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I recognise the importance of what the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said about not forgetting those 30,000 prisoners in jail for the long term. They need proper work for their own dignity, to avoid institutionalisation, for the support of their families and for their rehabilitation.
Finally, with Home Office statistics indicating a cost to the taxpayer of more than £230,000 to reconvict an offender and more than £37,000 to keep an offender in prison for a year, what plans does the Minister have to extend that programme? In particular, will he look at the ROTLs—the paperwork that enables governors to release those imprisoned for work purposes? Will he see whether their availability can be increased, so that more adults and young people can benefit from the scheme? I look forward to the Minister's response.
3.18 pm
Baroness Falkner of Margravine: My Lords, speaking as a newcomer to this area in a debate where so many luminaries have spoken is daunting. On the other hand, to have heard of the many fine examples of good work in our prisons—in particular, the example that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, just gave us—is very uplifting. I pay credit to my noble friend Lady Linklater of Butterstone, who would surely have brought more erudition to this subject from these Benches than I can. I, too, take the opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for giving us an opportunity to discuss these matters.
In researching this subject, I realised that the numbers were depressingly familiar. The state of our prisons, with overcrowding, stretched resources and
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What was surprising was the figure behind those employment statistics: that 50 per cent of prisoners are at or below the level expected of an 11 year-old in reading; 66 per cent in numeracy; and 80 per cent in writing. In effect, we are saying that the period of incarceration is effectively dead time, in that it does nothing to improve those people's life skills—nor their emotional intelligence, which is closely related to life skills. It does not even prepare them to stand on their own feet after release. So we spend vast amounts of money to lock people up for a period, yet seem unable to use that period to equip those individuals with the tools that might have prevented them going in in the first place.
Many noble Lords have told us about the research that shows what a positive effect employment has on the lives of ex-prisoners. Those with jobs are between one-third and one-half less likely to reoffend than those without jobs. We also know of the non-financial benefits of employment on individuals’ lives: the rise in self-esteem and the development of soft skills, as well as the more practical competencies needed. Jobs also open up avenues to reintegrate into the community at several levels and to care for one's family. Given the resources that we expend on education and training at other levels of society, it seems extraordinary that we have not seen this as a priority for the kind of focus that it would evidently require. It seems that the mantra of “education, education, education” has been left behind for that rather needy group in society.
I found compelling the King’s College study on the Restorative Prison Project. It was produced for the Centre for Prison Studies by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern. She recounts the findings of a small study by the Inside Out Trust to discover what both staff and prisoners thought about work and its effectiveness for prisoners. More than half of those surveyed welcomed work, not least because it gave them an opportunity to help others—I am talking about the prisoners. One in five said that doing such work made their families think well of them. In other words, there was an altruistic impulse. Staff thought that the prisoners were highly motivated to work for others; and more than half thought that the activities should be used as a basis to improve the image of prisons and prisoners. Staff are extremely conscious that it is not just the work done inside prisons that matters, but the work that prisoners do outside prison.
If we are to take up a new approach to the management of offenders and ex-offenders, not least because we want to break the cycle of reoffending, surely we need to think through our strategies of how we might see prisoners as individuals. Central to that change of mind-set would be to have them emerge better able to take their place in society after their
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An important end product of the training and skills agenda is employment. NOMS has defined working with employers as a priority in its strategic plan in recognition of the sad reality that there is still considerable prejudice among employers towards those who have been imprisoned, but its work seems to be targeted at employment post-prison. It states that it will work with employers to design and deliver programmes to help prisoners with the skills that they need to gain work on release. So far so good, but what about those who have acquired skills and are still incarcerated? This is really the subject of the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. I know of his work with the Howard League, and I saw the excellent letter in the Guardian yesterday from Frances Crook, who also called for real work in prisons. She referred, as did the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, to the 30,000 men and women who are serving long-term sentences and who would benefit from working directly for external employers. As she points out, society would benefit from the taxes paid and the pensions saved while prisoners support their families on the outside, and from the increase in their employability on release.
The examples given by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, of what I would define as institutional lethargy make for grim listening. What does this say about our approach, which seems to militate against seeing the individual as capable, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, of a useful and law-abiding life? Will the Minister consider the recommendations of the Howard League’s Commission on English Prisons when it reports?
Finally, I turn to another matter which, although not directly related to work for prisoners, sends a powerful message about their rights. This is the democracy deficit at the heart of our approach to prisoners, which denies them a right to vote while incarcerated. This is a tricky political issue, but it deserves rethinking. If our philosophical approach towards those who have offended to the extent that we need to lock them up is that we consider their debt to be repayable to society, which I believe we do, surely it is strange to deny them a say about the society in which they will return to live. If we expect rehabilitation and seek to employ restorative strategies so that these individuals are better members of society on release, they should have a right to vote. If our emphasis is on returning them to the community, and indeed on building community prisons, with greater engagement with the public, surely the basic interaction by the citizen with the state is the tool of the good citizen—the ballot box. What is more, for a Government who have been so keen on responsibilities a propos of rights, it might even result in citizens who have a keener sense and awareness of responsibility if they are involved in the question of who governs them.
