The report states that such recognitions are not about treating women more favourably or implying that they are less culpable, as hon. Members who have spoken in this debate have pointed out; rather, they are about accepting that women face different hurdles from men in their journey towards a law-abiding life, and that the justice system needs to respond appropriately. Again, I fully support those views. It is therefore worrying that the report has found little evidence that the equality duty has had the desired impact of systematically encouraging local mainstream commissioners to provide gender-specific services, tackling the underlying causes
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of women’s offending, or consistently informing broader policy initiatives within the Ministry of Justice and the National Offender Management Service.
The report identifies further failings and states that progress on the NOMS segmentation work, which aims to separate out groups of offenders to understand risks and needs and target resources accordingly, has been far too slow. It is fair to say, and I am sure that people would agree, that the last Government made good progress on the Corston agenda, which has fallen by the wayside, to be perfectly honest, under this Government.
Sir Alan Beith: The hon. Gentleman is slightly overstating his case. What we actually said was that under the previous Government, it took a significant effort, not least by the present deputy leader of his party, to bring together a group of Ministers—women Ministers, as it happened—to get cross-Government signing and implementation. Most of those things were not lost in the first two years of this Government, but further progress might have been more rapid and productive if some kind of similar leadership group had been got together.
Karl Turner: I accept that point from the Chairman of the Select Committee, but I think it is absolutely fair to say that during the first two years of the coalition Government, there was no Minister responsible for this area. I respectfully submit that that has been a factor. The governance structures built by the last Government seem to have been pulled down, and the consensus of the majority of witnesses to the inquiry was that progress appears to have stalled under the coalition Government.
In evidence to the Committee, Baroness Corston referred to the previous Government’s abolition of routine strip searches and praised the fact that dedicated funding had been made available to establish community-based women’s centres. Again, I and other Opposition Members are concerned that those centres, which are making a difference in our communities, have suffered funding cuts under the coalition Government. There are now serious concerns about funding to local authorities, which use some of their moneys to fund other centres. I can think of one in my constituency, the Purple House on Preston road, which has done a lot of work with women offenders. It has done a massive amount of work, saving the taxpayer vast amounts of money by preventing people from going into custody.
Like the Committee, I remain unconvinced of the extent to which the approach set out in the Government’s strategic priorities for women offenders is truly integrated across Departments. The Chairman just intervened on me to say that the damage is probably less than I was suggesting, but that is a matter of opinion, and frankly, I disagree. It seems that work on the Corston report’s key recommendation—improvements to high-level governance and cross-departmental working for women offenders—has stalled and is in fact being dismantled. Six years after Corston, we still have far too many women in our prisons, and we need to reduce that number significantly.
In addition to driving the Corston review forward, we look to emulate the success of the previous Government’s Youth Justice Board, which presided over a halving in the number of first-time offences by young people, and a fall of a quarter in the number of young people locked
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up. Targeting specific groups and tailoring an approach to offenders’ unique circumstances have been shown to work. Using the Youth Justice Board as a blueprint for a similar board for women might have the same impact. Will the Minister consider that?
I congratulate the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), on his new job. He will be responsible for this area, and I know that he will take that seriously. I hope that he will look carefully at the report and implement some of its recommendations.
I turn to older prisoners, who were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). This debate is timely, given the report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons that states that an 84-year-old immigrant detainee suffering from dementia died in handcuffs while in detention. That is a matter for the Home Office, but it is shocking and underlines the fact that the needs of older prisoners and detainees in our prisons and detention centres must be recognised.
Jeremy Corbyn: On our visit to Dartmoor prison, we saw a high level of care and concern for older prisoners, but the facilities were appalling. However good the care and support for individual prisoners, the building is simply not capable of dealing with wheelchairs, among other things. I left the prison thinking that that was not the best way of treating people, and I question the value to anyone of keeping some of those elderly men in prison.
