Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

We think that justice must be served; punishment is important. The short sentences are often for those who have systematically flouted and breached community sentences. To cut crime, the answer is to make sure justice is served. As well as incarceration where that is required for the purposes of punishment, we work on drug rehabilitation, skills and employment so that those offenders who want to take a second chance to turn themselves around—not all of them will—have the opportunity to grasp it.

[Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on helping offenders into employment. Given estimates that more than half of offenders may be dyslexic and given the impact of dyslexia and illiteracy on the ability to work after a sentence, what is he doing to make sure that screening is available to ensure that prisoners can get the right training, especially on literacy if they are dyslexic, to help them into more successful work afterwards?

[Dominic Raab]

One issue we have discussed—I will be hosting prison governors at a roundtable shortly—is making sure that there is an immediate diagnosis within days of an offender getting into prison, so that we know two things: their numeracy and literacy levels, which will of course bring in other special educational needs, to which my right hon. Friend rightly refers; and what the next qualification is that they may—or may not—be able to achieve, so that we have a decent plan that gives them the chance to improve their skills, get into work and avoid a life of crime.