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Rehabilitation of Prisoners

: I have not set a target. Earlier, I talked about focusing on the individual prisoner; I suspect that, for a prisoner with profound mental health needs, doing more than a small amount of purposeful activity might sometimes be a substantial strain. In a way, I am uneasy about having crude targets, but we certainly need to improve on where we are, and we will make sure that we continue to do so. We measure the situation carefully in every prison. I am aware of the work of the Select Committee that pointed out issues such as the fact that sometimes getting from cell to workshop took up a large chunk of the available time. We are trying to drill down to those issues, so that the purposeful activity is as purposeful as possible. That is certainly one of the things that I always ask about when I visit a prison. The hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) focused on the whether we are meeting the key performance indicators on purposeful activity; I dealt with that, and share the view of most hon. Members that work is the strongest form of rehabilitation. He was generous to recognise the Home Secretary's commitment, in his speech of 19 September, to community prisons. That, in part, is the trigger to enable us to achieve some of the things that we have talked about. In an estate strategy, we should ensure that prisons point more towards the community and are more engaged with it. The kind of partnership that can exist with local employers really can make a difference. I was in Wormwood Scrubs the other day and was struck by how close it is to the BBC. It occurred to me that it would be interesting to see whether there could be a much better partnership between the two—in fact, I do not think that there is any partnership between them at all. I do not know; I did not actually ask. It was as I was leaving that I saw the geographical connection. It is not unusual for a prison to have a major employer quite close and, where that is the case, we need to do better work to ensure that the prison engages with that employer. We should see whether there are particular things that we can do.