Viscount Hailsham
Main Page: Viscount Hailsham (Conservative - Life peer)
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, is to be congratulated on bringing this matter to the attention of your Lordships’ House. It cannot have been that easy for him, but it is right that it should be brought to the attention of the public through this House. My experience is not as direct as the noble Lord’s, but it is none the less extensive. I was the Prisons Minister at the end of the 1980s, for most of my professional life I have practised at the criminal Bar and, until very recently, I was a member of the independent monitoring board of a local prison.
In a debate of this kind, one has to content oneself with assertions rather than argumentation. I am sorry about that. My assertions will be brief. First, the punishment imposed on a prisoner is the deprivation of liberty and we should be very careful about heaping on prisoners loss or humiliation which is not a necessary incident of that.
Secondly, most prisoners will be released into the community, and it is in our collective interest that they do not resume their criminal ways. Unfortunately, far too many do. One reason for that is that far too many have very limited personal or educational skills. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, spoke about that and he is entirely right. Illiteracy, lack of IT skills, innumeracy, the inability to hold down long-term work—all these make a serious contribution to people’s inability to get work.
The purpose of the criminal law is in part to provide for a process of rehabilitation. We do not perform that role very well, but it is part of the purpose—namely, to provide an opportunity for prisoners to have their deficiencies addressed. Therefore, I wholly agree with the proposition that we need to be much more generous in our provision of out-of-cell engagement and education. Whether that involves developing vocational skills, numeracy, literacy or IT skills, these need to be addressed.
Finally, the Secretary of State for Justice has a strategy to reduce the number of prisoners. That is a jolly good thing, too. When I was Prisons Minister, the number was about 40,000; it is now over 80,000, and I am deeply disturbed by that. If we can reduce prisoner numbers, there will be a saving. Inevitably, the Treasury will snaffle some of that, but there might be a portion left. I think it would be the will of this House that some portion of that should go to a more generous provision of out-of-cell activity, and in particular to education.