---

Rehabilitation of Prisoners

I too welcome the report and add my congratulations to the Committee and to the Chair. My party's position on such matters is close to theirs. The prison portfolio came to me recently—I am recent altogether. Early on I sponsored a visit to Parliament by an American author, Michael Jacobson, who had written a book on downsizing prisons. The prison population in New York, I think, dropped dramatically. Part of that was to do with not putting people in prison in the first place if their crimes were so minor that they were better treated by community sentences or restorative justice, as many Members have said. Also, those offenders would then not be going to crime schools. There is an advantage from that point of view. What was clear from my meeting, which I sponsored with a Labour and a Conservative Member, was that we all agreed, much as has been the case in the Chamber today. There is a great consensus that prison does not work and that the offending rate—60 per cent. recidivist—is not a way forward and has led to the overcrowding. The political climate in which we work outside such discussions here is not helpful and is destructive of what many Members have said about getting across the message that community sentences are tough. They are not soft on crime or prisoners. Politicians are going to have to grow up if we are to join hands across the issue and deal with some of the necessary measures for prisons. When speaking to people, I have used an example. How well developed would a human being be if they were locked in a room, not talked to and not given skills? Would they be a well developed human being who could retake their place in society or would they be irresponsible for the rest of their lives, a burden to the state and almost certainly reoffend? If people are talked to, they understand the message; they do not have a problem with that. On Tuesday or Wednesday of this week I went to an all-party parliamentary group where the Home Secretary signalled that he was moving towards the sort of proposals that we have been talking about. That is welcome, and I look forward to the Minister's comments on that. I have been to Holloway prison and I was impressed—with the governor and with the work being done with the women there. However, it was clear to me even as a novice that the sentences that women were given—mostly under six months—were incredibly detrimental to a sensible way forward. A sentence of that length is not long enough to get them off drugs or give them educational skills, but it is long enough for them to lose their homes and possibly their children, despite best efforts and a new 24-hour reception centre at that prison, which is next door to my constituency. I also commend the work of SmartJustice, whose members I have also met. It is doing a fantastic job. At Holloway, I spoke to a group of women called ““the listeners””, who have volunteered to listen to other women prisoners who need someone to talk to. They do not proffer advice. These women were serving two, three or four-year sentences, possibly longer. I sat down and talked to them for a while, and every one of them wants to have a career in counselling; two were taking university degrees. It is a real step forward. I would say that a good percentage of those women will not reoffend, because they have something to look forward to—a place in society. That is to be welcomed. We have all said today that the system is not working. We must realise the benefit for society of placing rehabilitation at the centre of the prison system. Only then will we see a dramatic drop in rates of reoffending, which I understand costs about £11 billion. Hon. Members have touched briefly on education, but, as the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) said, education alone is not enough. People must be given the fundamental skills with which to move on, not simply to get back into work but to understand what they are doing. It is a tremendous leap for someone who is not used to a working life to go from three and a half hours of work activity in prison to an eight-hour working day. Members of Parliament may not understand that, because we do a much longer day. I was interested in what the right hon. Gentleman said about the German system, which seems very advanced, but I wonder whether letting prisoners out on day release would begin to be acceptable politically. As I have said, unless we learn not to attack one another for mentioning such things, we shall never get anywhere. We must expand the number of prisons involved in commercial work.