---

Rehabilitation of Prisoners

I did not serve on the Committee, I have no prison in my constituency and, as will become painfully obvious, I do not know a great deal about this subject, but I am drawn to it by the simple statistic that three in five prisoners reoffend within two years. That starkly highlights that the problem we are discussing represents a great waste of both money and lives. I congratulate the Committee on throwing a spotlight on this important issue. I listened closely to the opening remarks of the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), and it seems to me that there is a major cultural problem within the Prison Service that needs to be tackled. I noted that there were comments throughout the report—more in regret than anger—that the Government might not attach great enough priority to that issue; in particular, there was concern about the dropping or reclassifying of targets, such as public service agreement target 5. One of the keys to making progress on rehabilitation is getting to know our prison populations better. Information technology has an important role to play in that. I read with interest about the OASys programme, and I look forward to the Minister's comments on the process of connectivity in that respect, not least because I suspect that I am not the only Member present who has concerns about the track record of the Government in implementing and co-ordinating IT programmes, particularly through the Home Office. I was shocked by the statistics on drugs. Regardless of whether 55 per cent. or 80 per cent. of prisoners enter prison with serious drug or alcohol problems, it is clear that drugs use is a major driver of reoffending, and tackling it must therefore be at the heart of any Government strategy to get serious about the problem that we are discussing.