Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Macleod Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

12. What plans he has to assist ex-offenders into employment.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

14. What plans he has to assist ex-offenders into employment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

We have already ensured that prison leavers aged over 18 who claim jobseeker’s allowance on release or shortly afterwards are referred to the Work programme immediately. We have also introduced work in prisons on a much larger scale than before, providing offenders with the real work experiences. Our transforming rehabilitation reforms will see new rehabilitation providers working to tackle the root causes of offending by using innovative approaches such as mentoring and by helping ex-offenders to find housing, training and employment.

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[Jeremy Wright]

I certainly think that it demonstrates that a range of different organisations have a significant part to play. I am familiar with what National Grid does, and I know that it does an extremely good job. One of the questions that it has raised with me is whether there are better ways of enabling it to work with offenders in a limited number of prisons. I think that the restructuring of the prison estate that we have in mind, which will ensure that prisoners can be released into the community from only a certain number of prisons, will help it to do even more good work along the lines that my hon. Friend has described.

[Mary Macleod]

How will the Minister engage ex-offenders in his plans for long-term mentoring even after they have found work? I believe that keeping a job and breaking the cycle of crime is essential to successful rehabilitation.

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree that mentoring is likely to play a significant part in what providers choose to do in order to turn lives around. I also agree that involving ex-offenders is a good way to start to find the mentors whom we will need. A great deal of very effective mentoring already takes place in prisons, with older and more established prisoners mentoring younger and newer ones. We want that to continue outside the prison gates, so that we can provide the kind of support that my hon. Friend has described.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Macleod Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I repeat the support that I have given before to the hon. Gentleman’s campaign for early intervention. I entirely agree with what he says.

We are certainly very interested in the project that is about to get under way in Peterborough. It will have to be evaluated in due course, but my ministerial team will be following closely this system of raising capital finance by means of a social bond, and then targeting the need to reduce the rate of reoffending in a particular group. Reducing reoffending will be a key part of our policy, and this is an important way of trying out one method of tackling it. I hope that it succeeds.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that some of those young offenders are in the criminal justice system owing to their lack of a strong, solid education? What plans has he to try to ensure that something is done about that?

[Mr Clarke]

The present Government have an extremely important programme of education reform. Anything that can be done to raise standards of education and training in this country will, I believe, have an indirect impact on the number of people who drop out of society in some way and are tempted to start offending.

I agree that we need to look across the broad range of social policy, considering relationships between crime and housing problems, employment problems and education and training problems, if we are to achieve the improvement in our social fabric which, eventually, will continue to reduce criminality. Meanwhile, some young people are serious offenders. We do need a secure estate, and we do need to prosecute those from whom the public must be protected. I think that we would all welcome any measure that will successfully reduce the number of young people who are needlessly criminalised when they could be diverted into a more sensible way of handling their problems.