Transforming Rehabilitation Programme

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Nuttall. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) for setting out the importance of focusing on the Government’s transforming rehabilitation programme. The debate is highlighting the risks and confusion that are manifest as a result of introducing an untested programme and reorganisation affecting some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Getting prison and probation wrong fails victims, the public and the offender. The issue is too important. For Labour, therefore, penal reform has to be about evidence-based practice, to ensure that all interventions that are deployed have the highest opportunity of being transformative. Opposition Members will not be heard calling for nothing to be done when reoffending rates sit at about 47.5%—that figure has remained static for many years. Labour is the first to demand intervention.

In June I was the Member in charge of a debate in Westminster Hall that highlighted many of the serious issues in our prisons leading to the failure to help offenders turn their life around. Throughout the debate Opposition colleagues emphasised things that need to be dealt with to stem the reoffending rate. Intervention is vital, but intervention is very different from reorganisation.

The transforming rehabilitation programme has been about more than only reorganisation; it has also been about privatisation. As with health, education and so many public services, the Government’s main interests are political rather than purposeful. They have made it absolutely clear that they will be seeking the involvement only of private and voluntary sector organisations in their programme, not of the public sector—not of those with the highest expertise. We have scrutinised so many Government attempts to transfer the accountability of services from the state to shareholders, followed by cuts. That is what we are now witnessing across the probation service. With each such change, we see a shift in risk from the Government, so that when things go wrong they may simply point a finger—but they no longer have a responsibility to lift a finger.

The community rehabilitation company that serves my constituency and the whole of Humberside, Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire, Purple Futures, is a combination of Interserve—the main provider, which describes itself as a leading

“multinational support service and construction company”—

and three minor partners, social enterprise and charity P3, Shelter and 3SC, which manages the contract. None of those organisations boasts any expertise in the provision of rehabilitative services for offenders. They have worked together for only a short time and have not built up any evidence to prove that they can transform rehabilitation.

The fracturing of the prison, probation and now rehabilitation services has of course, as with all such arrangements, created serious issues, which also means risk. Predictably, issues of IT, communications—as we have heard—and barriers to information sharing have come to the fore. We have also seen increased bureaucracy. That is why it is so important to be able to scrutinise what is going on, but without access to information and without freedom of information making it freely open to the public, it is hard to scrutinise services and therefore safety.

We have seen the job losses that inevitably follow the privatisation of services. As a result, confidence in the service has fallen, and as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), staff morale has plummeted to only 65%. Again, ideology was put before evidence. I want to contrast that with a successful prison-to-community service just outside my constituency. Askham Grange women’s open prison, provided by the state, has a very different story.

The national reoffending rate is 47.5%, but at Askham Grange it is below 6%, the lowest in the country. Askham Grange is an open establishment operating a resettlement regime for women. It provides support for up to 128 women at any one time, including 10 mothers and babies. Its ethos is built on the maintenance of decent and respectful relationships between all who live, work and visit there. Its focus is to provide support in achieving positive family relationships and to provide individual learning programmes that include education, work skills and personal development.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I am so pleased that the hon. Lady mentioned family relationships. If rehabilitation is to work, it is essential that while prisoners are in custody their family ties are maintained, so that they have a home to go to when they leave, whenever possible, and the best chance of not returning to detention later.

[Rachael Maskell]

I thank the hon. Lady for emphasising the importance of family. That is why Askham Grange can be held up as a good example, which facilitates such family relationships.

Individual potential is also realised at Askham Grange, with progression through a resettlement regime and into community work and/or paid work placements that reflect the training and skills gained throughout the sentence, as well as those already held. Askham Grange enables women to participate in sport and provides health facilities, a strong chaplaincy service and a wide range of courses, from the Open University programme to creative writing, business administration and employability skills. A range of vocational training opportunities are also on offer, from gardening to service assistant posts, which can lead to City & Guilds qualifications. The Ministry of Justice rated that service as exceptional in all criteria. It is one of only three prisons to have such high commendation.

Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons provides consistently good reports of the prison. It describes how women feel “safe” there and says that

“Askham Grange continues to be an impressive…prison”.

Indeed it is. With such excellent services, the only shocking thing is that the Government want to close the prison. The independent monitoring board described that as “bewildering”.

The Government want to replace just about the best rehabilitation service in the land with an untried and untested programme—can you believe it? If the Government are really committed to the safety of our communities, turning around the lives of some of the most vulnerable women and truly transforming rehabilitation, it is time for them first to announce that Askham Grange will not close and, secondly, to use the 70 years of evidence-based practice at Askham Grange to provide excellence across our prison and probation services.