Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

I would make two points on that. First, hockey is a good example of what basketball needs to do. It had great success in 1988, with its gold medal, but then went bust and had its funding cut completely for lack of performance. It built itself back up, however, and got itself to the stage where it was medalling again, as it did in London. Secondly, I am aware that basketball has made an appeal to UK Sport. Once we know the result of that, I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

UK Sport funding is handed out in a four-year Olympic cycle. Does the Minister believe that that is the right way forward, or does he think there needs to be change?

[Hugh Robertson]

I am sorry to say it to my hon. Friend, but that is not actually correct. The funding for the Rio cycle includes considerable funding for developing athletes that will take them through to the 2020 games.

Transforming Rehabilitation

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The support in prisons for mental health is substantially provided by the national health service. We have to make sure that what starts in prison carries on after prison, but one of the flaws in the current system is that it does not work very well in that respect. I hope that, by creating a service that is much more through the gate and by addressing the life-management of offenders as they move through prison and afterwards, there will be continuity in the delivery of those services and that a mentor will look three months ahead and say, “Prisoner X is coming out and needs to carry on with their counselling service. I will make sure that happens.”

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that in 2010 and 2012 only 56% of those on drug treatment and testing orders completed them. Will he clarify and confirm what further steps will be taken to ensure that those who are on such orders fully complete them?

[Chris Grayling]

I intend to legislate in the near future to ensure that, when we do this, the court has the power to require people who have short sentences to go through rehabilitation programmes. It is important that we have a system whereby if someone who has a drug problem has a short sentence and is released from jail having started rehab there, that rehab will carry on and they will be required to do it. That will be the case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The right hon. Gentleman will have to wait and see exactly what we propose and exactly when we propose it, but what he has just described is not going to happen.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the new court and probation service delivery model, by which probation staff have to provide a statement on the day that a plea is taken, ensures that we get a swift, transparent response on the day?

[Jeremy Wright]

I certainly agree that we want to ensure that justice is swifter and that where possible the probation service produces reports as quickly as it can. My hon. Friend will know from his experience of practising in the courts that probation officers often produce reports in very short time frames, which I am sure is of great assistance to the courts and to be commended.

Literacy and Drugs (Custodial Sentences)

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan.

Prison works. It locks people up effectively so that they cannot then commit a specific crime. Yet for many years, prison has failed to change prisoners’ behaviour. Despite multiple new laws and increasingly tougher sentences laid down by ever more robust politicians, prisoners throughout the 1990s and the Blair and Brown Governments have still reoffended in the tens of thousands upon release. It cannot be a satisfactory Government investment when 70% of offenders reoffend on release.

Some 50% of prisoners have a drug problem, and 50% lack basic literacy and maths. Although we can bring much change within prisons to combat drug use and illiteracy rates—I support what the Government are trying to do, although we cannot discuss that today—we can and should start the reform process at the point of sentencing, before offenders even enter prison.

I argue that when passing sentence, a judge should be able to prescribe, as part of the sentence, compulsory completion of a literacy course when the offender is illiterate and of a drug testing and rehabilitation course when they have a drug problem. I would go further: I do not believe that we are sufficiently addressing the incentive to the prisoner. I seek a change to the process for release on licence and, possibly, a change whereby deductions are offered for specific success at passing either literacy or drug rehabilitation courses.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of my speech, I should make a declaration that I have written a book on the issue, the worthy “Doing Time”, all proceeds from which go to charity. There is no personal benefit to myself. My ideas, which I talk about today, are more fully expressed in the book. I am a former criminal and legal aid barrister. I conducted nine murder trials on both sides of the fence and between 150 and 180 Crown court and magistrates court trials. As most criminal barristers will know, I am still owed money by the state, even though I have not practised at the bar for two years and seven months. I am grateful to all those who assisted me in the creation of the ideas in the book and to all the prisoners, governors and charities who helped and suggested the ideas that we are trying to expand on today.

The principle today is that we require prisoners to do something to qualify for the privilege of early release, thereby benefiting the wider community by being better able to cope with the outside world on release. At present, if a prisoner does not start a fire in the prison or does not commit some tremendous offence, release on licence is effectively automatic, the consequence being that the persons released are, by and large, ill equipped to deal with the outside world that they have to face. How do we know this? There is copious evidence from august bodies, such as the Centre for Social Justice, showing that 82% of all prisoners have writing abilities less than an 11-year-old’s, approximately 50% were excluded from school and have no qualifications and only one in five could complete a job application form. And we wonder why those people fail to become law-abiding members of society after release.

Prison numbers have doubled from 43,000 to 87,000 over the past 20 years and literacy and drug problems are often worse than before. In the prison in Durham, 300 out of 1,000 prisoners are on methadone or Subutex and 20% in most prisons will be taking illegal drugs. Many prisoners combine both. It is not surprising that we are struggling, if we are releasing people who are drug addicted into the community.

