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I think we can all agree with that view. Some of what my noble friend's report has revealed does our society no credit. We should not tolerate the physical conditions she describes, nor should we fail to make available proper resources to address the special difficulties that women offenders often have to face. I believe that organisations such as Music in Prisons, Pimlico Opera and Clean Break demonstrate the importance of including the arts in our thinking about how we create a more humane, enlightened system of delivering justice. My question to the Minister is a simple one: will he ensure that the Inter-Ministerial Group on Reducing Re-offending takes seriously the potential value of arts programmes to offender management and works with all relevant departments, NDPBs and the voluntary sector to ensure that funding for them is sustained?
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1.38 pm
Lord Low of Dalston: My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, on her often shocking analysis of the treatment of women by our system of criminal justice, especially our prison system. That analysis was powerfully and movingly underlined by the speeches of many noble Lords in the debate on women’s justice initiated last week by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. The debate today has been commendable for its focus on what we need to do rather than simply bemoaning what is wrong, important as that is. I cannot add anything to the analysis without repetition, but thinking about what could usefully be added has turned my thoughts in the direction of institutional reform and the way that we develop policy. That will inevitably take me somewhat wider than the Corston review. I hope that that will not detract from my words of welcome for the report; rather, I hope it may be seen as a tribute to the report that it has stimulated me to think about wider issues.
My starting point, as I reflect on the discussions of criminal justice which we have had since I entered the House, is that the system is not working—indeed, that it could be said to be in crisis. There is evidence of this over a range of fronts and much disquiet among your Lordships, of which the Minister will be aware. I could cite rates and levels of imprisonment, at eastern rather than comparable western European levels prison overcrowding; reoffending levels and levels of suicide in prison; and the treatment of young people by our penal system, which has attracted criticism for falling below international standards and has led some of your Lordships to question whether it entitles us to be regarded any longer as a civilised country. And that is just for starters.
The impression of disarray has been compounded by the Government’s response, which seems sometimes to be bordering on panic. Prison overcrowding is met with hand-to-mouth responses, such as early release. The only response bordering on strategy has been to build more prisons, and large ones at that, which can only intensify the problems of institutionalisation. Like building more roads to deal with traffic congestion, it is ultimately self-defeating. It is already beginning to look as though, even before they are built, those 8,000 extra places will not be enough.
The Government, to their credit, are anxious to give the system a degree of coherence. But their instrument for doing so is NOMS, which appears to have been ill starred from its inception. It has already had to be reorganised, and the Minister still cannot tell us about its management structure. As we discussed the other day in the debate on Second Reading, the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill provides further evidence of policy-making on the hoof.
It is not, however, my intention to be adversarial. I am sure that the Minister is an excellent Minister with the best of intentions—indeed, with the right intentions, as we have seen in recent days as he has made clear his commitment to the welfare of the child, with an emphasis on rehabilitation, resettlement and community sentences—but he has an impossible task in wrestling with a system that is in many ways out of control. At
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What has all this to do with the Corston report? As I listened to the debate last week on the need for a women’s justice board, it was clear to me that the treatment of women in the criminal justice system is a problem. But it is only a part of the problem. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, called for a women’s justice board, and that prompted the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, to throw out the suggestion of a black Britons’ justice board. It seemed to me that this could not be the way to go, with a justice board for every particular problem area in the penal system. Such a piecemeal approach does not seem to make a great deal of sense.
It seems clear to me that we need institutional reform in our approach both to policy-making and to managing the penal system. I certainly do not claim to have all the answers here or a neat solution which I can commend to Ministers with a lively sense of a job well done. I had an academic involvement with the penal system at an earlier stage of my career, but that was over 20 years ago, and since entering this House I have been all too well aware of just how out of date my knowledge has become and how much work I have to do to get back up to speed. But I ask the Minister and the Government to think seriously about the point I am making.
