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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I have put my name to this amendment because I think that it deals with a fundamental point. It also links to the previous amendment and something that I would like to say. I always used to think that in the target and performance indicator-obsessed Prison Service there ought to be a target based on the number of people who came into prison unable to read and the number who left unable to read and that it should be used as an indictment of the prison that had failed to teach them. It never actually happened. But one good thing that has happened, which links back to the previous amendment, is that thanks to the initiative of someone called Christopher Morgan, a reading programme called Toe by Toe, designed by a remedial primary school teacher, has now been introduced into almost every prison in the country through the Shannon Trust, which he founded with the profits he made from a book describing his correspondence with a lifer. The beauty of the programme is that although it takes six weeks to go through a large book page by page with no more than 20 minutes a day, a prisoner can teach another prisoner to read—so there is a double-whammy in it. It is hugely successful. The beauty of having a manual is that it does not matter whether the person moves from one establishment to another or back into the community, the book can go with them, and provided that there is a mentor, who can be another prisoner or a member of the public, there is no disruption to the programme. If someone is given a six-month detention and training order, three months in and three months out, and they cannot read when they come in, there is no reason why they should not be put on the six-month Toe by Toe course, with the end result that they can read thanks to a number of people being involved in the process rather than just one. There is another time implication. I have often thought that sentencers ought to be provided with a prospectus of what it is possible for a prison or programmes within a prison to do and how long they take. That is not to be a mandatory sentence. However, if someone cannot read and you are not quite sure whether to give them two months or six and you know that it takes six months to teach someone to read, why not give them a six-month sentence in order to achieve a purpose at the end of it? The point is wider than the subject under debate, but I think that it would help sentencers if they were informed about what it is possible to do, particularly in the educational field, and particularly to help young people decide what to do.