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Prisons: Carter Review

My Lords, I welcome the general remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. He has considerable experience in this area, and we need to listen to the points that he raises. I particularly take his point about children during the summer holidays. I know of some good initiatives on that—over the years, I have seen some in Birmingham—but I certainly agree that more could be done, and that we ought to encourage more. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned the workforce and was right to point out that the report by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, refers to the size or proportion of the Prison Service budget that is spent on staff wages and salaries. Like the health service, which I know much better than the Prison Service, one is dependent on the staff. Whatever the challenges, some of which we have seen recently, in managing that workforce, it would be remiss of me not to say that we are extremely grateful to the staff for the fantastic job that they do. While the debates in your Lordships’ House are often critical of some regimes in our custodial settings, the fact is that those are very challenging places to work. I have no doubt that the key to improving efficiency is to work hard with the workforce, and we will clearly have to look at what my noble friend Lord Carter has said. We want a system that really does recognise and reward the excellence of staff, yet is somewhat more in tune with modern HR practice than has perhaps traditionally been the case within the Prison Service.