Karl Turner: My hon. Friend makes a valid point that was made in the report of the Committee, of which he is a serving member. The idea of elderly prisoners trying to clamber into bunks to sleep is clearly unsatisfactory, but there is no magic wand, and we must address the issue. We must accept that the prison population is getting older and deal with that. Society generally has an ageing population, which is making us reassess health and social care provision, end-of-life accommodation and older people’s living needs. Although it will not be popular, we must also reconsider the needs of older people in prison.
We welcome this inquiry, and the resulting excellent report, which highlights the exact issues facing older prisoners. It makes some key recommendations about how to address those issues. Prisoners over 55 are the fastest-growing age group in custody, and in the last eight years, there has been increasing evidence of the needs of older people in prison. That has led to a developing awareness among prison staff and prisoners of the difficulties facing older people, and a greater understanding that the response is often inadequate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, it seems that prisons are ill-equipped to meet their needs. There are various reasons why our prison population is getting older. Prisoners are serving longer sentences, and they may even be convicted and sentenced at an older age for historical sexual offences; a number of cases of that kind are being reported on in the media.
There is some debate about what age constitutes an older prisoner. Some people argue that due to the early onset of health issues in prisoners, that should be defined as anyone over 50. Others, including the
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Government and the Justice Committee, argue that it is not sensible to impose a rigid age classification, whether we are talking about those who are 50, 60 or 65. It is worrying that the report states that many older prisoners are being held in establishments that simply cannot meet their needs. We accept that for operational and practical reasons it is not always possible to allocate older prisoners to entirely suitable prisons, but we support the view that NOMS should, as a rule, not allocate such prisoners to an establishment that cannot meet their needs.
The report also raises concerns about fragmented provision and barriers to health care for older prisoners, which is particularly worrying. I support the view that cancelling hospital appointments because of lack of communication between health care providers and prison officers is entirely avoidable; that issue must be addressed urgently.
Mental health care needs are also widespread in prisons with higher levels of depression among older prisoners. It is reassuring that services are being commissioned to address mental health issues in prisons, and that organisations such as Age UK and the Alzheimer’s Society are running specific dementia services in prisons with large populations of older prisoners. However, clearly we need to do more, and awareness training in prisons should be increased. We should consider integrating training packages into standard prison officer training.
The report was damning about the provision of social care for older prisoners:
“The lack of provision for essential social care for older prisoners, the confusion about who should be providing it, and the failure of so many authorities to accept responsibility for it, have been disgraceful.”
Those words describe the position appropriately. The Committee found evidence suggesting that current provision is sparse, variable and sometimes non-existent. It found some areas where social care was provided by charitable organisations or by prison officers, but it clearly highlights a fragmented and failing service.
Another concern is the release of older people to no fixed abode. It is deeply worrying when older prisoners are released to face homelessness. Around 85% of prisoners who are released find, or are helped to find, somewhere to live on release, but 15% do not receive help. That is not good enough. Release to no fixed abode undermines any progress that has been made towards resettlement, and will do nothing to help older prisoners to reduce reoffending.
I support the view that older prisoners who are frail and vulnerable should not be released to no fixed abode because there has been no housing referral, or because it has been delayed. I agree with the suggestion in the report that NOMS should ensure that all prisoners who require accommodation are referred to housing agencies in good time. Older prisoners have needs that are distinct from those of the rest of the prison population, and the Government should look seriously at the growth in the older prison population. It is disappointing that they do not agree with that view. I agree with the report that
“It is inconsistent for the Ministry of Justice to recognise both the growth in the older prisoner population and the severity of their needs and not to articulate a strategy”
to deal with the problem. I urge the Minister to look again at the report, and to consider a national strategy for the care of, and an appropriate regime for, older prisoners.
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4.9 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright): It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Amess. I thank the Justice Committee for the considerable hard work that has gone into both reports, and the Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), for the way in which he presented the reports in this afternoon’s debate. I also welcome the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner)—it is good to see him in a full speaking role this afternoon. I am sure it will not be the last time.
