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Women, Justice and Gender Equality

I endorse my hon. Friend’s comments 100 per cent. I visited my local Sure Start centre in north Cornelly recently to discuss child trust funds. I met very young women, who were first-time, single mothers. They were deeply committed to their child trust funds and their children’s futures. All were contributing additional funds to the trust funds because they wanted their children to have a future. They were determined to work hard to provide it for them. All the women were developing a life plan and making a commitment to what they would do and how they would move away from staying at home with their children, find work and develop their skills base while their children were still young and they had the opportunity of child care and support from the Sure Start centre. They wanted to improve their chances of work once their children were in full-time education. I therefore thank my hon. Friend for her helpful intervention. We must accept, however, that one of the problems faced by women today is the incredible level of pressure. In trying to fight to move away from our past, and to enter the world as full partners alongside men, many women face a struggle. Rising numbers have mental health problems, especially in the prison population. Seventy per cent. of women prisoners suffer from two or more mental health problems, which is a disgrace. How can we accept that and not pour money into mental health and into diversions that will take women away from a situation that cannot help but exacerbate their mental health problems? Women are five times more likely to self-harm while in prison than men, and women do not self-harm unless they are driven to deep despair. This is a national disgrace: 55 per cent. of all self-harm in prisons is by women, and yet women are only 6 per cent. of the prison population. That is an epidemic, and we must do something about it. Thirty-seven per cent. of women who are in prison will have made a suicide attempt before they were admitted to prison. We therefore know that a large proportion of women in our prisons are extremely vulnerable and fragile. Prison is not the way to deal with people who have mental health problems and who are fragile and vulnerable. Fifty-five per cent. of women who arrive at prison will test positive for class A drugs. With treatment, we can successfully help women deal with their drug abuse. All too often, however, that treatment is not available. Prison is particularly damaging for women when it breaks their ties with their families, and especially if it breaks their ties with their children. The relatively small number of women’s prisons and their geographical location mean that the majority of women will serve their sentence away from their family, children and partners, on whom they may have to rely to look after their children. That is not acceptable. Why are women in prison? Twenty per cent. of women’s prisoners have been through the child care system. Fifty per cent. have reported being victims of childhood abuse or domestic violence. Their lives before entering prison have therefore been chaotic. Are we helping to make their lives less chaotic by taking them into prison? Historically, our prison system has been designed to contain potentially violent male offenders. The system is unsuitable to deal with the problems of vulnerable women, many of whom had lives of abuse before entering the prison system. Half of those women have suffered from domestic violence and one third have suffered from gender and sexual abuse. Our most vulnerable women have therefore spent their lives being neglected as children, beaten as wives and imprisoned as women. The majority are not in prison because they are a danger to others; many are there as a result of petty crime. The commonest offences for which women are sent to prison are theft and handling stolen goods. Sixty-four per cent. of women offenders serve sentences of six months or less, and one third of that 64 per cent. have been sexually abused. How are we to tackle the emotional, sexual and drug abuse that those women have experienced in their lives? How are we to tackle the illiteracy and restructure the employment opportunities of those serving sentences of six months or less? Would it not be better for us to concentrate on providing the community-based support, punishment and rehabilitation that non-violent offenders who pose very little threat to the wider community are best placed to receive? That would ensure that taxpayers’ money was better spent, it would provide more room in our prisons for those who are a danger to others, and it would enable officers in women’s prisons to focus on high-risk and repeat offenders. Crucially, the vicious circle of drugs, crime and dependency could be squared before those women’s children also become caught up in it. I know a prison in western Australia called the Boronia Pre-release Centre for Women. Women are given just one opportunity to go to Boronia. Before they go, they are told ““If you fail here, you will not be given this opportunity again.”” They are allowed to keep their children with them until they reach the age of four, and with their children they live in small units of bungalows. They are offered education, jobs and skills. Hon. Members who visited the prison with me were shocked to discover that one of those skills was the preparation and serving of food, and that so proficient were the women that they provided all the catering facilities for judges on the western Australian circuit. I thought it particularly apt that the judges should be served by women whom they might have sentenced. At the time when I visited the prison only one woman had reoffended, and I think we should look to it as an exemplar for the service that we could provide. Certainly, if Wales is to have a women’s prison, I hope that it will be based on Boronia. This is an important debate. It enables us to think carefully about the needs of women in our world, and about how we can improve their lives and equality of opportunity still further. I am proud to be a member of a Labour Government, and I am pleased that the hon. Member for Solihull recognised the steps that the Government have taken to move the agenda forward. I hope the opportunities that we offer in future will mean that fewer vulnerable women take the road of offending and more follow a different path, the path towards secure families and secure jobs. I hope they will be helped to produce a generation that will continue to raise the status of women, and will allow their opportunities to grow and develop even more.