A number of possible approaches have been or could be suggested. There is the model of a royal commission. A number of people have been thinking along the lines of establishing a royal commission on the prison system, but I am inclined to think that a fundamental principle of anything we do in this area should be that it is comprehensive, holistic, overarching—however you want to put it—and with a view to giving coherence to our efforts in the field of criminal justice.
A royal commission would have pros and cons. On the positive side, it would be able to undertake a fundamental and comprehensive review of an area of policy that has proved intractable for successive Governments. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, has helpfully reminded us of the Gladstone report’s impact in the late 19th century. A royal commission could also be much more inclusive than the present system of policy-making seems to be. Would it not be better if the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, were working with the Government on the solution to these problems instead of beating them about the head from the Back Benches? It is important for the Government to be part of any mechanism adopted if there is to be any hope of their owning the solution. It is all too easy for the Government simply to ignore recommendations from bodies that are wholly outside government.
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On the other hand, royal commissions are not always effective in setting a clear direction and enabling a fresh start with decisive action. As the late Lord Wilson used to say, royal commissions at their worst sit for years and take minutes.
If we persisted down the justice board route, rather than flirt with a multiplicity of justice boards for different aspects of the criminal justice system, perhaps the idea of a single overarching justice board with subsets for different areas could be investigated. Mention was made in last week’s debate of a tsar. There could be more than one tsar to cover different aspects of the penal system. The important point is that any arrangements set up should include a capacity for decisive executive action to get things done.
If the Minister is prepared to give some consideration to my suggestion that we should try to find a better way of doing things, he should bear five principles in mind. The first is that anything that is set up needs to be holistic and overarching with a view to designing, building in and underpinning coherence. Secondly, it should be inclusive. Thirdly, it should have some independence from government, with a view to bringing the best brains and experience to bear on the problem but consistent with significant government ownership. Fourthly, it should be able not only to advise but to make policy. Fifthly, it should have the capacity to make things happen.
1.47 pm
Lord Judd: My Lords, at the outset of my remarks I wish to make two observations about what has been said so far in the debate. First, I was delighted that my good and noble friend Lady McIntosh of Hudnall made the point about music and opera. I never miss a Pimlico opera in prison if I can avoid it; it has a tremendous impact. What I like about the approach of Pimlico Opera is that it is aware there could be an awful anti-climax when a performance is over and it continues to do workshops and so on with prisoners. It makes a tremendous contribution to rehabilitation, the restoration of personality and so on.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I will not give way, if the noble Lord will forgive me, because time is very short.
My second observation is that while I normally totally agree—almost to an embarrassing degree— with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, I do not agree with one remark that she made. I think it is terribly important and urgent to have a debate such as this when a report has been published. We have to build up the momentum of concern so that the level of government response takes into account that the report has a great deal of good will and specific support among parliamentarians of all parties.
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Corston. I had the privilege of serving under her when she was the chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, where she did a tremendous amount to build up the reputation, impact and significance of that committee. She wrote her report with the clarity and firmness that I found
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When we in the Joint Committee on Human Rights were compiling a report on deaths in custody—another deeply disturbing issue—I learned a tremendous amount. The first thing was that there were very many extremely good, compassionate and concerned members of staff in the Prison Service, and I am glad that my noble friend has emphasised that point. But it was interesting that those staff sometimes became almost aggressive to us as parliamentarians—saying, in effect, “What on earth is this system that you expect us to operate? It is completely ill designed for the purpose of achieving rehabilitation and positive citizenship”. Let me give a couple of examples. I was absolutely shocked in Holloway to hear that when the courts closed, male prisons closed their doors and the transport system gave priority to getting the men into prison, so that the women could arrive at Holloway at a very late hour, after the meals were over. It was not just the awful impact on the women prisoners—staff have families and social needs as well, and they would have to stay on to handle the situation. What is more, sometimes it was only then that somebody discovered that there were children at home. I could hardly believe it.
