Children of Prisoners

Debate between Richard Holden and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for and identification of the children of prisoners.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I am delighted to have secured this Westminster Hall debate. First, I want to thank the Government for their manifesto commitment, which states:

“The children of those who are imprisoned are at far greater risk of being drawn into crime than their peers. We will ensure that…young people are identified and offered support to break the cycle.”

That is an important commitment that I know the Minister feels strongly about. Some important work backs that up. Around half of prisoners are parents of children aged 17 or younger, according to a report by the London School of Economics. Often, they and their care givers will both be in need of assistance and support, to provide a stable and nurturing environment, when a partner or former partner is in prison. In some cases, both parents might be in prison and relying on grandparents, and that support is also often required when a mother is in prison.

Children with an imprisoned parent are 25% more likely to suffer from mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, insomnia and eating disorders. Negative school experiences can also come from that—they are common. Many children and families impacted by parental imprisonment also face severe economic hardship—something that can also be worsened by parental imprisonment. Recent data from Oxfordshire county council found that, at the point of a parent’s first imprisonment, half of identified children were receiving free school meals. Following parental imprisonment, that figure rose by at least 20%, if not more. Alarmingly, those children are also more likely to engage in criminal behaviour, with an estimated 65% of young boys of imprisoned parents—two thirds—eventually going on to offend themselves.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. I always do quick research on these matters. Does he not agree that we must also consider the vulnerable adult children of prisoners and the difficulties they can face in trying to understand the massive shift that can take place in their life? Support is not always readily available for that vulnerable group, and changes need to be made.

[Mr Holden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. He touches on the important point behind a lot of this. When parents are imprisoned, caring responsibilities are often the last thing that the state or anybody else thinks about. We are at the crux of what I am trying to get to today.

I would like to thank Sarah Burrows and everyone at Children Heard and Seen, including my friend Ed, who drew me towards the research in this area. I thank them for what they have raised, because this is all about ensuring a child-focused approach. Too often, the children of prisoners are mentioned only in the context of maintaining relationships with the person imprisoned and ensuring that the person imprisoned has a good opportunity—this is a worthwhile thing to do—to reduce their reoffending and recidivism. One thing that has been lost to some degree in this debate is the support required for those children and young people. As the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, in some cases vulnerable adult children might also need support. That is what I am trying to highlight in this debate today: it is the children affected who are at the centre of this.

Sixty seven per cent of children do not visit a parent in prison, while 37% go further and have no contact with their parent at all. We need to focus on what is best for the child, taking into account the often incredibly difficult family relationships and the issues caused by crimes such as domestic violence—which the Minister is working on at the moment—sexual abuse, in some tragic cases, and parental homicide.

The current system is leaving some children living on their own—I will move on to some case studies in a moment, but that is one of the things that has really hit me about this issue. Children Heard and Seen has heard of multiple cases where a child has been discovered living on their own, and not in just one part of the country. If I may turn to the steps we are pressing the Government to take, that is one of the reasons it is so important that those children are individually identified, to ensure that support is there. If we do not have a national register or a system to ensure that the data is fed in, we will not understand the depth of the issues involved.

I want to pick up on a couple of case studies brought forward by Children Heard and Seen. In one case, a man went to prison for sexual offences, and it was only after the house was targeted by vigilantes that a victim support caseworker found his 15-year-old daughter living there on her own. In another case, a criminologist conducting research in a women’s prison was told by a prisoner that her two daughters were living on their own without any money for food. In another, a 16-year-old boy arrested at the same time as his parents was released shortly afterwards and became the sole carer of his eight-year-old brother. In another, an employer requested a welfare check after a woman had not shown up to work for some time. The employer reached out even though they may well have thought that she had decided to no longer be in employment. When the police went to her address, they found a 15-year-old boy living in his own with no gas or electricity. He had been getting up and going to school every day without anyone knowing that his mum was in prison.

Those are just a few of the cases that have been brought forward. They are particularly important because often in these families the children themselves will have had a difficult relationship with the state over many years. Sometimes, especially if those children are into their teenage years, they may feel able to in some way look after themselves. They could have been in and out of state care or support in some ways over many years, and might not have positive relationships—they might not have positive relationships with wider family, either. That is one reason it is so important that we get this right.

