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Prisons: Carter Review

First, my Lords, on mental health, the main thing that I learnt from the passage of the Mental Health Act through your Lordships’ House was the importance of the relationship between the Prison Service and health service, and the need for so many offenders to have effective mental health treatment. My noble friend Lord Bradley has taken on an extremely important responsibility here, and we await the results of his review with great anticipation. On the prison population numbers, my noble friend has looked very carefully into current and future projections to ensure that we do not have overcrowding but that instead we have equilibrium, which will allow us to focus much more effectively on rehabilitation, reoffending and dealing with the prevention of-reoffending programmes. I accept that there is a debate to be had on penal policy generally, but the implementation of these proposals will give us a much better foundation on which to have that. As for the staff, I would welcome the constructive engagement of the Prison Officers’ Association.