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Mrs. Gorman: I am sure that my hon. Friend will do that.
Some 58 prisons run re-employment focusing courses and job clubs which prepare prisoners for a return to the work force, and 113 prisons provide advice on housing and employment issues. I am sure that such advice will prove especially helpful to women, whose problems are rooted in their inability to manage their budgets and pay the rent. It is very upsetting if women are constantly forced out of their homes and must seek new accommodation.
Sentence planning is in place for all prisoners serving 12 months or more, so, while they are in prison, a prison officer can counsel prisoners to plan for the time that they are discharged. The Government's record of improving conditions in prisons, making them more humane and enhancing the chances of prisoners ending their sentences with a better attitude and of being more organised undoubtedly represents an advance on the conditions that once prevailed--and long may they go on improving.
Ms Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Highgate):
I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to hon. Members on both sides of the House, for the fact that, due to a previous commitment, regretfully I will not be present for the wind-up.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) on securing this Adjournment debate on an issue of paramount importance.
Conservative Members have argued that women who fall foul of the law should not be treated any less leniently. No Opposition Members would argue against that--if women offend, they must be punished. However, I strongly argue that, as most women prisoners,who number more than 1,000 according to Home Office figures, are imprisoned for minor offences that do not involve harming an individual--such as defaulting on fines--they should not be incarcerated. It is entirely possible for an alternative form of punishment to be applied to women who are in the main mothers, and preponderantly single mothers. We are punishing not only them but their innocent children.
If the Government listen only to the argument that society is protecting the taxpayer by imprisoning such women, I remind Conservative Members that it costs more than £451 a week to keep a woman in prison, and that a child taken into care costs the taxpayer £45,000 a year.
Ms Jean Corston (Bristol, East):
When I visited Holloway prison nearly two years ago, women were faced with a terrible and stark choice once their babies reached the age of nine months. If a woman wanted to stay in Holloway, because, for example, she had other children in London, the baby was taken into care. If she wanted to keep the baby with her, she had to go to a prison in the north of England, thereby facing separation from her other children. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is an appalling way to treat mothers?
Ms Jackson:
I agree absolutely. That is an appalling way to treat mothers and a ghastly lesson for their children to learn--that society has no care or feeling for them. The Howard League, for whose information I am most grateful, states that estimates lead it to believe that more than 8,587 children are left without a parent because their mothers are serving prison sentences for, in the main, minor offences. The league deems the true figure to be infinitely higher, as many women sent to prison for minor offences do not reveal that they have children, because they are afraid that they will be taken into care.
Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) on initiating this debate, with the typical generosityof spirit that we associate with her, and in such a thoughtful way.
We should try to put the issue in the wider context of what has been happening and is happening in the Prison Service. The service has a contracting budget. Governors are expected to lower the unit cost per prisoner over the next two or three years, but there is a rising prison population. It currently numbers 52,000, but that figure varies one way or the other by 500 prisoners each month. Most experts agree that the figure will probably rise to between 56,000 and 57,000 by the end of this year.
That situation must be underwritten by the co-operation of the Prison Service, yet the morale of the people who work in it has never been lower in living memory. They have been confronted with privatisation and market testing, and they feel that the contribution they could make is constantly undermined by the Government, and by Home Office Ministers in particular. Even governors who occasionally get into difficulty, in some cases through no fault of their own, are scapegoated by Ministers.
Miss Widdecombe
indicated dissent.
Mr. Howarth:
Well, in that context, the co-operation that the Government need to implement any reasonable prison policy is not there, which cannot be ignored.
The hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait) must be the only hon. Member who maintains that one can readily define a split between policy, which is the prerogative of Ministers, and operations, which are allegedly the sole province of the Prison Service. I will, for the hon. Lady's further edification, quote directly from Hansard the Home Secretary's statement last Thursday:
We have it from the mouth of the Home Secretary himself that handcuffing and chaining women during labour was a matter of policy. He conceded that in his statement.
Most sensible Members in all parts of the House accept that that practice was unnecessary and certainly barbaric, but I wish to distance myself from some of the more personal attacks made on the Minister of State.
Mr. Howarth:
However, the Minister cannot and must not maintain that she did not know about the practice. The chairwoman of Whittington hospital trust had written to the Prison Service about the practice. I mentioned the matter when I had a private meeting with the Minister and the Director General of the Prison Service, and voiced my concerns in early December.
Mr. Corbyn:
Does my hon. Friend recall that, when we visited Holloway prison just before his meeting with the Minister, we met some of the women who had been handcuffed in Whittington hospital? It was clear to us both that Whittington had complained about the handcuffing of women entering the hospital for treatment,
Mr. Howarth:
I confirm my hon. Friend's observations. He has saved me having to make those points myself. When we visited the prison, I was concerned about the policy and the wider difficulties.I am not at all surprised that the chief inspector's staff walked out of Holloway prison during their visit. That is the sorry pass that we have come to.
On 30 November 1995, 2,072 women were held in prisons, as has been mentioned. Not all had been convicted--about 400 were on remand. The women's prison population has been growing, and we must be honest and admit that the offences for which women are held on remand or convicted are generally in a different class of criminal than those typically associated with men. The figures show that 37.1 per cent. of women are in prison for non-payment of fines, and only 7.6 per cent. are there for violence-related crimes.
Mr. Sweeney:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Howarth:
I will not give way, because I have only a short time, and the Minister will have only a short time. The hon. Gentleman has intervened often enough.
The pattern of crimes committed by women is wholly different from that associated with men. The hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), in a typically eccentric contribution--
Ms Abbott:
She is not eccentric.
Mr. Howarth:
My hon. Friend is characteristically generous.
There is a difference between women in prison and men in prison, and that has been recognised since Victorian times. I do not know which history of women in prison the hon. Member for Billericay has read, but I am sure that she is a fan of the utilitarian, Jeremy Bentham.Even he accepted that there is a difference between women in prison and men in prison, and that the arrangements for them needed to reflect that.
I would like to say much more, but time forbids.It is necessary sometimes to pause in the operation of public policy, and if the great furore that has taken place over the past few weeks produces anything good, it should be a reassessment of what we want to achieve by putting women in prison.
I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that the Prison Service has three aims. The first is to punish, which is a legitimate step to take on behalf of society. The second is to protect society by removing some people from general circulation to prevent them from creating more mayhem in the community. The third must be--I know that the Minister accepts it, because she has said so before--rehabilitation. Without rehabilitation, the whole process is a waste of time.
"We are confident that the revised policy provides the correct balance without reducing security to unacceptable levels."--[Official Report, 18 January 1996; Vol. 269, c. 893.]
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