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Education: Young People in Custody

My Lords, I congratulate Her Majesty’s Government on their significant investment in the education of young people in custody. I regret that there is not time now to acknowledge in detail what has been achieved. Much more needs to be done, of course. Edmund in Shakespeare’s ““King Lear”” says: "““Now, gods, stand up for bastards!””." I should like to concentrate on how we educate young people in custody about relationships. Those young people have often never had the experience of being cared for. It is hard to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on this, but I shall try. Academic and vocational attainments are vital, as we have heard, but the other side of the coin is a young person’s social education, or what the continentals contain in their discipline of pedagogy—education in the widest sense. Custody officers need to model good relationships to their young offenders, as the Carlile report emphasised. While most sentences are brief, many young people will return on several occasions. Each time, their relationship with their personal officer and the wider officer community should be an educative experience. That is one reason why improvements in training and continual professional development for custody officers are so essential, as we have heard. To be consistent models and to effectively engage, officers need a theoretical foundation for their work, appropriate supervision, and consultation with expert practitioners and mental health professionals. The same should go for teachers working in these environments. Officer retention and stability in the workforce must be aimed for. A separate point is that, with the recognition of the need for the secure estate, probation, social services, the health service and youth offending teams to work together to achieve reductions in reoffending, Her Majesty’s Government should accelerate their programme of workforce development in the secure estate. That young people leaving custody too often walk off the face of a cliff serves no one’s interests. Professional partnership requires parity of professional status. A documentary recording the life of a young boy growing up in care shows him learning about relationships. Throughout his childhood in care, we hear on several occasions—in the run-ups to Christmas and to his birthdays—how much he is looking forward to seeing his father. On each occasion, the father simply does not turn up. Many of the young men and women in custodyare already parents. I recognise the important achievements of the Government in investment and staff development, but it is vital to go far further in developing officers and residential care workers. The personal officer/worker role must be thoroughly embedded and developed, but too many inspections point to its neglect. If we wish to prevent reoffending and break the cycle of low-achieving families, more attention needs to be paid to the social education of young offenders. Personal officers should be consistent, should take an interest in the welfare and progress of their young offenders and should keep their undertakings. They need to be trained and supported to do so. That is how the young men and women may have their first experience of a positive parental figure and how they may begin to learn how they might be consistent towards, take an interest in and keep their undertakings to their children. We need to stand up for, so to speak, bastards—children in whom parents have not invested themselves. Otherwise we should not say, "““How sharper than a serpent’s tooth ... is ... a thankless child””," but rather, "““As we sow, so shall we reap””."