Many of the clients I represented as an advocate were incapable of giving meaningful written instructions or even reading the prosecution papers. Too often, they would say, for example, “My letters aren’t so good”, and they too frequently signed their names with an X. Reading and writing are the fundamental precursors to any job. Someone cannot even be a builder’s labourer in this day and age without the ability to read and write. There should be, where possible, a compulsory requirement for a prisoner to learn.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I declare an interest. I, too, was a barrister and prosecuted and defended. I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate and pay tribute to him for his excellent book, “Doing Time,” which contains a comment from Lord Justice Maurice Kay, saying what a wonderful book it is. It is a good book.

I agree with my hon. Friend about literacy: defendants often go into and come out of prison illiterate. Does he agree that when an individual goes into prison their skills should be assessed? For example, they may suffer from dyslexia or other issues. At the moment, everything else is assessed, but dyslexia is not. As my hon. Friend knows, dyslexia affects communication.

[Guy Opperman]

I endorse my hon. Friend’s point. One could go further on dyslexia. Dyslexia, like total illiteracy, is hidden by many prisoners in prison, because it is effectively a crime for them to admit that they cannot read or write or are dyslexic or dyspraxic. Unless that is tested for on arrival, there will be no awareness in the prisons of what kind of person they are dealing with.

Let us be in no doubt. No hon. Member in this Chamber, and no one in my party, has any difficulty sending people to prison, because they clearly should go there for the appropriate offence. That is not an issue. What is at issue is what we do with them when they are in prison, because that is when the redemption and rehabilitation should take place. Once the prisoner is captive, we need to teach them the basic skills that their parents, their school and their society have failed to provide them with.

There are many areas in which we can work to correct the issue. Notably, there could be a better approach from the Ministry of Justice, although doubtless we will hear many of the great things that it is trying to do. I am a massive supporter of peer mentoring, both outside prison—I welcome what the Secretary of State is doing—and inside. I will try to address that. Staff training needs to be improved. I welcome the improvements that I gather are taking place at prison officer training courses. There has to be a change in the attitude of, and constraints on, governors. It is scandalous that for too long, the 47 key performance indicators that determined how a prison governor was operating were all fundamentally to do with security and not about rehabilitation. That is patently wrong and I am glad that we are changing it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rehman Chishti]

On rehabilitation, does my hon. Friend agree and understand that there is a problem in respect of prisoners on short sentences, because proper continuity of treatment cannot be provided if they are transferred between prisons?

[Guy Opperman]

There is no question but that the problem with short sentences is the most difficult task that the Minister who holds the portfolio at the present stage has to deal with. It is much easier dealing with a longer term prisoner, because there are all the benefits of time and, hopefully, security of tenure in a particular prison. I deprecate our moving prisoners around all the time and that there is no specific locality. I accept that it is difficult, but it is not impossible. The mentoring schemes and the work that we are trying to do must be the answer, and the basis on which we are trying to deal with the short sentence problem.

There is take-up, and we have discussed it briefly, and doubtless I will be told that there are programmes to teach basic literacy skills. However, participation in such programmes is highly limited. Prisoners are, without question, unenthusiastic to volunteer for such programmes, swallowing their pride about their failure in respect of literacy. There are also issues to do with whether they could earn more money doing work, rather than learning a skill. There is lack of incentive.

The National Audit Office recently summed up the current system with a damning statistic:

“Only one fifth of prisoners, with serious literacy or numeracy needs, enrol on a course that would help them.”

The consequence is that even if there were all the classes in the world and money was poured on to the problem, if there is only 20% take-up, the ability to transform such individuals will be seriously compromised.

I have no doubt that the Minister will tell me that the offenders’ learning and skills service phase 4 programme and the prisoner sentence plans are good ways forward, and to a degree they are; but prisoner sentence plans are, with no disrespect to the Opposition and the former Government, a classic, old-style Labour, tick-box Ministry of Justice approach, which, however worthy, has little positive effect. During the preparation of the book, I spoke to prisoners and I am clear that there is lack of incentive. The incentive is the key.

There is a solution from the courts. We can identify the problem at an early stage, on a relatively cost-neutral basis, and the judge can then pass a sentence imposing a literacy course as part of that sentence. Instead of the prison choosing to do that, the judge makes the order, which is part of the sentence. If it is left to a prison governor’s choice, depending on where an individual is sent, it will be a struggle. It would make the efficacy of prison so much better, because that prisoner could then be sent to a place that specifically deals with literacy or drugs courses, in the context of all our prisons.

Sentence deductions for completing such courses is the way forward. Such an approach is radical and, I accept, needs some piloting—it will not happen straightaway —but professionals at organisations such as the Shannon Trust, which I urge the Minister to hold close to him as the leader in this particular field, are enthusiastic about the idea. They make the point that unless the inmate is willingly engaged, we will struggle to deal with the problem. To make progress, therefore, we have to incentivise. The individual prisoner’s knowledge that the acquisition of literacy and other skills could secure him an early release date is a proper incentive, producing the manifest benefit of a cheaper prison system, which is of less cost to the taxpayer and allows us to spend our money on all the other things that we wish to spend it on. Furthermore, the people who emerge at the end of the process will be far better able to deal with their difficulties.