Let me start with something that is perhaps obvious, but still worth saying: the Government are committed, of course, to ensuring that the criminal justice system is appropriate for all offenders. The Committee has highlighted the particular interests of two types of offenders, and I am grateful for its acknowledgment of some of the good work that has been undertaken in both those areas in recent years. However, it has also made it clear that there is more work to be done, which we agree with. I hope that the Government’s response showed how we are tackling those areas and recognised that there was more to do.
I begin with female offenders, on which there has been considerable debate this afternoon. I am almost tempted to conclude, given the balance of opinion in today’s debate—for my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), we are doing far too much for female offenders, and for one or two other contributors, we are doing far too little—that we may have got it almost exactly right, but I suspect that even that will not meet with approval from everyone in the Chamber this afternoon. However, as has been said, we have made it clear that we are committed to assisting female offenders to turn their lives around. To reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, we are committed to doing so for male offenders, too.
A large part of what my hon. Friend was describing related to the sentencing regime, and I entirely agree with him and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North that the sentencing regime should not treat women more leniently than men. It should pass the appropriate sentence in each individual case and that is what we expect sentencers to do, but sentencing in each case is a matter for the judiciary and for magistrates; it is not a matter for politicians. However, what we are concerned with is ensuring that, when the courts decide that someone, male or female, needs to go to prison, they do not go back to crime when they are released. On rehabilitation, which is I think where the burden of the Committee’s report was concentrated, it is right to recognise that different things work in the rehabilitation of different people. Distinct things can be done to rehabilitate female offenders, perhaps more so than male offenders.
Jeremy Corbyn: In our report, we made the point that smaller units, closer to the community, tend to work much better in improving the education and life opportunities of women in prison, and in reducing the rates of reoffending. I realise that that is a big change in the prison process, when we have a number of large institutions for women, but does the Minister have any specific plans to reduce the number of places in larger sections and bring in smaller units?
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Jeremy Wright: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Corston report’s recommendation that smaller units should replace women’s prisons was one of the few recommendations that the previous Labour Government did not accept. We think that it is important to have a balance of provision. The hon. Gentleman may know that we intend to trial a smaller unit on the outside of Styal prison. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed referred to Styal’s history and it is perhaps appropriate that we should choose Styal as the location for such an institution. We want to see exactly how that type of institution can perform. The intention will be that women who have the appropriate risk rating should be able to live in that type of environment, and work outside the prison walls but still have access to some facilities in the prison. We will want to test that, see how it works and draw what conclusions we can from it.
In the broader context, as others have said, we have set up an advisory board in relation to female offenders, which brings together key stakeholders and partners, for the first time, to provide expertise and challenge us as we deliver those objectives. My right hon. Friend was absolutely right that that will be effective only with the right kind of ministerial leadership. I pay tribute, as others have, to the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), who initiated the process, and to my noble Friend Lord McNally, who continued it.
I am delighted that the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) will be continuing in that line. I know of his enthusiasm for the task and that he is keen to begin, although I note that he is not so keen to relieve me of the responsibility for speaking in this debate. None the less, he is very keen to begin the task. He has been listening to much of what we have said today, dividing his time between this debate and another that he has been obliged to attend. I know that he is keen to hear more from others about ideas that we can employ in order to pursue this agenda and, to answer concerns that others have raised, that he wishes to explore the opportunities for co-ordination across Government to ensure that the agenda is pursued elsewhere, too. He has begun by visiting HMP Send this week and will take on the cause with great enthusiasm.
Let me say something about our transforming rehabilitation reforms, which have been referred to. Those serving sentences of less than 12 months will, under the reforms, for the first time, be subject to statutory supervision, and all offenders will be subject to a licence period—or a combination of licence and supervision—of at least 12 months in the community. As we were discussing at some length earlier, proportionally more women than men are serving short sentences, so they will benefit particularly from that element of the reforms.