The other example is that I took on one side a senior male uniformed officer in the prison and said, “Let us forget that I am here with the committee. I am a parliamentarian. What, above all, would you like me to think about when I go back to Parliament?”. He said, “Training”. I said, “But one thing that impresses me is that you are getting more training”. He made an incredibly significant point when he said, “Precisely. That has led us to understand how ill equipped we are for the job that we really want to do”. So the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is absolutely right—we cannot overemphasise the importance of training.
The other point made by staff is that prisons are full of people who should not be there at all. We will not go over ground that we have been debating in the criminal justice Bill—my noble friend has been very patient and heard the debate over and again. But I passionately believe that, ideally, we should start again from scratch and design a prison system that is fit for purpose. I believe that, at the moment, we are spending vast amounts of public money on trying to patch up and make work a system that is not designed for the purpose that we now understand and for the objectives that we are trying to achieve. This certainly applies to women’s prisons, and the fact that tremendous things are achieved is a double tribute to the staff who operated within the system. But I cannot overemphasise the sense of frustration that they sometimes feel.
What we are talking about, as the noble Baroness has stressed, is vulnerability. You only have to look at the beginning of the report, page 3, to see listed there the fact that:
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“Coercion by men can form a route into criminal activity for some women ... Drug addiction plays a huge part in all offending and is disproportionately the case with women ... Mental health problems are far more prevalent among women in prison than in the male prison population”.
I pick those points to illustrate the precise nature of the observations made by my noble friend in her report.
I have a daughter who leads a team of counsellors for women with mental health problems in deprived communities. Almost every time that I meet my daughter, I have to put up with a tirade of indignation at the shortage of resources for this work. She and her colleagues can see that this sort of work helps to keep women together and to prevent the development of situations that result in prison. As a society, we have to wake up and put our money where our analysis is. If we believe in prevention, we have to finance prevention. We cannot go on with a health service in which mental health is regarded as a tail-end Charlie, fobbed off with professions of concern. It needs large resources and real priority.
I conclude by drawing noble Lords’ attention to the excellent observation by INQUEST on the report. It stresses my points about the difficulty that women have in accessing support before they end up in prison, the difficulty that families have in assisting the care and support of vulnerable women while they are in prison, and the lack of support for women after deaths in custody. I think that this is a highly relevant, effective and important report. I believe that the Government cannot give it enough priority. I conclude with the observation that I made on one of my amendments last night—that all of us have a responsibility, because we cannot expect the Prison Service to provide by proxy the fulfilment of ideals that are singularly absent in the way that we conduct ourselves in society. We have made a society based on greed and egocentric individualism, in which compassion and care have been marginalised, and then we expect the Prison Service somehow to put that right. We cannot isolate our concern here from the general situation within society and the general values of society.
1.57 pm
The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I also thank warmly the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, for this report and comment that these women and girls, who have been so voiceless and so victimised, need this sort of attention and care. I am deeply grateful for this report and the opportunity today to look at their situation. A running theme of this debate is that many of these women and girls have been victims throughout their lives. My reflection on this is that unfortunately, and too often, we join in this victimisation—and we should consider how unconstructive that is. A woman who has been brought up in care and separated from her mother eventually ends up in custody. Instead of being encouraged to take responsibility for her actions, what she sees is that, “The state is now taking my children away from me”. That does not encourage her to think, “What harm am I causing myself?”. Rather she will say, “Just as in my previous life I have been the object for others to do things to, now the state is taking my children away”.
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What struck me about the words used by the Minister of State, Beverley Hughes, when she launched the Care Matters: Time for Change White Paper on looking after children, was the repetition of “stability, stability, stability”. That is what all of us want for children in care—stability in their lives. One paper associated with this report concerned continuity in care. That was the theme—we want more continuity. It is a theme of the Children and Young Persons Bill going through the House at the moment. We have heard some of the facts, but perhaps I may draw your Lordships’ attention to a report from the Children’s Commissioner for England—his organisation is called 11 Million. The report states:
“For 85 per cent of mothers, prison was the first time they had been separated from their children for any significant length of time. Only 9 per cent of the children are cared for by their fathers while their mothers are in prison. Just 4 per cent of women prisoners’ children remain in their own home once their mother has been sentenced”.
