Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I refer to what Labour said in 2010—that it could not do that. The hon. Lady and her colleagues said very clearly that they could not afford to proceed with custody plus—the scheme that they brought forward that would enable the probation service to provide supervision for these offenders. We have come up with a way of doing that. Labour said that in 2010—just before the last election. That is the reality of what we are dealing with. We are talking about people who go on and on and on committing crimes, unsupervised. I see that as the real public safety scandal; it is a flaw in our system that I want to solve and Labour Members seem not to want to solve.

Sadly, it is no surprise that reoffending rates for this group are so high. The average time served in custody for that group is only nine weeks—not nearly long enough to tackle these issues while in prison. After that, they are released at the halfway point with £46 in their pocket and little or no support. Some engage with voluntary rehabilitation programmes after their release, but at the moment there is no mandatory period of supervision in the community. That is what this Bill changes. The core of the change in this Bill is the delivery of 12 months of supervision for those people.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

The 35 probation trusts across England and Wales have been judged either good or excellent. Why is it not right that they cover serious and persistent offenders who have served short sentences? The right hon. Gentleman feels that this change can be done within the current £8 billion decade budget for the probation service, but how can there be no cuts to probation and such an extension into short-term sentences unless the task remained with the probation service? Otherwise, probation services would have to be cut.

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady has not understood what we are seeking to achieve. The Select Committee observed, in a good piece of work, that the present system was far too bureaucratic, and that only a minority of probation time was spent on working with offenders. We are seeking to create a simpler system in which we give much more professional freedom to those on the front line. We want to deliver an environment in which we can mentor and support people, and we want to bring together the best of the public, private and voluntary sectors, not only to make the system more efficient but to deliver high-quality mentoring.

The hon. Lady raised the question of performance. The probation trusts are currently hitting many targets, but there is one simple reality at the heart of all this: reoffending is currently increasing, and I do not think that that is good enough.

Let me explain some of what the Bill will actually do. Clause 2 provides for this group of offenders to spend the second half of their sentences subject to licence conditions in the community, like all other prisoners. Clause 3 creates an innovative period of additional supervision, which is added to the licence to make a total of 12 months' mandatory rehabilitation and support after release. I think that that is the least that we should have in our system; it is extraordinary that we do not have it already.

The supervision period is there not to punish offenders, but to help them to move away from crime. We want those who work with offenders to try new, innovative approaches to rehabilitation. I look forward to seeing the voluntary sector, for example, playing a much larger role. We all see good work done in that sector, and I want to see more of it being done in our formal systems.

A range of flexible requirements can be imposed during the supervision period. They are set out in schedule 1, and include participating in rehabilitative activities including restorative justice, being tested for drugs, and attending appointments to address drug misuse. Those requirements are designed to give those who work with offenders the ability to steer them during the months after their release from prison. The freedom to innovate will be critical to the driving down of reoffending rates in this group.

We are focusing particularly on drug use, which is common among offenders who are serving custodial sentences. Two thirds of those who are serving sentences of less than 12 months have used class A drugs, while three quarters have used class B or class C drugs. Drug use among prisoners is also strongly associated with reconviction on release. The rate of reconviction among prisoners who report having used drugs in the four weeks before custody is more than double the rate among those who have never used drugs. That applies to drugs in class A, class B and class C.

Clause 12 expands the current power to test offenders for drugs while they are on licence to include class B as well as class A drugs. Schedule 1 creates an equivalent testing condition for the supervision period that will follow the licence period. All that is an essential part of trying to ensure that when people come out of prison, we do all that we can to move them off drugs as quickly as possible, in a regime in which they are obliged to take part.

Let me now explain what will happen if an offender does not engage with supervision. Breach of any of the supervision requirements will be dealt with by the magistrates courts, and there will be an important new role for lay justices and district judges. Clause 4 provides a flexible set of sanctions that magistrates may—not must—impose if a breach is proved. They can impose a fine, between 20 and 60 hours of community payback, a curfew with an electronic tag, or committal back to custody. There is no “escalator” approach requiring a more onerous sanction to be used if a lighter-touch one has been imposed before.

The Bill also makes reforms to the two types of sentence that are served in the community—suspended sentence orders and community orders. Reoffending rates following those sentences are less stark than those following short prison sentences, but it is no less important for us to address them. Nearly everyone who ends up in our prisons has previously served a community sentence, and many of those people experience problems similar to those experienced by short-sentence offenders: problems involving mental health, alcohol consumption and drug misuse. Clause 15 creates a new rehabilitation activity requirement to mirror the new supervision condition that will be available for offenders who are released from short prison sentences. As with the top-up supervision period created by clause 3, that will provide maximum flexibility for those working with offenders, enabling them to instruct them to attend appointments or participate in activities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The sad thing is that a partnership of the private sector and the voluntary sector and the state has been proven to work in many cases. In Peterborough it is working really well. When the Labour Government passed the Offender Management Act in 2007, they talked extensively about the benefits to be gained from such a partnership. It is sad that they are now seeking to block such a partnership in other debates, and today they are using that as an excuse to try to block a measure that they themselves say they support. Frankly, they are all over the place.

The other part of what we are looking to do involves the creation of a proper through-the-gate system. It is a key part of a wider programme to transform how we rehabilitate offenders. The providers that we will bring into the system will offer a resettlement service for all offenders in custody before their release of the kind that is being provided in Peterborough. It is important that we align the prison system and the geographic areas for release afterwards to make sure these reforms can be as geographically synchronised as possible. The changes we are making to our prison system to create a network of resettlement prisons will ensure that, where possible, the same offender manager will work with offenders in custody and continue their rehabilitation work in the community. I believe that can make a significant difference and can help reinforce the measures in this Bill.

[Mrs Moon]

There are no prisons for women in Wales. All women offenders sentenced to a prison term serve their sentence outside Wales. How will that be managed if we are looking at offender managers working from prisons and back in the communities? The majority of offenders are men, and the probation service has a proven track record of working well with women. How will the Justice Secretary ensure that the private sector does not just look at offenders as male, but has programmes designed specifically for women returning to Wales?

