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Rehabilitation of Prisoners

: The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point about women and work. Moving women around the system is undesirable also because it tends to break up the contact between the woman, her home and any children involved. I was going to mention later, but shall mention now, that the Committee has suggested that the Government should set a target for reducing the number of women prisoners. I do not know whether that is seen as radical or not. As the hon. Gentleman will know—he takes an interest in these matters—the number of women prisoners has gone up by more than the proportion of prisoners as a whole. That is somewhat surprising, given that women, as we all know, are much less likely to commit violent or sexual offences and are probably much less threatening offenders. The increase has never been properly explained, but if we all put our minds to it we could find a way of reducing the number of women in prisons or help them by putting them in prisons nearer their homes. We could also look into the question, which will come about through intermittent custody, of women spending only part of their time in custody and being able to keep in touch with their families more.