In short, at present the judges lack such a power; it is held only post-licence. In other words, the judge has the power to order those conditions for release on licence but, frankly, the horse has bolted and is gone. The moment that people are released on licence, their fundamental behaviour cannot be changed—we have to change it while they are captive. The power already exists on licence, so it is a short step for it to be acted on in prison. We need to teach prisoners to read and write, which is a proper part of their sentence, in addition to simple captivity.

To move on to the matter of drugs, the Government are doing good work following the CSJ, Huseyin Djemil and Blakely reports—all of which I endorse—to address progress in rehabilitation. The failure to test prisoners on entry to and release from prison, however, is bizarre. We end up with a form of Russian roulette. Fifty per cent of people in prison are drug addicted in some shape or form, but when they arrive they are only asked a voluntary question, “Are you drug addicted?” Patently, many lie. Some even bring drugs in with them when they enter prison, but we do not test them. Five in 10 going into prison are drug addicted, but we do not know who they are. How on earth can the governor properly deal with such matters and how on earth can the Government money that we are spending on such expensive institutions properly be targeted on those individuals? It is all very well teaching inmates to read and write—literacy—and all manner of skills, but if they are drug addicted when they emerge, whether to substitutes such as methadone or still to heroin, the drug of choice in prisons, it will be of no benefit.

I want compulsory testing, because it is surely better to know the problems before people enter the system. I stress the need to test at prison, although it might be considered for courthouses, because the problem is fundamentally obvious when one enters a Crown court. All Members present in the Chamber were lawyers in their former lives. In my time I represented a man who stole more than 150 times over 150 days, at £25 a pop, breaking into cars to get money for a heroin fix. The police would very much like the information that such a person was heroin addicted upon his release. We do not know what we are dealing with, but we can do something about it.

If a judge was able to order drug treatment and testing as part of a sentence, and it was properly enforced—there are plenty of schemes in prison, the best known and most successful being the Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust or RAPt programme—the prison, and the authorities on an inmate’s release, would know whether it had been successful. As well as simple incarceration, surely the object of the custody exercise is to change the behaviour of the individuals; if we are not detoxing them to become non-addicted to drugs, what on earth are we trying to do by sending people to prison? We should bear in mind, too, that 20% of all people who take drugs say that they tried them for the first time in prison. That is a sobering statistic.

I want incentives and deductions applied for automatic release, and release on licence must also be addressed in that way. If a prisoner is proposed for release on licence and has a drug condition as part of their sentence, but is not shown to be clean at its end, why on earth should we release that individual on licence? Release is a massive incentive for them. I would go further and ask the Ministry of Justice to consider whether, if we wish to incentivise, we should tie the two fundamental conditions that are key to changing prisoner behaviour to possible further sentence deductions. Hypothetically, on a two-year custodial sentence, one might be looking at a one to three-month deduction for successful completion of a literacy or drugs course. Surely that must be the way forward.

To conclude, if we simply ignore prisoners, lock them up and then discharge them with no skills, we will continue to have a repetition of the appalling statistics of 60% to 70% reoffending, in spite of all the best efforts of governors and Government. What I suggest is a potential way forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

The issue is practical rather than legal. My hon. Friend will recognise that to get an offender to engage properly, whether they have a drug addiction or literacy problems, they must do so voluntarily, because a compulsory arrangement will not deliver the results that we all want. That is very much the message that I have heard from the Shannon Trust, as he has.

I recognise that there are always opportunities to impose restrictions on offenders, whether in the context of community sentences or licence conditions, but we must seek to incentivise prisoners to do what we know they need to do to minimise their risk of reoffending. That will be partly by persuasion, and partly by ensuring that they are prepared to engage with the provision so that they get out of it what they need. I understand my hon. Friend’s point.

[Rehman Chishti]

Does the Minister have an assessment of how many drug treatment and testing orders were given in the last two years, and how many were successfully completed?

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that I do not have the figures immediately to hand, but I am sure that we can get them to him. Inevitably with the regime for drug treatment, which I will come to in a moment, we need greater engagement and better results. We are working as hard as we can to achieve that.

I have talked a little about education. We are doing other things, which I do not have much time to go through, but I draw attention to the virtual campuses in 101 prisons, which provide an opportunity for prisoners to learn with carefully controlled access to a suite of web-based education and employment materials. We must recognise that we need greater scope to broaden the learning offer, to alert prisoners to job vacancies in their release area, to make the process of learning much more akin to that experienced in the outside world, and to give prisoners the experience of using IT.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham referred to drugs, and I agree that there are two priorities for the Government and the National Offender Management Service. First, we must stop drugs from entering prisons and secondly we must get offenders off drugs and keep them off drugs. He is right to highlight the fact that the demand for drugs in prisons is far greater and more concentrated than anywhere else in society. The high demand and limited supply of drugs creates prices five to six times higher than in the community and represents a lucrative market. That is why prisons are targeted by organised crime groups using sophisticated smuggling methods. Despite rigorous prison security measures, drugs can penetrate prison walls.

I acknowledge that, as my hon. Friend said, some prisoners will try a drug in prison that they have not used before, but they may have been using other drugs in the community—perhaps they have been taking crack cocaine or heavily abusing alcohol—that they substitute with that new drug.