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3.27 pm
Lord Henley: My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, I, too, come new to this subject. I hope that, despite our relative inexperience, she and I may congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, not only on introducing the debate but on the veritable wealth of experience that he has brought to it in attracting the various speakers who have spoken before us: the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who is a former Chief Inspector of Prisons; my noble friend Lord Elton, who was a Home Office Minister when the Home Office still looked after prisons, before they were transferred to the Ministry of Justice—we hope that that will lead to great improvements, but we will have to see—the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds; and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel.
As I said, I am new to this subject, but I query one point at the very beginning of the noble Lord’s speech when he said that this debate was not about numbers and then proceeded to concentrate on the 30,000 or 40,000 longer-term prisoners. I put it to the Government that this is largely about numbers; or rather that the problems, whatever they are, are made worse by the fact that at the moment we have record numbers in prison, record overcrowding and some 8,500 criminals being offered early release in a rather vain attempt to ease the pressure on prison spaces.
My first question therefore has to be about the numbers in the prison estate at the moment. My figures are that the prison estate currently has a useable operational capacity of 81,189, with some 400 places available in police cells under Operation Safeguard. I am advised that the current prison population is 81,474, which is somewhat larger than the operational capacity, including 339 people in police cells. I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm those figures. I hope that we will live to trust figures that emerge from the Ministry of Justice more than we sometimes trusted figures from the old Home Office.
Turning to the issues raised directly by the Question, I am sure that the Minister would be the first to agree that worthwhile work or training is very effective in rehabilitating offenders. As my noble friend Lord Elton put it, we do not want them to return to society worse than when they went in. So my question for the Minister is: how much work is available in the prison estate? According to the first report from the Home Affairs Committee in 2004-05 into the rehabilitation of offenders, some 24,000 work places were available in prisons throughout the estate. Even if all those were fully used, that allows for coverage of only a third of the prison population. Again, I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that those figures are correct and go on to add what the Government are doing to increase that 24,000 to something that provides slightly better coverage of the prison population.
Next, I would like to ask the Government about access to the relevant programmes. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons has said that:
“Access to relevant and timely interventions and programmes ... has been adversely affected by prisoner numbers”.
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That is why I stress numbers. Even following the Government’s early release scheme, which has seen some 8,500 criminals out on the streets early, the numbers continue to soar and capacity cannot keep up. What are the Government doing to increase the number of places available in prisons, bearing in mind that the current prison population is in excess of the usable operational capacity?
My next question relates to the purposeful activity, as it is called, that prisons make available. Many prisons make up that purposeful activity by engaging prisoners in what could be referred to as repetitive and meaningless work, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, which gives them no transferable skills for the outside world when they are eventually released. Given that the ability to find employment when they are released decreases the likelihood of reoffending by between a third and a half, depending on how one calculates it, what more will be done to provide prisoners with adequate vocational-based programmes?
I understand that the Prison Service has set a target of some four hours a day of purposeful activity for each prisoner. Every year, that target is being missed. Figures given earlier this year indicate that they are getting up to 3.6 hours of so-called purposeful activity, but one may argue that quite a lot of that activity is not terribly purposeful. What is being done to ensure that prisoners will get at least four hours of so-called purposeful activity and, if possible, something more?
Much has been made by all those who have spoken about the need for the Home Office and the Prison Service to engage with employers from outside to attract them to come in and offer more training to prisoners. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in particular, referred to the need to attract outside employers to provide genuine work. What are the department and the Prison Service offering to do on that?
Lastly, a number of speakers, including the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, mentioned the Howard League for Penal Reform and its Barbed graphic design studio at Coldingley Prison. When being briefed for this debate, I, too, was told about the studio by the Howard League. What can the department do to ensure that charities are not bound by unnecessary red tape? The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, mentioned problems with employment law. The Government are very good at passing laws. Presumably they could make some changes to employment law and, no doubt, there is room in the legislative programme for adjustments to be made. We would be interested to hear what the Government have to say about making changes in that way and about easing the unnecessary red tape to allow not only charities like the Howard League, but also businesses from outside to provide the work, training and experience that would do so much to assist prisoners and prevent reoffending in the future. I hope that that provides the noble Lord with enough to be going on with and I look forward over the coming years to further debates on similar subjects with what we hope will be increasingly favourable news from the Government.
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3.36 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Dubs on securing this debate. It certainly reflects his considerable and welcome interest in the work of the Prison Service. I should also like to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, and the noble Lord, Lord Henley, to their respective roles on their Front Benches and I look forward, as the noble Lord, Lord Henley, suggested, to continuing debate about the Prison Service and the many challenges it faces.
I very much accept the thrust of what my noble friend Lord Dubs has said in arguing about the importance of work, particularly for long-term prisoners, but also, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds suggested, for those who are not classified as long-term prisoners. Work is important for all people who come into the prison estate. I also accept the importance of purposeful days. We do not want prisoners simply to be locked in their cells with nothing purposeful or constructive to do.