[Chris Grayling]

Clearly, we will see the same level of support provided for women and men. The hon. Lady will, of course, have seen in the document we published recently on women offenders that our direction of travel is clearly towards creating smaller units close to where women live, so that we can maintain the family ties. We are trialling a new approach at HMP Styal in Cheshire, whereby we will have a hostel under the wing of the Prison Service, but outside a prison institution, with open conditions. We are looking to see whether we can deliver a different kind of model for the detention of women offenders that can make a genuine difference to them. Successive Governments have wanted to achieve support through the gate for short-sentence offenders, and we will seek to achieve it for men and women alike.

Invisible Walls Rehabilitation Programme (HMP Parc)

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I am extremely pleased to be appearing here in front of you, Mr Caton. I appreciate that the Gower constituency is one where possibly few people end up in prison, but if they were to, the likelihood is that they would have the opportunity to serve their sentence in Parc, which is a local prison for Welsh offenders, so I am sure that your interest in this debate is similar to mine.

Not many MPs like to boast about their local prison, but then not many MPs have been invited to numerous presentations of awards for the staff and volunteers at their local prison. I have seen how a dedicated group of staff and volunteers at Parc have developed an innovative approach to rehabilitating prisoners in their care. Under the leadership of the prison director, Janet Wallsgrove, Corin Morgan-Armstrong and his team of staff and volunteers, along with numerous local organisations, have led the way in rehabilitative work. The team are very special, and their contribution deserves special recognition and wider implementation, which is why I am here today.

Invisible Walls is part of a wider network of support that Parc Supporting Families undertakes to make rehabilitation a central part of its work with prisoners. Underpinning that is a belief that a prisoner’s life does not stop once they are inside and that punishment should not apply to their family and especially not to their children. The payback for society from Invisible Walls comes from the fact that, for some prisoners, maintaining the family link is vital to successful rehabilitation.

As is always said in presentations about Invisible Walls, why bother? Why bother helping a prisoner to stay in contact with his family and children? Because crime, the consequences of crime and dealing with offenders is expensive. Reoffending costs anything between £9.5 billion and £13 billion a year. Those affected by crime—the victims and their families and the families of offenders—bear a cost that has a huge and lasting effect. Some 200,000 children in England and Wales have a parent in prison. That is two and a half times the number of children in care and six times the number of children on the child protection register. More children are affected by imprisonment than by divorce. The children of offenders are more likely to offend themselves. Six out of 10 boys with a convicted parent end up in custody themselves. The children of offenders are three times more at risk of mental health problems.

Let me quote the social exclusion unit:

“Research shows that the existence and maintenance of good family relationships helps to reduce re-offending, and the support of families and friends on release can help offenders successfully settle back into the community. Yet at every stage of a prisoner’s movement through the criminal justice system, families are largely left out of the decision-making process and rarely get the opportunity to support prisoners effectively.”

Invisible Walls has grown out of the work of Parc Supporting Families, which identified that engaging with a prisoner’s family had all-round benefits for the prisoner and their family, but especially for their children and the wider community. Invisible Walls has strong foundations. Parc Supporting Families first took over the running of the visits department. It changed both its physical space and how it feels to receive and to make a visit. The focus was shifted from simply being about security to engaging the family. Walls were decorated with prisoners’ artwork by the art intervention team—another team who have won awards for Parc. That was done in a café and a children’s play area, so that parents and children together can experience family-centred mealtimes, playtime and interaction.

Invisible Walls has three principal aims: to reduce the risk of reoffending and a return to prison; to reduce the risk of intergenerational offending; and to increase family and community cohesion. The effect that we often neglect is the effect that just one person with criminal intent living in a small community can have on that community, so increasing efforts to move an ex-offender back into playing a constructive and positive role in the community has huge benefits.

During the four years for which the project will run, 20-plus families a year will be identified for help. Those are families in critical need of support. They are families in which the father has a minimum of six months left to serve. Fathers must be drug free and undergo regular testing. They must sign a compact to undertake this often difficult and painful work. Prisoners are based in a dedicated family intervention unit. I must stress that both the prisoners and the officers who are engaged in this programme are not simply selected for it; they have to want to participate. It is no good asking either prisoners or staff who do not want to engage with this programme to take part.

The whole family are supported for as long as a year before release and, critically, for up to six months post release. The support comes in many forms. It includes advice on and support with parenting and physical and mental health support. Schooling, accommodation and substance misuse are tackled. Finance and debt and the issue of relapsing into offending are considered. Fathers are encouraged to build a relationship with their children. Individual and group sessions are attended. Prisoners talk, often for the first time, about their feelings and how their offending impacts on their family and community. This is often difficult work.

The Learning Together club teaches prisoners about what their children are learning in school. It helps them to engage with their children and their schoolwork; it enables them to help with their children’s homework during visits. Bedtime stories are recorded, so that children can maintain the link with their father while they are at home.

I must stress that the team at Parc are not working in isolation. The project is supported by a number of organisations and volunteers: Bridgend county borough council, the Wales Probation Trust, Barnardo’s Cymru, Harp Resettlement, Gwalia Housing and many others. Of special note is the £50,000 of funding that has come from the Big Lottery Fund. That was a first for the Big Lottery Fund and it is something that we should applaud. Changing prison culture from being inward facing to being outward facing, focusing on building relationships with outside agencies and maximising the opportunities that those relationships offer is not easy, either for prisons or for prisoners, and we must commend it.

I must tell you about one picture that I saw, Mr Caton. A child was asked to draw a picture of their family before they became involved in the scheme. The child drew mum on one side, the child in the middle and dad on the other side of the piece of paper. Between each of the individuals in the family was a closed door and, underneath, the child wrote, “They are arguing and I’m stuck in the middle.” After going through the Invisible Walls programme, the child was asked to complete another picture. This time, there were no doors, everyone was smiling and the child wrote, “Everyone is happy and we’re not arguing any more.” They say a picture paints a thousand words—those two pictures certainly do.

