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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My hon. Friend is entirely right. One of the great tragedies of the whole penal system is that an extraordinarily high proportion of prisoners are educationally or otherwise inadequate. One of the purposes—not the only purpose—of prison is to rehabilitate, by providing basic training in this and that. That is largely frustrated by overcrowding. Although I am a strong proponent of education and training in prison, it must be acknowledged that it is not being provided. My hon. Friend is right when he says that rehabilitative programmes, which would be extraordinarily useful, are not being incorporated in community service orders. I return to my general theme. I am extremely uneasy that we should be contemplating such a raft of very serious changes on Report, without proper discussion, without a Committee stage and without external consultation. This is precisely the sort of thing that the House should not be doing. I would be very surprised if the higher judiciary and others do not say in due course, when these matters come to the Court of Appeal, that this place has been failing in its duty.