Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I detected a degree of contradiction in how the hon. Gentleman presented his question. He does not want to go as far as we would on the rehabilitation of offenders, but then asks us to go the distance. That is exactly what we will do. It would be wholly short-sighted to cut our capacity to deliver rehabilitation of offenders, and that is why we will enable a system that gets the whole country—including the voluntary, not-for-profit and the private sectors, as well as the existing state services—to work together to deliver effective rehabilitation of offenders and effect a step change in the delivery of what is a critical public service.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

8. What recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on the provision of training for prison service staff on the management of offenders with mental health conditions.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

Ministry of Justice and Department of Health Ministers and senior officials discuss offender health issues regularly. Over 17,000 prison officers received mental health awareness training between 2006 and 2009. A new mental health training framework was launched in 2009-10, which regional offender health teams now co-ordinate.

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer and I am delighted to hear that his Department is working with the Department of Health. Will he do all that he can to work effectively with that Department to ensure the proper commissioning of mental health services, which will not only improve intervention in the police station, but ensure a wider range of effective sentences in our courts?

[Mr Clarke]

That is precisely what we want to do, and my hon. Friend’s approach is very much in the right direction. Much reform will take place in the Department of Health, including obviously the commissioning of services for mental health. It is important that account is taken of the need to commission proper services of all kinds for prisoners, and that is being taken on board by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and his team. We will work closely with them. The present prison population includes people whose criminality goes alongside a definite need for support—in this case for mental health problems—which, if tackled successfully, might reduce their liability to reoffend.