The Invisible Walls project and linked initiatives have proved successful. Successive inspection reports have focused on work with families as positive, with support for families being singled out for specific praise. There are not only inspection reports, however. The Welsh Centre for Crime and Social Justice, based in the university of Glamorgan, is undertaking an evaluation and research assessment of the scheme. That work began last year and will continue until 2015.

I ask the Minister to look at the research carefully and to consider how what has been put in place at Parc could be applied elsewhere. I want him to give an undertaking to look at what has been achieved and facilitate its future application. I understand that it has already been replicated at Her Majesty’s prisons Altcourse and Maghaberry in Northern Ireland. The staff at Parc have never been afraid to try something new, which is not always easy in state-run prisons. Private sector prisons—Parc is the only one in Wales—perhaps have such an opportunity, and we need to ensure that state-run prisons also have that opportunity. We might also remove the invisible walls between the quality work done in state and private sector prisons, and spread the capability to undertake such work across the prison estate.

As I have said, Parc is a local prison that accommodates prisoners close to home. That makes family intervention relatively easily and makes an Invisible Walls programme possible. I understand that the Ministry of Justice is working towards more prisoners serving the last six months of their sentence closer to their home area. If that period could be extended a little, there would be opportunities to assess prisoners for that work, which might prove most positive both financially and in tackling reoffending.

Wales has no prison for women, and more than 17,000 children are separated from mothers who are imprisoned in England. The plea from Welsh MPs is for the Minister to consider whether it would be possible to have something like the Invisible Walls project to work with women. Many of them are separated from not just their children, but their wider family, because of the distance between their family and where they serve their sentences.

Invisible Walls has generated new ideas, and there is a constant desire to improve and learn from the programme. One such idea is to build links between the prison and schools, specifically to support children whose fathers are in prison. Children of offenders experience a range of negative emotions, and are often vulnerable to being bullied and to becoming bullies, so they have an increased risk of exclusion from school. They may have experienced the trauma of witnessing an arrest, and they have felt the impact of being cared for by one parent.

Building a link between a school and the prison can help to counteract that trauma and to prevent problems from developing that might lead to the child ending up in the criminal justice system. The idea is very simple: the school signs an Invisible Walls accord, meaning that, when a parent is in prison, the head teacher identifies a single point of contact who is responsible for offering advice and guidance to children and primary carers confidentially. The person identified will almost certainly be the current child protection officer in the school, who already has the necessary training to fulfil the new role, while the prison would provide training, access to support online and an electronic library.

The scheme is in its early stages, but it has already gathered significant support. It might make a significant impact on the many vulnerable children at risk of becoming the next generation of offenders. I hope that the Minister will talk to the Department for Education and obtain its support. For the scheme to be established, it needs to be approved, so will the Minister personally give it his seal of approval? Will he undertake to talk to the Department for Education, so that the scheme can be rolled out to prisons across England? The cost is negligible, because the scheme builds on things and people already in place. It would make a difference to children and their families and, indeed, to schools and to the potential for education, because many people in prison have low levels of educational achievement.

Only if we think for the longer term and use projects proven to work will we bring down reoffending and steer the next generation away from prison. I appreciate that Invisible Walls is not a project for everyone, but it gives us the possibility of finding prisoners with whom such work could be undertaken and of making a huge difference to future reoffending. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Protecting Children Online

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. By a happy co-incidence I received an e-mail at 12.35 pm announcing that Google is increasing its contribution to the IWF to £1 million.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend spoke about the number of reported cases. As an Internet Watch Foundation champion, I went into every one of my primary schools, spoke to the 10 and 11-year-olds at every one of those schools, and asked those children how many of them had seen indecent images online. Every child in every class had been exposed to such material. Is that not a national disgrace?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is obviously doing great work in her constituency and what she says is truly shocking. It is confirmed by the statistics which the NSPCC has been collecting.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

The House finds itself today debating an incredibly important issue, and one that has risen in prominence because of the worst of circumstances. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) referred at the beginning of her speech to the dreadful murders of Tia Sharp and April Jones, which shocked the nation and saddened all who read about them. They reinforce the need to take action and maintain vigilance.

This Government, and indeed the previous Government, take the continued availability of child sexual abuse images online extremely seriously. If I heard the hon. Lady correctly, she said that we should not refer to this as child pornography. She is quite right: it is child abuse, child torture and child rape. The creation of these images is abuse against a child, and that child is further violated every time the image is circulated and viewed by others. That is why the creation, distribution and viewing of child sexual abuse images is strictly prohibited in this country, and why we take action to stop it. We must take every possible step to prevent their production and distribution over the internet.

We must work together on that. We must recognise that that means using industry, law enforcement and the charitable sector. I think that we have made considerable progress. Let me start by talking about the Internet Watch Foundation. Before the IWF was established in 1996, this country hosted around 18% of the known child sexual abuse content on the internet, which is absolutely shocking. Since 2003, the IWF, working with industry, has reduced that figure to less than 1%. We fully support and welcome the work done by the internet industry in the UK, which uses a list provided by the IWF to block images of child sexual abuse. Blocking has a real and tangible benefit, as it stops people inadvertently viewing the images and stops paedophiles arguing that they found the images accidentally.

The IWF has a crucial role to play in the removal of these images from the internet. At the summit that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has called for next week, we will discuss what further measures we can take. It is right and proper that we look at the role and funding levels of the IWF, and at what more the industry can do in terms of its role and scope.

[Mrs Moon]

The IWF does a fantastic job, but it can only do as good a job as the referrals it receives. When I speak to parents and children in my constituency, they do not know what to do. Often, the advice given to children is “Turn the computer off.” That will not help us to track down images and stop them coming in in the first place.

[Mr Vaizey]

I thank the hon. Lady for that contribution and pay tribute to her for the work that she does on these issues in this House and throughout the country. She is absolutely right. There is more we can do, and we need to look at a number of issues that will be raised at the summit next week.