I assure my hon. Friend that we are committed to improving the situation, and we are making progress. Particular initiatives have included an increase in drug-free prison wings where increased security measures prevent access to drugs. I am pleased that my hon. Friend, as he says in his book, supports these measures.

We are trialling drug detection technology and using technology to deny signals to illegal mobile phones in prisons, which are often associated with drug supply. We are also pursuing the roll-out of a networked prison intelligence system to help prisons to stay one step ahead of those seeking to breach prison security. As a result, fewer prisoners are testing positive for drugs than at any time since 1996. Around 7% of prisoners test positive for drug misuse when they are in custody, which is a considerable fall from the 64% who used drugs in the four weeks before custody.

My hon. Friend talked about the opportunity to test when someone goes into custody and comes out. Those are fixed points, and I understand their significance, but he will recognise that we must make sure that prisoners do not use drugs at any time throughout their sentence, and mandatory, random drug testing is useful in that.

As well as keeping drugs out of prison, we want to deliver a rehabilitation revolution that helps to transform the lives of offenders and ensures that they do not return to a life of crime after their sentence. Reshaping treatment services in prisons and the community is at the heart of the Government’s intention to get more people free of their dependence, ready for work, and with somewhere to live. Our objective is to move towards a fully integrated, recovery-orientated system that supports continuity of treatment within and between custody and community. That includes piloting 11 drug recovery wings focused on abstinence, and connecting offenders with community drug recovery services on release.

My hon. Friend will recognise the importance of ensuring that whatever is done with drug treatment in prison, it is important to have continuity through the gate to what goes on in the community. That is also the case for prisoner education. We want to ensure that all our plans recognise that through-the-gate facility.

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution not only to today’s debate, but to the more general discussions of these issues. I look forward to engaging further with him and others, and I hope that he will be encouraged by the plans we are developing and will shortly introduce.

Church of England (Women Bishops)

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this important debate. I agree almost entirely with what the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) has said. I will not dwell on the great theological arguments or the interpretation of St Paul’s letters. Instead, I want to give a view from the pew which I think is very different from that expressed by the House of Laity.

I have been a member of the Church of England since my baptism. I have served on parochial church councils for more years than I care to remember. I have been a church treasurer and, for five years, a church warden. During that time, I can recall—to my shame—voting only once in an election for a General Synod representative. It is a process clouded in mystery, and one in which the vast majority of churchgoers are uninterested.

We are all completely mystified about why people lack interest in the democratic process. I am sure that we all have appeared at church and village halls in front of—how shall I put it?—small audiences, but I can recall only one occasion when no one turned up to a public meeting, and that was when I stood for election to the General Synod six or seven years ago. We held three or four meetings across the Lincoln diocese, to which all the candidates were invited. On one occasion about 15 people turned up, and four turned up at another, but at the one held in a church hall in Brigg the one person there was the caretaker, and he did not want to be there. It makes us question how representative the House of Laity is.

Democracy is a wonderful thing. I was reflecting on that a few weeks ago, because the elections for police and crime commissioners and the vote on women bishops more or less coincided. We had a wonderful result in the Humberside police force area, but the winning candidate received fewer first-choice votes than the loser, while in the Synod, the votes for women bishops were greater in number than those against. We have to reflect on the system that is used. I am encouraged by the noises that I hear coming from the Church saying that changes are afoot. I sincerely hope that the Synod, particularly the House of Laity, becomes much more representative in the not-too-distant future.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

On democratic systems, the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) mentioned the rule for having a two-thirds majority in all three aspects of the Church. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is completely out of touch and that there should be a single majority, as when Members of Parliament are elected to this place?

[Martin Vickers]

My instinct is to say yes, but having just reflected on different voting systems and the potential outcome, I recognise that we need careful thought on how we proceed. I very much hope that the Church will, at a very early date, make alternative proposals.

The important thing is that we quickly move on from this. I mentioned the average person in the pew. We desperately want a Church that proclaims the gospel and cares about its mission in local communities, and at a wider level about being recognised and appreciated by the great majority. It may well be that a smaller number of people than not so long ago will admit to being a Christian, and that is sad, but it is certain that that number will not grow if the Church is seen to be concentrating on these interminable internal arguments in which the wider world is not the slightest bit interested. I want the Church of England to play an important role in our society, because it is vitally needed. As we see time and again at a national and a local level, it brings people together both at times of thanksgiving and in difficult circumstances. There is clearly a role for the Church to play in its mission not only to believers but to non-believers and agnostics.

I urge the Church to move as quickly as possible to revise the election procedures, particularly within the House of Laity, so that the Synod becomes more representative. The message needs to come from this House that we are concerned about the situation and want to nudge the Church in the right direction, and hope that it moves in that direction, but we should not completely rule out taking the matter into our own hands.

Dyslexia (Prisons)

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to raise this important issue. I am doing so because of a whirlwind or, as some might say, a force of nature, who entered one of my constituency surgeries earlier this year—my constituent, Jackie Hewitt-Main. She came to tell me about a project she had undertaken in Chelmsford prison, “Dyslexia Behind Bars”.

