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Penal System

The hon. Gentleman is right. They are cheaper—and not only by a bit. I am informed that a residential rehabilitation bed costs £674.10 a week—the hon. Gentleman holds up his excellent pamphlet on the subject, which he was good enough to send me. That is £6,000 less per annum than the equivalent prison place. The case therefore makes economic as well as social policy sense. My third point takes me back to the comments of the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson). We hugely underestimate the need and capacity for training and education in prison. If many prisoners share one common characteristic it is that they underperform in their scholastic achievement. Their reading age is generally 50 per cent. below what is expected of an 11-year-old; numeracy is 66 per cent. below, and writing is 80 per cent. below. All those who consider penal policy carefully agree that a major factor in the propensity for criminality is finding it difficult to cope with normal social behaviour because of that lack of attainment. We should not only massively increase the scope for education—we cannot do that in an overcrowded system—but we must make much of the work in prisons compulsory. We should expand it so that it is much more focused on things that are socially useful. We should also pay prisoners properly for their work in prison, and let it contribute to compensation funds so that we do something for our victims, too. I hope that the Lord Chancellor has had the opportunity to read the submission from Citizens Advice—