First, we need to discuss the funding of the IWF. I note the £1 million contribution that Google has made this afternoon. We will discuss with the IWF what kind of funding it needs and what funding needs to come from the industry to help it to do the work that it needs to do. Secondly, we need to discuss the IWF’s role in peer-to-peer file-sharing. It is all very well, and absolutely right, to clamp down on and block the sites that host these vile and disgusting images, but we need to do more work on the activities of peer-to-peer networks where people are sharing them.

This involves the complex issue of how the IWF works with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. We have to clear the lines on that. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland referred to international work. We, as a Government, support the Global Alliance against Child Sexual Abuse Online, which covers more than 40 countries. Both CEOP and the IWF work internationally, and it is extremely important to focus on that work. We can be proud of our success in this regard, but, as she rightly points out, the problem remains one of images posted abroad.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I confess that that is well beyond my level of knowledge. In this day and age we must at least challenge the issue, and I am grateful that the Government have called a summit next week, which will be a great opportunity. I hope we give a clear steer and that there will be time scales for internet service providers as well. I confess freely to the hon. Gentleman that I do not have the answer to his question, but we must set that challenge and tell the sector that it must get its house in order. It is clear that we must do more.

Not so long ago, we in this House took the decision to make it illegal to carry a child in a car without them being safely secured in an appropriate way. At this time I think there is a greater risk to children’s safety from accessing the internet than from getting into a car, and if we can intervene in such circumstances that will be absolutely in order. It is early in the debate but I am glad that so far we have not heard talk of the nanny state. We must act on this matter to keep children safe.

[Mrs Moon]

When I went into schools around Bridgend I took two leaflets—one for parents and one for children—about staying safe online. They were seen by Dr Tanya Byron, and agreed with Google and local head teachers so that the content was accurate. It was clear that parents did not have the technical savvy; their children were wiser than them and knew how to remove the constraints, which is why we need such constraints put in place by providers rather than by parents. Children can remove their parent’s constraints.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point; children are often well ahead of the adults who are supervising them. I do not know whether the Government have any plans to involve children in the summit and this process. Children were part of the consultation, but what opportunities will the Government provide to allow them to be part of the debate? When I went into a local primary school I found that the children’s knowledge was well in advance of mine, and from my experience as a parent I know that children can be canny in finding ways round things that we are perhaps not aware of—

Oral Answers to Questions

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

As my hon. Friend rightly says, Nigeria is a significant country in that respect, and he will know that one obstacle to negotiating such an agreement concerns the constitutional restrictions in potential receiving countries. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the Nigerian legislature has now passed legislation that makes such an agreement feasible, so we are making considerable progress with Nigeria.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Schedule 2 of the Armed Forces Act 2006 means that a commanding officer does not automatically have to refer to the service prosecution authority incidents of sexual assault, voyeurism and exposure. Will the Minister talk to his equivalent in the Ministry of Defence to ensure that victims, whether in the civil service or the military, have access to the same justice as in the civil justice and military systems?

[Chris Grayling]

Access to justice is obviously important for everyone, but the matters to which the hon. Lady refers are for my colleagues at the Ministry of Defence. I am sure that they will note her comments in Hansard and be aware of what she has said.

Leveson Inquiry

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

There has been a great deal of debate this evening about the rule of law and how it could have held national newspapers to account. I want to talk about what happens when the culture, ethics and standards of the media are used against a community that cannot fight back, which is what happened in Bridgend.

The ethics of the press at their worst impacted on the county borough in which I live. There was intrusion into people’s lives at the most painful and difficult of times. There was a link built between the community of the county borough of Bridgend and suicide, which meant that anyone who lived there was tainted by a threat and a risk of living with suicide. Virtually the first question that young people who went for university or job interviews were asked was, “Are you all right? Are you going to commit suicide if you move away from Bridgend?” People who were considering moving their factories to the county borough said, “I don’t know—our people aren’t very happy about moving to Bridgend. It’s not a very safe place to live.”

The dead were maligned in the most awful way and families who were trying to cope with the sudden grief caused by the death of someone they loved and whom they had no idea was struggling with life suddenly found that person traduced in the most painful and awful way.

The intrusion into people’s lives was such that friends, neighbours and family could not go to talk to those who had lost someone, because there was a mass of press outside their front door. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) finds it funny, but children who were on their way to school were being stopped and offered sweets for quotes about those who had died.

There was inaccurate reporting—a “suicide death cult” was supposed to have gripped Bridgend. I said to one of the editors who sat on the Press Complaints Commission, “You know that’s a lie. Why are you running with this story?” He replied, “That’s your fault. You didn’t come up with a better line for us and we needed a line to sell the story and the papers.” They knew it was a lie, but they still carried the story.

It was well known that the grief and the trauma caused by that reporting had the potential to have an impact on those involved in the deaths. There was a risk of social contagion and I believe that we saw that effect in Bridgend. The excessive coverage of the methods used by those who died impacted tremendously on my community.

There has been a lot of talk today about the Press Complaints Commission and how weak and ineffective it has been, but, within the bounds of its capability, it served my community well, and I will always say that. It came to Bridgend and met the people. I think it was fairly shocked at the level of anger and at the fact that nobody had even heard of the PCC and did not know that it was an option to go to it. It was shocked at how frustrated the community was that an honest and decent story about the losses they were facing was not being told. What the PCC did—I know that those people affected across Bridgend will be eternally grateful for this—was introduce desist notices, whereby people were able to say, “We do not wish to be contacted.”

A family who had lost a child were among the first people who came to my office. Their child had died some years earlier—not during the time of the so-called cluster in Bridgend—and they told me how, even then, they feared answering telephone calls late at night, because it might be one of the magazines offering them £250 for the story of the death of their child and how it had impacted on their lives. Such intrusion went on and on, but the desist notices stopped it. They would not have had that from Ofcom, because it cannot interfere until after a programme has been broadcast. My community has been devastated by letters from broadcast media that want to tell the story. They have thrown families back to 2007 and 2008 and left them deeply traumatised and fearful of those stories being aired again.