During that project, she assessed more than 2,000 offenders for special educational needs, and attempted to work with them to help them understand their learning difficulties and to succeed where the education system had so far failed them. The effect on the re-offending rates of the inmates who took part is truly astounding, and I want to bring that to the full attention of the House and the Government. I believe that Jackie’s work gives an invaluable insight into how we can break down the barriers that prevent offenders from becoming safe and productive members of their community, once they have repaid their debt to society.

I will explain Jackie’s project and her findings later, but first I want to analyse the extent of the special learning needs among our national inmate population. The sad truth is that no one is at all sure how many people in our prisons actually suffer from dyslexia or other learning difficulties. In most cases, the information accompanying people into prison is unlikely to show whether learning difficulties or learning disabilities have been identified.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. On collation, is she saying that the Government should collate information on offenders with dyslexia who go to prison?

[Rebecca Harris]

There is good reason why that information should be collated nationally. I am aware that the Government are moving to a system of payment by results, under which market mechanisms might pick up such issues and ensure that we address them properly.

[Rehman Chishti]

On that point about payment by results, does my hon. Friend agree that when an offender enters prison and has a health needs assessment looking at speech and language communication, a dyslexia assessment should be undertaken at the same time?

[Rebecca Harris]

I absolutely do, and given what I will be saying, I hope that many others will agree with my hon. Friend and me about that.

According to the Prison Reform Trust report “No One Knows”, fully half the offenders in British prisons have problems with basic literary skills. It notes:

“The most consistent information about the number of offenders with learning difficulties or learning disabilities is that no one agrees on how many exist.”

With regard to dyslexia, for example, estimates of prevalence among offenders range from 4% to 56%. However, the general average in prison-based studies is about 30%, although rates of serious deficit in literacy and numeracy generally reach up to about 60%. According to Ministry of Justice figures published earlier this month, we currently have more than 86,000 prisoners, so we can estimate that about 26,000 offenders in UK prisons suffer from some form of dyslexia, but we do not know for certain.

I was surprised and disappointed to learn that, historically, the Government have kept no data whatever centrally on the numbers or percentage of the prison population who have special educational needs, such as dyslexia, or even on how many are illiterate. I was surprised and disappointed because the two main aims of our penal system are to punish effectively and to rehabilitate offenders. “The Oxford Dictionary of Law”—my learned colleague, my hon. Friend, will know more about it than I do—defines rehabilitation as:

“Treatment aimed at improving an offender’s character or behaviour (including education, counselling, employment, training, etc.) that is undertaken with the goal of reintegrating the offender into society.”

All Members would agree that one of the most basic necessities effectively to integrate into our modern society is the basic ability to read and write.

With that in mind, I find it hard to see how the Government can allocate and target rehabilitation resources, or commission them effectively, if those data are not collected. Similarly, the Government cannot properly analyse any causal link between the lack of basic literacy and offender behaviour, or assess how far educational failure or the failure to pick up dyslexia in schools leads to offender behaviour in later life.

[Rehman Chishti]

On literacy and dyslexia, does my hon. Friend agree that prisoners’ literacy skills are lower than average, which reflects their social background, and that greater emphasis must therefore be placed on that?

[Rebecca Harris]

There should be a great deal more scrutiny on all factors, because there are others. In addition to literacy problems, there is a huge number of social factors, as well as the fact that many members of the prison population have had head injuries or personality disorders.

If we are to drill down, deal with our re-offending rates and our prison populations and, ultimately, achieve what we want by keeping our streets safer, all those factors need proper consideration. We always want to hear that people have been locked up and put away, so that they cannot be on the streets to offend, but they come out again and if we do not stem the tide, we will not address the problem. The issue is not new. For many decades, various social commentators have explained that there is a link between educational attainment and the propensity to commit crime. That only underlines my dismay that we are not doing more, and do not have a proper audit.

As I have said, one key advantage of having payment by results for rehabilitating offenders is that, through the introduction of market mechanisms, organisations—whether third sector or charitable ones—will put greater emphasis on identifying the causes of educational failure in our prisons and ensure that such factors are brought to bear on rehabilitation, whereas under previous Governments, we had one-size-fits-all solutions, particularly for education and training in prisons.

I speak as a dyslexic myself. That is why, when my constituent came into my surgery, everything she told me rang a bell and struck a chord. She came to the right Member of Parliament, because I was extremely interested. I know exactly how embarrassing and frustrating it can be to work very hard in school on a piece of work—coming up with all sorts of fantastic ideas and arguments—only for the teacher to hand it back with red marks all over it because of poor spelling or grammar. That is soul-destroying, actually. I also know what it is like to be told that I am stupid or lazy, or both. It does not take very long for someone in that situation to feel that they cannot trust their own judgment about themselves or about their peers and others around them.