The Prison Service has arranged a vast number of activities to ensure that the days of prisoners are purposeful. On the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, my understanding is that there is a key performance target of 24 hours of purposeful activity per week, which, despite the population pressures—I shall respond to the noble Lord in a moment—is met. The latest figures are 25.3 purposeful hours per week. I shall double-check that and I will write to the noble Lord. I accept entirely the point raised by noble Lords about its importance.
I was very interested in the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, on restorative justice, in which I have a particular interest. She made some very important points on that. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Elton, were right to focus on the skills, or lack of them, of many of the prisoners about whom we are concerned. The latest figure that I have is that 52 per cent of male prisoners have no qualifications whatever compared with 15 per cent of the general population. The figure is even worse for women prisoners: I think that it is in the 70 per cent range. Many of these people have little, if any, experience of holding down a steady job, so the very considerable challenge for the Prison Service is to turn that around and put prisoners in a position where they leave prison and do not reoffend, but instead move into work. Work is an important part of the strategy to reduce reoffending.
In my short tenure at the Ministry of Justice I have had the opportunity to visit a number of prisons, and I am not at all complacent about the major challenge here. However, we should pay tribute to the education and skills programmes that have been put into place. I also welcome the contribution made by external education providers to the prison establishment. We should pay tribute to them. I will not trade figures, but the fact is that there has been a considerable increase in the amount spent on education for offenders. It has gone up from £57 million in 2001-02 to £156 million in 2006-07, and I acknowledge the
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I did not recognise the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for reoffending, but I am happy to write to him with my details. Perhaps we might exchange correspondence on this. However, my understanding is that the latest performance figures show that adult reoffending has reduced by 6.9 per cent compared with the predicted rate. But I am happy to engage in correspondence with the noble Lord on that.
Like other noble Lords, I acknowledge the work at HMP Coldingley which has been jointly developed between the Prison Service and the Howard League for Penal Reform. It is an excellent example of work that will undoubtedly help to facilitate a positive resettlement outcome for offenders. The right reverend Prelate talked about the attitude of local industry. It is interesting to note a recent report by the Institute of Personnel and Development. It noted the positive experiences of employers who have employed ex-offenders. This is an important point. A survey has shown that UK organisations are four times more likely to report a positive experience when employing an ex-offender than a negative one, and around four-fifths say that former offenders settle into work well with their colleagues, perform well and are reliable. That is a very good indication indeed. The latest figures I have for progress after discharge, which were produced in August, show that 27.1 per cent of prisoners moved into work, while a further 10.4 per cent moved into education or training. Of course we want to see those figures grow, but they represent progress and it is important that we build on them.
I want to take this opportunity to praise those companies and employers who have really gone the extra mile to work with ex-offenders. Many of them have done a tremendous job. Further, it must be said that in this case it is the private sector that is showing the way for the public sector. Central government, local government and the health service should all say with hand on heart that a lot more could be done. We are delighted with the work of the Corporate Alliance for Reducing Re-offending which has the aim of increasing the number of offenders going into work and self-employment; it is doing excellent work. There are now many fine examples. Wessex Water is working with several prisoners in the south-west to train offenders for employment in the water industry. We have heard about the National Grid; the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, did an excellent job of indicating the work that is being done there.
There are other models where prisons set up workshops to employ prisoners, making money for the prison and promoting the gaining of transferable skills. Her Majesty’s
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At Her Majesty’s Prison Lindholme an in-house bakery employed a total of 84 prisoners in 2006. Of these prisoners, 49 were registered for an NVQ and 64 NVQs were awarded. In Winson Green Prison in Birmingham I have seen the hairdressing training salon where prisoners are enabled to gain NVQs. That is the pathway to employment. I can assure noble Lords that we support a variety of employer programmes and schemes and encourage them to scale-up their activities. Working with national companies can be very useful in piloting programmes in certain prisons and then extending them to other prisons.
I return to the point raised by my noble friend about ensuring that prisoners are already involved in real work. I agree about its importance and progress is being made in this area. But there are obviously some challenges in responding to some of the requests made by noble Lords and I should like to deal with two of them. The first is the issue of the direct employment of prisoners by external organisations. If this was perceived to be only red tape, it would be frustrating. But there are clear accountability and management issues involved about which governors and the Prison Service are concerned. It is important that governors retain the ability to fully manage their prisons.
Although it may be frustrating, I repeat that having prisoners directly employed by a third party within a prison would set up conflicts between employment legislation and the Prison Act. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, invites me to bring forward amendments to employment legislation to deal with the situation. Certainly these are matters we keep under review—I do not want noble Lords to think that we are not concerned with these issues—but we should not underestimate the real, practical difficulties. My noble friend believes that I can simply wave away the HMRC ruling about liability for PAYE and national insurance—
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, if only I could stand here and do that. I can assure my noble friend that my department will continue to have the relevant discussions with HMRC on those matters.
Returning again to mailbags and widgets, I accept the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. The Prison Service has taken significant steps to modernise some industries and will continue to do so. Of course, if we can have partnerships with the private sector to help us to do that, it will be enormously welcomed.
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