Another area of the PCC that I must commend and that we must not lose is its educational role. It has taken on a huge responsibility by going to schools of journalism and news rooms and talking about the impact of suicide reporting. Whatever regulation comes in, I would not want to lose that educational role.

With the help of the PCC, I, along with eminent professors of suicide studies, met editors to explain to them the impact of their reporting. They admitted that, often, what drove the most excessive reporting was the fact that, to sell their papers, they had to keep hyping the story and making it bigger and more dramatic. The culture, ethics and standards fall apart as a result of that desperate desire to get the extra sale and new story that will make people buy one paper and not another. We have to do something about that, so that honesty and decency return to reporting.

I am concerned about the failure to look at social networking issues. Many of the families saw photographs that they had never seen before of the people they had lost—their family members—when they went out to buy a pint of milk or a loaf of bread. There, on the front page of a national newspaper, was a photograph of their child that had been taken off Facebook. One of the most horrific stories was about the content of one person’s Facebook page. That person was maligned in the most awful way because of fantasy stuff that had been written on their Facebook page. We must do something about the ownership of the contents of Facebook pages, including photographs, so that they cannot be taken and possessed by national newspapers and reproduced.

Websites must be looked at and must be contained. The website of one national newspaper had a section that said, “Click here for slideshow of the dead”. When one clicked on it, the photographs of everyone who had died were shown on a loop. In fairness to the editor, he was horrified when I told him about it and he immediately had it taken down. He had not known about it, as there is often a split between the print editor and whoever edits the online version, and we must ensure that responsibility runs across those areas. Finally, I appreciate that Leveson did not look at YouTube, but there have been some horrific statements and stories in newspapers that have come from it.

I agree with Leveson about the conscience clause. A number of newspaper reporters contacted me privately to tell me that they were appalled at the stories that they were being pressured to write. It was a case of, “Write the story and keep your job.” They wanted an opportunity to opt out of writing those stories.

The Secretary of State, who has left the Chamber, was educated in Bridgend. I hope that when looking at this matter, she remembers the people she grew up with and what they have suffered from unregulated media.

Investigation of Suicides

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

It is with delight that I appear before you, Mr Crausby, as I know that you take a particular interest in this matter. This debate has been prompted by my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention, and is based on the testimonies that I have heard from families bereaved by suicide. I will raise two key issues in the short time that I have. The first involves how police officers interact with bereaved families, and the second involves how suicides are investigated, most notably where the internet may be a factor. I will make eight clear requests for change, which I ask the Minister to consider.

Suicide is a tragedy for the individual who takes their own life, and it brings long-term distress for the family and friends left behind. For every suicide, six people close to the person who died—in England and Wales, that means 30,000 people each year—will experience a deep sense of grief. Families bereaved by suicide inevitably find themselves in direct contact with the authorities. In many cases, a knock at the door by a police officer informs them of what has happened.

Families touched by suicide can suffer a greater stigma than is attached to other forms of death, and they may avoid reaching out for support. They are vulnerable. As the Government’s draft suicide prevention strategy notes, family members are approximately two and a half times more likely to take their own life after the suicide of a close relative.

At a recent meeting of the all-party group, we considered bereavement. Many spoke about their initial contact with the authorities. I will share one statement:

“The police who dealt with my son immediately following his death were, as I would have expected, matter-of-fact but kind and sympathetic to the family. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for them to have to deal with a family like ours who are expressing a mixture of utter shock, bewilderment, hysteria, and sheer terror when a family member takes their own life. It happened late in the evening, and by the time the police had left around midnight, it was dark and cold and trying to get children to sleep, let alone ourselves, was impossible.

The following day, another policeman arrived to take statements. He again did his job well and with sympathy. However, I found the whole event very distressing, and it would have been very helpful if someone had been there—a trained counsellor—to help us through this process, to offer some comfort and attempt to give us some level of understanding as to what had just happened. As it was there was no one. No one gave us the ‘Help is at Hand’ booklet, no one gave us any numbers to call. Nothing.”

I recommend that the Minister read the work of Dr Sharon McDonnell, or at least that one of his team read it. She is at the university of Manchester and has researched how health professionals and police officers interact with bereaved families. For her PhD, she interviewed bereaved families, finding that eight out of nine participants informed by the police reported feeling distressed, traumatised and angry at how they had been informed. Dr McDonnell is seeking funding for further research in the area. I urge the Minister to discuss not only the changes that she has identified as necessary but how we can move forward and ensure that we change families’ experience.

None of the families with whom I have had contact ever received a copy of “Help is at Hand”. I would be interested to know whether the Minister is aware of the booklet to which I refer. It is a Department of Health document offering advice for those bereaved by suicide or other traumatic deaths. It includes contacts for support groups and covers practical matters such as the inquest procedure and methods for dealing with grief. Sadly, that invaluable resource is being wasted through patchy distribution and a lack of awareness.

Last year, when I took part in the police service parliamentary scheme with South Wales police, I was already aware of the expertise of officers across my constituency on the issue, and I take this opportunity to commend them. However, away from Bridgend, I was concerned by the lack of guidance that individual officers appeared to receive on how to deal with families and media inquiries. It left me wondering whether standard guidance and training for police officers exist or whether it is left to chance.

In the first instance, investigations of a death are steered by the murder investigation manual, which is employed for investigation into unexplained deaths. After criminality has been ruled out, the manual no longer applies. Apparently, it is left to local forces to produce their own guidance on investigating non-suspicious deaths.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate on an important issue. On police investigations, is it not important that suicide should never be presumed but that a finding must be based on evidence? For a family, suicide is a traumatic experience. Police must therefore eliminate all other possibilities in their investigations.