Even worse, such people—perhaps to save face or from confusion and frustration—find it easy to begin to act up to the very labels they are given. Young men in particular often become difficult and disruptive, and that can lead them down a nasty and dangerous path from which it is hard to turn back. I was lucky enough to be diagnosed with dyslexia before I sat my A-levels, but, in fact, a large number of people with dyslexia have always slipped through the net of our education system. For those who leave school hampered by their dyslexia to the extent that they still cannot properly read and write, the frustration and embarrassment they felt in the classroom too often becomes a part of their daily life.

Many dyslexics, if not most, are very good at creating coping strategies and at adapting their day-to-day life to avoid situations in which they are hampered by their dyslexia. Certainly, the vast majority of them never become criminals; I have become a Member of Parliament—I am well aware that many members of the public think that the two are very similar. It is also true that a significant number of dyslexics try to avoid altogether any situations in which they have to read or write. If that aversion to reading and writing is severe enough to make it daunting even to fill in a simple form, they are really lost. Basic literacy is essential for interacting with the rest of society, while illiteracy can be a source of immense frustration and impoverishment and, of course, a factor in crime.

I will talk about the detailed findings of Jackie’s report in a moment, but one fascinating insight that she discovered was that a number of the dyslexic prisoners whom she interviewed were locked up for offences relating directly to their aversion to reading and writing, and specifically to form filling. She found that 10% of dyslexic offenders were serving sentences that were related to strings of driving offences involving driving without a proper licence or insurance. When Jackie asked them why they were not properly licensed, she found that most either could not pass the theory test or simply had not bothered trying because they knew that they would fail. If it is difficult to get through life without reading and writing, it is also quite difficult to get through life without driving a car.

[Rehman Chishti]

At the moment, education providers use a hidden disabilities questionnaire, which has been developed by Dyslexia Action, to test anyone who shows signs of having a learning difficulty and/or disability. Does my hon. Friend think that test is working?

[Rebecca Harris]

The evidence from the insightful review written by my constituent, who is a dyslexic herself, seems to show that it is not working. We are not picking up people and, more to the point, we do not know how to reach them and treat them when we do pick them up.

The examples that I have given show not only how important it is to identify dyslexia in prison but why we should improve dyslexia screening provision throughout the education system, but that is a debate for another day and another Minister. I seriously believe that a greater focus on dyslexia will lead to a fall in reoffending rates and that the report from the “Dyslexia Behind Bars” project provides enough evidence and insight for the Government to look at the matter more seriously.

The project took place in Chelmsford prison and, on first glance, its methodology seemed simple—first, to assess the level of illiteracy and special educational needs related to dyslexia in the prison and secondly, to set up a stage-by-stage, one-on-one mentoring scheme among the offenders using Jackie’s teaching tools and methods to teach them outside the traditional classroom setting.

Jackie began work with 20 prisoners with exceptionally low literacy levels. They were generally prisoners who would never have engaged with the prison education service because they saw it as the same pen-and-paper classroom experience that they had previously hated and been failed by, which is why the approach of Jackie, a fellow dyslexic who was undiagnosed until her 40s, was so different. I can entirely identify with the relief simply of being diagnosed dyslexic, let alone being diagnosed by a fellow dyslexic who has overcome the condition. It is a huge opportunity for someone to reappraise how they view themselves and to give them an incentive to try again.

The prisoners who had been taught to read and write by Jackie offered to share their experiences with other prisoners. Literate prisoners also came forward, wanting to learn how to teach and mentor greater numbers of inmates. Jackie trained 40 of them to support fellow prisoners through the project. In that way, her unique, multi-sensory and original teaching and mentoring programme spread to all wings of the prison. More than 200 prisoners were individually taught and supported over the first part of the project by Jackie and her trained mentors, but that figure quickly grew as the project developed and spread. A further 70 prisoners were successfully helped by mentors who transferred to Wayland prison to extend the reach of the project to another part of the prison estate.

Fifty male prisoners went through learning workshops with Jackie. Their literacy levels were at the lowest pre-school level, and they needed to develop early learning and life skills. They discovered that they had a range of strengths which they could build on to develop their learning and to gain self-esteem. They were all helped to create their own highly individual learning plans to understand how to manage their own life, attitudes and behaviours.

Overall, 53% of the 2,029 offenders interviewed at Chelmsford during the project were diagnosed with dyslexia, which is a huge statistic. When they came out of prison, the great majority of them were either working or in education. Within weeks, several prisoners with the literacy skills of an average four-year-old had learned enough to write their first letters home and to read the letters that they received back.

A testimonial from Prisoner J said:

“Jackie has shown me things that no one else has ever been able to do before: reading, writing and sums. I have learnt more in 8 weeks than in all 41 years of my life.”

Jackie and the mentors helped prisoners to learn how to read and fill in forms, to take and pass the driving theory test and to take and pass the building site construction skills test, which meant that they could legally work in construction. That helped to give a sense of optimism and direction to prisoners in preparation for their release.

The project also transformed the prison as a whole—I am sure that the Minister would like to know that. Prison officers commented on how much calmer even the most violent prisoners became as their self-esteem rose along with their progress, resulting in a calmer and happier atmosphere across the whole prison. In the two years, prisoner-on-prisoner and prisoner-on-staff assaults fell dramatically—the figures really are quite dramatic—which prison officers have attributed to the “Dyslexia Behind Bars” project, although, unfortunately, they rose after the project ended.