The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) asked whether up-tariffing would be the result of that, and whether some sentencers would pass custodial sentences in the hope that offenders would receive the type of the support that they needed. It is important to remember that the supervision of community sentences will be delivered by the same providers under the same terms as the supervision provided for those
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released from short sentences. There will be no difference, if that is what the sentencer is interested in, in the level of support provided for someone receiving a short custodial sentence and someone placed under a community order. The sentencing guidelines will remain clear, as they should, that only when it is appropriate to do so should a custodial sentence be passed in any case.
To ensure that all future providers under our reforms take into account the specific needs of female offenders, we are amending the Offender Rehabilitation Bill to require the Secretary of State to ensure that contracts and service level agreements for the rehabilitation and supervision of offenders identify services intended to meet the particular needs of women. We will assess providers’ plans for female offenders and the plans will be placed in the public domain to ensure transparency. If providers are not delivering those requirements, they will be subject to contractual remedies. We will publish data on the effectiveness of those services in the autumn of 2016. That aligns with the way in which the competition process will work: providers are to be incentivised to work with all offenders, and not only the low-risk, easy-to-reach cohort.
I know that many people also have concerns about the future of the network of women’s community services under the programme. Therefore, I make it clear that in 2013-14, we have invested £5.8 million through probation trust contract and partnership arrangements on those services. We expect existing providers of women’s services to continue to receive funding from community rehabilitation companies until March 2015, assuming that performance and demand is sufficient. That sets the groundwork for the expansion of community support to women on release from short sentences in 2014 and beyond. We have also been working with women’s services and the voluntary sector more widely to help build capacity for the new commissioning landscape.
Our recently published review of the women’s custodial estate set out our different approach to managing female prisoners. We are making changes so that prisoners can serve their sentence as close to home as possible, allowing them to maintain crucial family relationships. All women’s prisons will become resettlement prisons and will have access to through-the-gate services. We are also setting up new community employment regimes aimed at getting female prisoners into work on release; we are improving access to interventions; we are establishing and testing open units such as the one that I described at HMP Styal and the one at Drake Hall; and we are setting up, we hope, commercial employment opportunities at Styal.
We are seeking, where appropriate, to divert women away from the criminal justice system. We are doing that through joint work and collaboration with other Departments and key stakeholders, not just on the advisory board, which the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, will chair, but on the Cabinet’s Social Justice Committee. In relation to the point made by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), we will also be working with the Department of Health to test a core model for liaison and diversion services at police stations and courts over the next two years for those with mental health problems, including many women and, one would hope, many women in precisely the circumstances that she so passionately described.
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It is perhaps worth making a final point in relation to female offenders. I know that my right hon. Friend intends to proceed with our commitment to update the House in March of this year. That will include updates on a cross-Government basis.
Let me now deal with the topic of older prisoners and make it clear that the Government are dedicated to ensuring that prisoners of all ages benefit from a safe, secure, decent and productive prison environment. That includes the unique challenges posed by older prisoners. As many right hon. and hon. Members have said, that is the fastest-growing group within the prison population. I am pleased to say that some extremely good examples of best practice are already well established across the prison estate. I know that we need to do more, but perhaps it is worth dwelling for a moment on some specifics.
Wakefield prison has a registered general nurse whose specific responsibility is care for older prisoners, in addition to the medical services available to the general population. That provides older prisoners with access to a rolling programme of annual assessments and referrals to specialist services, including podiatry, physiotherapy and a specialist provider of dentures.
We should recognise the training and support already available for prison staff. The crime reduction charity Nacro has worked with the Department of Health to develop resources for staff working with older prisoners. Excellent work has been undertaken by RECOOP—Resettlement and Care of Older ex-Offenders and Prisoners. That national charity promotes the care, resettlement and rehabilitation of older prisoners, offenders and ex-offenders. Grant funding has allowed RECOOP to employ regional consultants to help to set up interventions and to build capacity and skills to work with older offenders. Right hon. and hon. Members have referred to other charities and organisations that also do excellent work.
However, I am well aware that such examples are not uniformly dispersed across the prison estate. That point, too, has been made. There have been cases in which operational or resource pressures have meant that the care offered to these offenders has dropped below the standards to which we aspire. We need, therefore, to do more to ensure that standards are achieved across the whole estate.