[Mrs Moon]

It is vital that the police conduct a full inquiry, but they must be aware of the sensitivity of the issue and the risks associated if the inquiry presses too much on possible family engagement or involvement in the death. I will address that later in my speech, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

Once a suicide has been determined, it is important that the police reconnect with families to ensure that they are not left feeling that they have caused or been implicated in their relative’s death. Families have expressed a feeling of being on trial, and that feeling can resurface, particularly during the coronial process. They feel that they carry some guilt and responsibility for the death. That is the cause of the risk of trauma.

The House of Commons Library undertook research on my behalf into what guidance is available to police forces, but it drew a significant blank. Although I plan to meet the lead on the issue from the Association of Chief Police Officers, will the Minister examine how advice and guidance can be issued by the Home Office to bring consistency to the investigations carried out by police forces after a death has been recognised as suicide? Will he examine the training provided to police officers on the difficult role that they play in breaking the traumatic news of a death to families, the sensitivity of gathering information to further their inquiries and the need to provide support and information to the bereaved? In particular, will he ensure that all front-line police officers are made aware of “Help is at Hand” and that families access it as a matter of course?

Families have also suggested that, in the event of a suicide, an immediate response plan should be put in place, bringing them into contact with someone with professional training to help them through the first few days and weeks and to give practical advice. As the first responders, the police often seem to be the trigger for generating such support. In addition, families propose that, in the first few days after a suicide, local agencies should work together to share information, agree lines of communication and ensure that lessons are learned. I can tell the Minister that it happens in my constituency, where it works extremely well and is very effective.

Australia leads the world on police and media communications after suicide. The all-party group heard from Professor Jane Pirkis, a leading expert in suicide research from Australia, about a programme called Mindframe designed to equip police officers with the necessary skills for dealing with the media. Officers are issued with a small card to keep in their wallet offering advice about appropriate language to use and how best to deal with media inquiries. It also highlights information to be passed to families, localised to individual police forces, about local and national support services. It is simple, but it ensures a high level of consistency, which we also need to achieve. Will the Minister look at Mindframe, with a view to adapting something similar for use by police forces in England and Wales?

Not only are the police often the first agency to be involved in a suicide, but police officers are more likely to have contact with people who are distressed and may go on to take their own lives. It is estimated that as many people see a police officer in the three months before their death as see a mental health professional in the 12 months before their death. Police officers are often the authority figures with whom the suicidal are in contact before their death; they are in contact with them more often than with any other professional. Will the Minister consider how police training can be used to build awareness of suicidal behaviour, so that officers are better equipped to recognise those at risk?

Social media such as Bebo and Facebook create an additional burden for bereaved families. Photographs posted on personal sites can often be accessed by journalists. I cannot begin to say how many families I have spoken to have been distressed when they saw photographs of their relative—often photographs that they have never seen before—printed without their knowledge or permission, often on the front page of a local newspaper. A few years ago, I worked with the Home Office to provide a simple telephone contact for each social network provider for police media teams to use to close access to individual sites. Will the Minister look at that again to ensure that police forces are aware of the process and that families can be advised of that service?

My second area of concern is about the investigation of suicides, in particular where the internet may have been a factor. In the past year, I have been contacted by several bereaved families, the majority of them parents who have lost a child. The communications follow a similar pattern. In the aftermath of a suicide, it becomes apparent that the individual may have used the internet to access information on the means and methods to take their own life. They may also have been offered encouragement to do so via internet sites. In all the cases brought to me, the police have decided not to investigate the individual’s computer. The reasons are varied, including the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, general privacy issues, time and money—the latter becoming a growing issue as police forces face budget constraints.

Without investigation, what may amount to criminal incitement to suicide is going undetected and unchallenged. Papyrus, a suicide prevention charity that works with bereaved families, is aware of 50 cases in which the internet played a significant part in a suicide. If the police do not routinely investigate websites explored by individuals before their suicides, we will never know the real scale of the problem or what the most dangerous websites are. If the police are unwilling to investigate, surely the full facts are not being presented to the coroner. We need national guidelines for such investigations and we need police forces to investigate computers and internet use as a matter of course where there is a suspected or known suicide. Will the Minister examine the 2000 Act to see whether any aspect of the Act is seen by police forces as a prevention to further investigation of computers? Will he issue clear guidance to police forces to ensure that, at the least, the history of internet use before death is examined and notified to the coroner? That is a small task, and for an expert it takes a matter of minutes. However, most families cannot do that for themselves.

I wish to end by thanking the many police officers who have been given the awful task of investigating suicides and who have been given the even worse task of notifying the families of those who have died. In securing this debate, I have aimed to bring greater clarity and consistency for police officers and families alike. We ask a difficult task of our police officers: to be able to go on dangerous streets, to tackle violent crime and drugs, and to be able to deal with people in a high state of distress and trauma. It is important that they are given the guidance and training to do so, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. The Government are committed to ensuring that prisons are places of work and restoration. We are focused on a programme to ensure that, wherever possible, we introduce work into prisons. There are problems with the physical estate, but we are determined to make that happen wherever we can.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Parc young offenders institution in my constituency had a report from the chief inspector of prisons recently that revealed that 60% of the 64 inmates were admitted with drug-related problems, that 25% had alcohol-related problems and that 89% had truanted from school repeatedly. What steps are we taking to ensure that rehabilitation is a real possibility in private sector prisons?

[Nick Herbert]

Rehabilitation is important, whether in a public or private sector prison. The movement to payment by results will ensure that providers are focused on what they need to do to reduce reoffending. Ensuring that offenders get off drugs and deal with their alcohol problems is an important part of that. That is one reason why we are piloting drug recovery wings in prisons. We will maintain our focus on those areas.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

The right hon. Lady gives a good example. It is often people with difficult personal circumstances who have such problems. They might be here and unwell or dying. They might be literally on their own in this country. All the evidence shows that if we want people who come here as refugees or for humanitarian protection to integrate, the best way to achieve that is for their family to be here to give them support; often that is intergenerational support.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hughes]

I am trying to be quick, but I will.