All prisoners involved in the project improved their literacy skills to a level advanced enough to extend their choices of work and leisure activities and prepare more effectively for their lives outside. Of the 17 prisoners in Jackie’s first two groups who were released four years ago, only one has reoffended. That represents a 5.9% proven reoffending rate within four years, compared with the national rate of 55% within two years, or 68% within five years. Clearly, that sample is too small to be statistically reliable. However, it is a useful indicator that shows that the reoffending rate of the project participants is less than a tenth of the national average. An example of that reduction in recidivism is the case of three serial offenders who had each been in and out of prison more than 40 times—none of them has reoffended since their release four years ago.

Of the first 17 prisoners to be released, four are employed in trades, two in building, one a fork-lift driver and one a film producer; two are employed by charities, one teaching disabled people the skills to get into work and one mentoring young offenders; two are voluntary workers, one mentoring adults with learning difficulties and one supporting men on probation; two have started their own businesses; five are currently unemployed; one is at a top university doing an engineering degree; and just one went back into prison.

Moreover, of the first 40 offenders to become mentors, 10 were also trained in PTLLS—preparing to teach in the lifelong learning sector—qualifications. All 10 finished the course and passed with those qualifications. Chelmsford prison has now received many personal requests to transfer, as prisoners and their families hear on the grapevine of the success of the project.

I should like to extend my thanks to the Minister. I wrote to him on this matter earlier this month and received an extremely helpful letter and an offer to meet me and Jackie, for which I am grateful. Moreover, I also welcome the announcement yesterday by the Secretary of State for Justice that he will be reviewing the educational approach taken in the youth custody estate, where we are currently detaining about 1,800 young people, with a 70% likelihood of reoffending. It seems highly likely that among that cohort, there will also be a large proportion with undetected learning needs. There is an opportunity to use an innovative method of reaching and teaching them before they are released back into society. I am quite certain that that will dramatically reduce their reoffending figures.

Historically, education in prison has not been held in high regard by the public as an effective tool to rehabilitate offenders—a fact that was mentioned in an Education and Skills Committee report in 2005. Sadly, I do not believe that that perception has changed in the minds of the public today. The public does not have much confidence or belief in the educational work of the prisons and their ability to rehabilitate. The first role of our prison system should always be to punish offenders and so act as an effective deterrent to reoffending. My aim is not to raise the plight of dyslexics or in any way to excuse any form of offending behaviour but to highlight a way in which we can drastically reduce reoffending rates and ultimately keep our streets safer for the British public.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

It will be 27 November this year.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does the Minister have an assessment of how curfew orders have been working since their hours and length were increased last year?

[Jeremy Wright]

I will have to check to be certain, but I think that the changes made by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 have not yet come into force. However, my hon. Friend puts his finger on the opportunity for us to have available not only more hours spent under curfew but curfew orders that last for a longer time. In addition to new technology that will enable us better to monitor offenders, this can be a very effective means of keeping track of those who have committed offences.

Criminal Justice System

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Tony Lloyd]

Killing somebody in the workplace or with a vehicle, if I am not in danger of trivialising it, would be an extremely intelligent way to go about despatching another human being. The horrible reality in cases such as the hon. Gentleman’s constituent’s is that there is now a family who will grieve for ever and who feel that there is no justice in the system. I have enormous sympathy for him and particularly for his constituent.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. On the courts and the criminal justice system, does he accept that some good systems are used in the criminal justice system to have the views of victims accounted for? For example, the victim impact statement must be taken before judges prior to sentences being passed.

[Tony Lloyd]

Yes, and that is fine. I totally agree with victim impact statements. The only problem is that they are not compulsory and not always requested. We know that victims sometimes complain that they are under pressure to produce a statement that does not reflect what they really feel to be the impact. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in saying that that is the direction of travel that we have to take, but I think we have to go a lot further. I will certainly make that point later.

Sir Paul Stephenson, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, recently made some caustic statements about his own stewardship of policing and of policing more generally. He was highly critical in saying that burglary is often not dealt with as severely as he felt it should be. He asked himself whether he had always dealt with it properly in his policing career.

It is certainly right to point out that many people think burglary is a very serious crime. Sir Paul Stephenson described it as invasive. He is right; it is invasive of people’s privacy and people’s lifestyles. Astonishingly, such an invasion of personal property and lifestyle sees more than half of those convicted receiving non-custodial sentences. Those non-custodial sentences are also relevant to a crime, which, in Greater Manchester, has a clear-up rate of less than 17%. Only one in six crimes is cleared up, and that does not necessarily include coming to court. Of those convicted, fewer than half receive a custodial sentence. We then wonder what signal that sends out to the wider community—to those who do not want to be burgled and those who want to burgle. There is a real issue.