Two of the areas on which I want to focus our attention are the availability of suitable prison accommodation and regimes, and the joined-up provision of health and social care. On accommodation, I acknowledge that the fabric of some of our older prison buildings, such as Dartmoor, which the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) mentioned, does not enable us to best meet the needs of older prisoners, and work is ongoing across the estate to enhance services for all prisoners in line with the Equality Act 2010. For example, improvements are under way at the reception area in Leeds at a cost of approximately £4.8 million, and a new health care centre is being developed at Durham at a cost of approximately £3.4 million.
In addition, officials in the National Offender Management Service are developing a process to assess, across the estate, current accommodation for prisoners with specific needs. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) raised that issue. It will involve a targeted approach, consistent with the levels
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of need likely to occur, and it should be completed by the end of 2014. The results of that survey will be used to direct further improvement. That, of course, is part of the reason why we believe that it is sensible to move from an older prison estate to a newer prison estate. It will simply be easier to deliver the type of accommodation that all of us in this Chamber agree is the right kind of accommodation and a better rehabilitative regime.
I direct right hon. and hon. Members’ attention to the 2014-15 service level agreements with all prisons. The National Offender Management Service has introduced two new commissioning intentions, which require prisons to assess the individual needs of all prisoners and ask them to state how they will meet those needs. That includes how the prisoners age and how that impacts on individual needs.
We recognise that more can be done to provide modified regimes for those who require them. I am pleased to be able to say that the National Offender Management Service will explore opportunities to adapt regimes in prisons where the needs of the population require that, and emulate the good practice highlighted in the Justice Committee’s report. That will include health and fitness, social and recreational activities, and support groups.
We expect that the Care Bill, which has been mentioned and is making its way through Parliament, will go some considerable way in supporting us, with our partners, to improve the provision of joined-up health and social care in prisons. The Bill will, for the first time, make it clear that local authorities in whose areas prisons are based will be responsible for the assessment and provision of social care for prisoners. We will be working with our partners in the Department of Health, NHS England and local authorities to develop policies on how that will work in practice, leading to the implementation of cross-agency guidance.
The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington asked me a number of what I might describe as process questions. If he will forgive me, I will not go through those now, but I will certainly write to him, setting out what we can, to help him on that. However, I will pick up now a couple of the points that he raised. He and others have raised legitimate questions about where funding will come from. As he says, we will have to discuss this with local authorities in more depth, but the
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Department of Health will be responsible for supplying the additional funding necessary to assist local authorities with that obligation. He and others made a point in relation to the ordinary residence rule. To be clear, the responsibility on local authorities will be for those prisoners located at a prison within their local authority area. I hope that that is of assistance and that it will mean that we can be confident of seeing, by 2015, real change on the matters that the Select Committee has, rightly, raised concerns about. As the Committee has said, this is an issue of real importance, and I welcome the interest of all those who have spoken here today and of other members of the Committee in it. I know that they will continue to engage with it.
I again thank all those who have spoken in the debate and the Select Committee for all its work. As the Chairman of the Committee is aware, I know, as a former member of the Committee, the hard work that goes into producing such a report, and it is appreciated. He and others will recognise that to reduce reoffending across the board, we must ensure that the criminal justice system is responsive to the needs of all, whether offenders are male or female, old or young.
4.27 pm
Sir Alan Beith: I am very grateful to the Minister for the thoroughness of his response and his willingness to follow up on one or two points that hon. Members raised. I can now take the opportunity, which I missed earlier, of wishing the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), well in discharging his responsibilities in this area.
I cannot stress too strongly that the evidence that we received from people who had served in the previous Government was that, with the best will in the world, it took some significant effort to ensure that things happened in respect of women prisoners—of course, they are such a small minority of the total prison population—and that, in both these fields, there is plenty more work to be done, but there is welcome recognition by the Government that we have identified things that are important and need to be pursued.