Pie and Mash: Traditional Speciality Guaranteed Status

Debate between Richard Holden and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of providing traditional speciality guaranteed status to pie and mash.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark, in this debate. What is this debate all about? Well, there is a big picture and a little picture, and I will start off small. In my constituency of Basildon and Billericay, there are two fantastic pie and mash shops: Robins Pie & Mash in the town square; and Stacey’s pie and mash shop on Timberlog Lane. Both of them provide fantastic local produce and they are absolute hubs of the local community. And it has been really interesting to see the feedback that I have already received from local people about this campaign to give protected status to this traditional British product.

What is pie and mash and why is it a traditional British product? It is a staple of cockney cuisine, moving out to places such as the east of England and Kent as the cockney diaspora moved post-war. That is why there are pie and mash shops in Basildon today. We seek recognition to safeguard the heritage of pie and mash, and to promote pie and mash, both here in the UK and internationally.

Back in the 1840s, pie and mash became an iconic food, closely associated with cockney culture and the social identity of non-posh Londoners. Over the years, more than a hundred pie and mash shops, typically family-owned, spread out from the inner London heartlands of Southwark and Tower Hamlets right across the areas across the country where the cockney diaspora had spread to.

Traditional pie and mash is an artisan food. The pie and mash and liquors are freshly made, using authentic family-owned recipes that have been passed down through generations like precious heirlooms. They are something that in Italy or France, let us say, would be instantly recognised as being worth celebrating and preserving, and I will say more on that broader point a little later.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman for bringing this matter forward. I was speaking to him beforehand and told him about what I have been able to do in the past. The Comber Early is a special potato back home. I applied to the EU for special designation status for it, which the EU granted. Does he hope to pursue something outside the EU—now that the United Kingdom is out of it—for pie and mash that is similar to what we have done in the past?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Holden and Jim Shannon

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

As I pointed out in a previous answer, when it comes to councils repairing roads, it is about getting on with the job on the ground. Conservative councils repair on average twice as many potholes per council area as Lib Dem councils do. The recent Government announcement about ensuring that utility companies are properly held to account is also in the right direction. If Lib Dem-controlled councils are interested in potholes, have they implemented a lane rental scheme that enables them to get cash, like Surrey, Kent and West Sussex County Councils have done, all of which are Conservative controlled? There is nothing from the Lib Dems on that.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Let me take the focus away from Conservatives and Liberals, and focus it on my constituency if I can. I do that for a reason. In the past, the Government from Westminster have been helpful to the Northern Ireland Executive and to our road surfaces, and they have given us money for potholes under the Barnett consequentials. Ards and North Down Borough Council in my constituency has the worst potholes in Northern Ireland. Will the Minister hold discussions with the Chancellor to ensure that under the Barnett consequentials, we can get some help for potholes in my constituency?

[Mr Holden]

I will always be delighted to do so. I was recently in Northern Ireland and drove along some of its brand new roads. I was delighted to see that Northern Ireland is still investing in our highway infrastructure, unlike in Labour controlled Wales.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [Lords]

Debate between Richard Holden and Jim Shannon

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

I intend to speak only briefly, but I would like to reflect a lot of the wisdom that my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) has brought to bear not only on this Bill, but on other Bills, such as on the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill the other day.

I speak as a supporter of marriage, but also as a supporter of the Bill. I think that, wherever possible, divorce needs to be amicable, and we need to remove blame as a necessity. In earlier stages of the legislation, we heard some hon. Members, including from my recent intake, speak personally of the pain they are going through at the moment with the blame levels in divorce. I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). I think the Bill does help remove some of that pain by removing some of the blame, and we are doing an important thing today in removing that.

I conclude by saying that I support the Bill, and I am glad the Government have brought it forward. As somebody with grandparents who have been married for 66 years and parents who are rapidly approaching their 40th wedding anniversary, I hope they continue, but I also hope, for others who are not in such a lucky situation, that the Bill will help remove some of the burden on them.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Earlier, the deferred Division on abortion legislation for Northern Ireland was announced, and the votes were Ayes 253, Noes 136. My mathematical calculations indicate that there were 261 abstentions. My understanding would be that many of those people abstained because they felt the Northern Ireland Assembly should have been the body that looked at this. If we add the Noes, who voted against the abortion legislation in this House, and the abstentions, it comes to a figure of 397 out of 650. My point of order is: has the House expressed its true wishes in relation to this legislation?