I recently had an interesting conversation with somebody who has long experience of sentencing. He told me that he faces a regular dilemma. He works on the basis that non-custodial sentences are worth while; they can definitely perform a valuable part of the process. Nevertheless, if he feels that non-custodial sentences are not sufficient to offer proper restitution to the victim or do not offer any element of proper and legitimate punishment, he finds himself imposing custodial sentences in cases in which he would sometimes prefer not to. That is something we need to look at. If we are going to have a range of sentencing, we need to make sure that there is sufficient severity in the whole system. We need to look at sentencing as well.

Let me turn to those crimes that, although serious, have not received full-hearted emphasis throughout the criminal justice system. I refer in the most serious areas to sexual violence, rape, the sexual exploitation of children, domestic violence and even bullying and antisocial behaviour. Let me cite, as an example, the recent case of David Askew in Greater Manchester. Although he probably died of natural causes, there is almost no doubt in everyone’s mind that those natural causes were brought on by a consistent campaign of bullying that he had received from local youths, but no one took it seriously. With hindsight, people have said that had the various agencies—the social services, the children’s services and the police—shared the information base about the bullying, it would have triggered some sort of response. At no point, however, did it trigger a response, which left David Askew to spend years of his life in a degree of misery that he should not have had to put up with. It is wrong to say that bullying is not very serious; it is serious, as is antisocial behaviour. We must see antisocial behaviour as being central to the type of society in which we live. We cannot have no-go areas in which antisocial behaviour is accepted as legitimate.

It is also worth reflecting on the comparison between the celebrated cases of sexual exploitation of children in Rochdale and the situation of Jimmy Savile. I want to place it on the record that, although the English Defence League took it on itself to protest enormously about the situation in Rochdale—it is right that there should have been real concern there—it has not protested in the same way about Jimmy Savile. Sexual exploitation is about not the ethnicity or the cultural background of those involved but criminal behaviour, and criminal behaviour, whether by the Jimmy Saviles of this world or by Rochdale taxi drivers, is something that we must prosecute and pursue.

In all those cases, the culture of the criminal justice system is such that it did not take seriously the position of victims. The young women in Rochdale were described as from a council estate. I cannot accept that there is a council estate definition of acceptable crime versus those who live elsewhere. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) will want to speak more on that issue.

We have to change the culture with respect to sexual exploitation, especially of children, domestic violence, sexual violence and even stalking, because they cause real misery, destroy lives and, in the end, can lead to the most serious of crimes, up to and including murder. The culture that says that such crimes do not matter or that allows them to slip through has got to change, whether that happens through the police, the Crown Prosecution Service or the local authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I can absolutely give that assurance. As I said earlier, I have looked at the Department’s finances and it is on track to deliver the savings that it needs to deliver. My view is that reform is about delivering more for less, not about endangering public safety.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

T2. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that those who sit on jury service are not in the country illegally? That point was raised with me by a member of the judiciary.

[Mrs Grant]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Crown court carries out checks on jurors on their first day. Passports, national identity cards or Home Office documentation confirming their immigration status must be produced.

Not-for-profit Advice Sector

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton.

I begin with the comments made by the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, who said that the proposed changes to legal aid are not an attack on women and children; they are an attack on fat cat lawyers. Perhaps he could say that to the 1,000 people who used the specialist welfare benefit advice service at the Bolton citizens advice bureau in the month of January alone. Perhaps he could say that to someone like Jeannie, who e-mailed last night, extremely pleased with the result in the House of Lords, saying that perhaps now people like her can leave an extremely dangerous situation and receive the financial help and support to do so before they are murdered.

The changes to legal aid will have a destabilising effect on the funding of advice agencies, law centres and citizens advice bureaux. Hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions, will lose out. The funding cuts will have a disproportionate effect on the not-for-profit sector, which the Government’s own impact assessment agrees will receive 77% of the cuts to civil legal aid. As I have often said, advice agency funding is a bit like a game of Jenga—it is complicated, it is interdependent, and small amounts removed can lead to the whole structure crashing down, leaving vulnerable clients underneath with nowhere else to go.

It is not worth looking at the new position under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill without looking at the current position. Citizens advice bureaux say that they will receive £51.3 million less in 2012-13 than in 2010-11. Law centres have had a 52% cut in their local authority funding. Coupled with the devastating effect that the legal aid cuts will have, citizens advice bureaux will lose £28.4 million, and law centres will lose £6 million and more than 85% of their current legal aid funding. Up to 18 law centres could be lost and up to 50% of citizens advice bureaux—more than 200 bureaux with 1,500 outlets—could close completely. If the changes go through, 100% of law centres and CABs say that they will operate on a vastly reduced service.

In total, the not-for-profit agencies will lose £51 million. In my borough of Wigan there will be a cut of £428,000 for specialist work: the citizens advice bureau loses £133,000, which is 3.5 caseworkers plus their admin support, and the legal aid lawyers, who provide the rest of the social welfare law help, will lose the remainder. These are not fat cat lawyers; they are lawyers working with the most disadvantaged people in their community.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

With regard to not-for-profit advice services and centres, has the hon. Lady seen the statement dated 22 November 2011 by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who is the Minister for Civil Society? He says that the Government have committed £16.8 million towards not-for-profit advice centres and services.