As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Carter, around 18,000 children each year are separated from their mothers by imprisonment. Therefore, on the one hand, we have a Minister heading a department saying that children often very similar to those I have just been discussing need stability, stability, stability and continuity of care and, on the other hand, we are taking 18,000 children out of the care of their parents and causing them to lose their homes at the same time. What sense does that make?
A little while ago, the parliamentary All-Party Group on Penal Affairs heard from a young woman in care. She was in a children’s home at the age of 13. One day, out of the blue, she was told that she would have to remove herself from that home as she was being placed elsewhere. The staff had been advised not to tell her that this was happening because they knew that it would be problematic. She said that that was when her years of crime began, adding: “I fought those people when they sought to take me out of that home”. Therefore, we need to rethink our approach in this area, where we are introducing so much instability into the lives of children who are often the most vulnerable.
I want to comment on what has been said about the need for someone to drive this policy forward so that we do not have another report landing on our desks in 10 years’ time. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships of the work of Louise Casey at the Rough Sleepers Unit a few years ago. She achieved the specific target set for her by the Government of reducing by two-thirds over three years the number of rough sleepers on the streets. I remember her pep talks in which she described vividly and passionately the need to support these people. She was often controversial. She urged people not to give money to beggars on the streets because they would only be supporting their habit and encouraging them to stay there. That was unpopular with many charities but she drove things through. She was passionate and experienced. She had been a deputy director of Shelter and had worked indirectly with homeless people, supporting their housing. She also described having been a restless teenager herself and having considered rough-sleeping, so there may be some
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In her report, the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, speaks of the Asha, Calderdale and 218 centres. She says of the women there:
I was struck that, instead of further punishing these women—although punishment is sometimes necessary—and victimising them further, the centres were empowering them. The noble Baroness comments:
“One of the women I met there told me that she had experienced prison many times; it had taught her nothing and she said she was simply able always to blame others for her predicament”.
It does not surprise me that the evidence on these centres shows that they are helpful in reducing reoffending because people take responsibility for their actions and feel empowered. The noble Baroness goes on to say:
“Asha, however, had challenged her behaviour and for the first time in her life she was accepting responsibility for her own actions and thinking about their consequences. Another women at Asha with a similar background told me that no one in prison had ever told her that her criminal behaviour was wrong and she had never faced up to this before coming to Asha ... Asha’s founder believes that women can be destroyed by prison, which separates them from their children. Most women want to be good mothers and sometimes this is the only positive thing in their lives. To take it away when it is all that matters to them can cause huge damage”.
I recall research from the Home Office which indicated that, generally speaking, if offenders can be connected with their families and sustain relationships, that is very important in reducing reoffending.
I quote once more from the report:
“Bringing women together at centres like Asha and Calderdale helps them to understand that others have encountered similar problems, feel less isolated and start to find solutions”.
That takes us back very much to a debate that we had on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill concerning alcohol treatment. We discussed the importance of former alcoholics speaking to young people who needed their help in refraining from alcohol misuse. That can be a very helpful approach. When vulnerable individuals meet people who have struggled with the same issues that they are experiencing and have come through the other side, that can be inspiring and effective.
Perhaps I may comment briefly on sentencing, which has been a theme of the debate, although it is difficult to speak briefly on this subject. I encourage the Minister to bear in mind what Socrates said on this, as recorded in Crito by Plato:
“When a man is in training and taking it seriously, does he pay attention to all praise and criticism and opinion indiscriminately, or only when it comes from the one qualified person, the actual doctor or trainer?”.
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