings me to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq). The reports last week that the MOJ had tried to control or muzzle him were outrageous. I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s announcement yesterday that he will retain Mr Hardwick’s expertise as head of the Parole Board, but let us use this opportunity to shake things up. We need a stronger, more independent inspectorate that is able to produce reports with total independence from the MOJ and to conduct more frequent and unannounced inspections.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman paints a bleak picture. Of course we must always do more, but does he accept that, according to a recent report by the chief inspector, outcomes for women have improved and the number of children in custody has fallen?

[Andy Slaughter]

I accept entirely what the hon. Lady says. I am painting a realistic picture, as the necessary starting point for the improvements that Members on both sides of the House wish to see. There have been improvements. The decline in the number of people in youth custody, from more than 3,000 to less than 1,000, is extremely impressive. It has happened under successive Governments. We are concerned, however, about the condition and treatment of the young people still in custody and the type of facility they are in. The incidents at Medway and elsewhere are examples of how things are failing in that sector as much as elsewhere.

My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) wrote in response to a prison report:

“Too often we see the response to a poor inspection report centre on the appointment of a new governor or the assertion that things have improved dramatically since the poor inspection took place.”

It is time we put much greater effort into preventing people from getting involved in crime in the first place. We need a renewed focus on education and stepping in to divert young people from a life of crime. We must do better for trans people in our prison system. The “Dying for Justice” report, by the Institute of Race Relations, and the Harris review both revealed that black, Asian and minority ethnic people were over-represented at every stage of the criminal justice process. Yesterday, I spoke at a meeting here on the discriminatory effects of joint enterprise charging decisions on BAME individuals and groups, and asked the Lord Chancellor to examine that area of law, which his predecessor failed to do.

In the light of the number of Members wishing to speak, I shall terminate my remarks. I welcome the change in tone on prisons since the Lord Chancellor’s appointment, but so far that is about all it is. It is possible to be tough on crime, to put the protection of the public first and to make sure prisons play their role in punishment as well as in rehabilitation, but it is also true, to quote Dostoevsky, who knew a thing or two about crime and punishment, that,

“the degree of civilisation of a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”

It is in the self-interest of every citizen that prisoners, having served their time, become productive members of society and do not continue to pose a risk through reoffending. The Lord Chancellor may not be “a muesli muncher”, as he put it yesterday, but he is the Minister for porridge—and it is about time he served up something substantial.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) opened the debate by saying that it was not one about blame. He was right to do so because it would be absolutely wrong to suggest that the problems in our prison service can be laid at the foot of a particular Government or that the other party has a monopoly on the answers or on success. Government after Government have grappled with the problem of how to reduce recidivism. Throughout the Blair and Brown years, prisoners reoffended in their tens of thousands.

To understand the problems, it is important to start with some statistics. Some 67% of young people who leave custody reoffend within a year, while 72% of those young people regularly played truant from school and more than half of them do not have any qualifications. Those few facts tell us that it is the disadvantaged in society who end up in prison. The Secretary of State is therefore absolutely right to look into the provision of education in our prisons, as he is doing. We know, as the Centre for Social Justice reported, that prisoners who do not take part in any education or training during their years in prison are three times more likely to be reconvicted on release.

It is important to look not only at the availability of education—it is already currently offered—but at how we can encourage people to take up such education. I hope that Dame Sally Coates will consider in her review whether it is appropriate for education to form part of a prison sentence, and whether a reduction in a sentence might incentivise prisoners to improve their skills.

Nelson Mandela said that

“no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”

Our nation—our one nation—should hold out a hand and help all those who need a step up and a step out of their current world. However, our ambition should not just end there. We should aim to cut not reoffending, but all offending. For those who are vulnerable, who lack skills and who mix in circles where there is truancy and crime, the other world may be daunting and difficult. Fear is sometimes the greatest prison of all. Victor Hugo said:

“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”

Let us continue to invest further in the education of the next generation to ensure not simply that our young criminals do not reoffend, but that they do not offend in the first place.