[Mrs Moon]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that an increasing difficulty for the people he is describing is that they have to make a telephone call to see whether they are eligible for legal aid? We are talking about people who might have poor command of the English language. The people they talk to are not trained lawyers. They will no doubt get their stories, their dates and everything mixed up. That will, yet again, make it impossible for people to get the legal help and advice that they need, even when their case is totally justified.

[Simon Hughes]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington and I, along with others, have tabled an amendment on telephone access that we will come to later. This is one of the matters on which I have had a significant number of representations from law centres and people who deal with such work. I understand her point and agree with it.

It is often not possible for family members to claim asylum because they are not in the UK. They therefore do not get the benefit of legal aid.

The UK Border Agency often requires evidence of the relationship. That is not surprising and it is perfectly proper. People are asked to undergo DNA tests. Spouses are asked to produce evidence of their marriage. That might be straightforward, but it might not be, either in law or in practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Llwyd]

Later on, I shall speak to my amendment that partially deals with this matter, and the right hon. Gentleman might wish to join us in the Lobby if I press it to a Division.

I want to be as quick as I can, because other hon. Members wish to speak and we have a lot of work to get through. If the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) is tempted to press amendment 74 to a Division, I will encourage my colleagues to follow me into the Lobby.

I should like to speak briefly to amendments 91 to 102, 83 and 103, which are in my name. I listened carefully to the Minister when he referred to amendment 91. He said that the words “or other intimate” are not necessary, which I accept. They probably are otiose, and therefore that point has been dealt with. I dare say that much of what the Justice Secretary will say tomorrow on self-defence will also be otiose, but that is another debate for another day.

Amendment 92 would broaden the definition by removing the words “physical or mental abuse” and replacing them with

“any incident of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse (whether physical, mental, financial or emotional)”.

The Minister knows that many people wrote to right hon. and hon. Members and we heard lots of evidence on a subject that has exercised many in the Chamber this evening just as it exercised those in Committee. I have begun to question whether pre-legislative scrutiny is worth anything, because if we get hundreds of pieces of evidence from informed bodies, people at the sharp end and practitioners, and then decide to do little or nothing about them, the process is brought into disrepute.

Amendment 93 would insert the words

“or where an allegation is made that B has been abused by A or is at risk of being abused by A”

to line 4 of page 103. Paragraphs 10 and 11 to schedule 1 provide for legal aid for the alleged victim in family cases involving domestic violence or child abuse. However, they do not provide for aid for the adult against whom the allegation is made. The amendment would bring the alleged perpetrator back within scope. That might sound strange, but I shall explain the thinking behind it in a moment.

Amendment 96 would insert the words:

“Civil legal services provided to an adult in relation to proceedings for financial relief in respect of a child who is the subject of an order or procedure mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)”,

and amendment 97 would add the words:

“Civil legal services provided in relation to proceedings in which the court is considering giving a direction under section 37 of the Children Act 1989 (direction to authority, where care or supervision order may be appropriate, to investigate child’s circumstances)”.

In responding to points made earlier, the Minister said that the section 37 investigation could well amount to nothing. However, such investigations are not taken lightly. They are always instigated on basic evidence, and caring for that child is not a routine matter, but an extremely important one.

Amendment 98 would add

“Civil legal services provided in relation to proceedings arising out of a family relationship involving a child in respect of whom a court has given a direction under section 37 of the Children Act 1989 (direction to authority, where care or supervision order may be appropriate, to investigate child’s circumstances); and “family relationship” has the same meaning for the purposes of this sub-paragraph as it has for the purposes of paragraph 10”

to line 39. That would bring within scope both proceedings leading to an order under section 37 of the Children Act 1989 and all subsequent steps in family proceedings after a section 37 order has been made. It would also ensure that the person against whom allegations of abuse are made is brought within scope.

Amendments 100 to 102 are consequential amendments. Their purpose would be to amend paragraph 13, which provides legal aid to child parties in cases that come under the relevant parts of schedule 1, but not to adult parties. That provision will result in unrepresented adults being forced to cross-examine expert witnesses and, in many cases, even the child concerned. The amendments would therefore bring adult parties in such cases within the scope of legal aid provision.

Amendment 103 relates to the director of the Legal Services Commission. We debated in Committee the role of the commission, the independence, or not, of the director in arriving at decisions and the question of whether those decisions will simply be cost-driven. The amendment is designed to deal with those issues. It states that

“the Director must determine that an individual qualifies for civil legal services where the services relate to a matter falling within paragraph 10 of Schedule 1 and—

(a) the individual has been admitted to a refuge for persons suffering from domestic abuse;

(b) the individual has obtained medical or other professional services relating to the consequences of domestic abuse, or

(c) an assessment for the purposes of possible mediation of a family dispute has concluded that the parties need not engage in mediation as a result of domestic abuse,

and in this subsection ‘domestic abuse’ means abuse of the kind to which paragraph 10(1) of Schedule 1 relates”.

The intention is self-evident.

I declare an interest at this late stage in my remarks. I practised family and criminal law for 15 or 16 years as a solicitor and for an equal number of years at the Bar, so I have some understanding of how the family courts work and would therefore gently admonish the Minister: the word “custody” went out of favour about 12 years ago—but that is by the bye. My background in this area of law leads me to believe that these changes might well have a devastating effect on families and, even more importantly, children. Both, of course, are closely interrelated: if it is disastrous for the family, it is obviously additionally disastrous for the young child as well. What is more, I believe that the Government’s decision to press ahead with a weakened definition of “domestic abuse” will result in many women—for it will be overwhelmingly women—entering into court proceedings alone and without legal aid funding.

[Mrs Moon]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the problem is that we are coming from different directions? For Opposition Members, the priority is the protection of women and children who have been abused, who are facing abuse and who live in fear of their lives. For Government Members, the priority is saving money.

[Mr Llwyd]

I have to agree with the hon. Lady, and I would pray in aid another point about the more general civil cases where litigants in person will be 10 times more prevalent in courts than they were previously. That is simply to save money, but actually it will not save money. Instead, it will increase pressure on courts and court time and will be a complete disaster—a dog’s breakfast. It is worth remembering that 40% of magistrates and county courts have been closed and that the Ministry of Justice was looking for a 40% decrease in its first budget—that is rather convenient. However, I have no doubt that she is right, and it grieves me that money comes before the welfare of young children. We are talking about knife crime, juveniles going on the wrong side of the law and so on, and the Bill will do nothing to address that. Instead, I fear that it will make matters even worse, although I hope that I am wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore]

As far as I am aware, there is no such evidence. What the Minister has in mind is perhaps just an untoward result of his own legislation. I am not doubting that there will be many false accusations to be made here, but by ruling out legal aid for family cases and making the only route to it the ability to jump through the domestic violence hurdles, perhaps a situation is being set up, which might lead to that happening. It is an unnecessary consequence of a decision that has already been made to take legal aid out of family cases.

One might sometimes get the impression that legal aid is something for which lots of people qualify so that it has become a big problem in this country, but it is already the case that many people do not qualify for legal aid on financial grounds—even to get protection from domestic violence or to get the occupancy of their own home and the exclusion of a violent partner from it. Many people who already suffer the additional difficulties caused by relatively low incomes and small assets do not qualify, and even in cases of domestic violence the availability of assistance is limited.

The Bill could have another untoward consequence. Those advising people who have experienced domestic violence are likely to feel obliged to encourage them to take legal proceedings to establish the fact of the violence, regardless of whether such action is essential to their protection at that time. That will enable those people to jump through the hoop and qualify for legal aid for wider purposes, involving, for instance, what happens to the matrimonial home, what happens to the children and what happens in relation to other financial matters—issues that are extremely important to many women. Thus the potential for more litigation will be created. When applicants who would otherwise have qualified for legal aid do not do so, what will happen to the savings that we are told will be generated if additional, potentially non-essential, actions are brought?

In an intervention earlier, I asked a question to which I did not receive a satisfactory answer. The Minister said that a finding of fact in a family law case involving domestic violence would enable people to jump the hurdle, but I am not sure what kind of case he was referring to. An application for protection or for an injunction would be covered, but how will people gain access to the family court to secure that finding of fact if they cannot obtain legal aid in the first place? I do not agree with the suggestion that the Bill will widen the scope for qualification for legal aid.

I was concerned by some of the language used by the Minister. It reminded me strongly of things that I thought had ended. I remember that the police often used to say that women made up these stories, because it was not uncommon for women to report violence to the police and then “retract” their allegations. The police would say, “He will have his feet back under the table by tomorrow, so there is no point in doing anything.” That demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of the nature of abusive relationships, and of the pressures that were frequently placed on women to go back or take their men back—pressures exerted, sometimes inadvertently, by children whose mothers tried to put their needs first, or by other family members saying, “You have made your bed and you had better sleep in it”, or “Are you doing the best thing for the sake of the children?” That is not to speak of the financial and other practical pressures that may be imposed.

[Mrs Moon]

All too recently the Government wanted to give anonymity to male rapists. Now women who face domestic violence will not receive the protection that should be offered to them. The Government are failing to take account of what we know about the implications for women and children who, having experienced domestic violence earlier in their history, end up in the criminal justice system. Is it not the case that they do not understand what happens to women and children—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We must have shorter interventions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

The only element of mandatory sentencing we are contemplating relates to knife crime, so that it is absolutely clear that this House sends a very clear message on that. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will think it appropriate that people spend six months in prison when they threaten people with a knife.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

5. What representations he has received on his proposals to transfer functions from the chief coroner.

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

12. Which organisations his Department consulted on its decision not to establish the office of chief coroner.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)]

I have discussed our proposals with a number of interested parties, including peers, MPs and civil society groups such as Inquest and the Royal British Legion. We have, where possible, sought to take into account those discussions in developing the proposals announced on 14 June to transfer a number of the functions of the chief coroner while retaining the office on the statute book. We believe that represents the fastest and most efficient way of delivering reform of the coronial system, although we accept that some stakeholders would prefer us to proceed with full implementation of the office of the chief coroner.

[Mrs Moon]

I am still concerned about how, without the office of the chief coroner, we are going to ensure that there is greater consistency in the recording of verdicts, because having that consistency would mean that information was available that provided research capability and informed service development, so that we could prevent future deaths.

[Mr Djanogly]

I have had a number of discussions with the hon. Lady on a number of matters appertaining to coroners and chief coroners and I know that she takes a great interest in this area. The new arrangements we announced on 14 June, coupled with the draft charter for the coroner service, which we published for consultation on 19 May, will deliver proper oversight of the non-judicial aspects of the coroner system and will help to drive up standards of service across England and Wales. The national charter, with its uniform expectations of what those coming into contact with the system should expect, will be key in helping to ensure a greater level of consistency. At the same time, a new ministerial board will be able to consider national statistics gathered from across the coroner service and to consider what action could be taken to address any shortcomings.

Oral Answers to Questions

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

The value of what is done by charities and the voluntary sector in the rehabilitation of offenders cannot possibly be overstated. There are thousands of groups and tens of thousands of people who want to engage with us to deliver the rehabilitation of offenders because it is the right thing to do. With a system now focusing on outcomes rather than inputs, it would be fairly foolish to ignore the capacity of this great army of auxiliaries to help us deliver rehabilitation.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Barnardo’s is working with G4S Parc prison in my constituency, along with a range of other partners, to look at the Parc supporting families scheme and the family intervention unit, which take the most difficult and prolific offenders and work with them to bring change. I invite the Minister to come to Bridgend to see how that work is changing outcomes, changing the opportunities for rehabilitation, bringing security for communities and reducing reoffending. It is an excellent example of the schemes that we are looking for.

[Mr Blunt]

I am very grateful for the hon. Lady’s invitation. I have visited all the prisons in Wales, but I have rather more of the estate to get around before I have seen them all. I am anxious to hear about the kind of scheme she describes. I see examples of good practice all over the country of people working very hard in both the prison and probation services to engage other organisations, as she has described, and help the rehabilitation of offenders.