Contribution
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this important debate, and I pay tribute to all the work he does on this subject. I also welcome the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, and congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech. As the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, spoke about so articulately, the pressures on our Prison and Probation Service are stark. We have already heard that the Government have announced up to £500 million of additional funding for probation and community services, alongside at least 1,300 additional trainee probation officers in 2026-27. However, as we heard from many today, the strain on probation has been building for a long time, and many in the justice system have raised serious concerns about whether even this substantial investment will meet the scale of the challenge.
Finding and retaining workforce is a major challenge, while case loads continue to rise. The latest workforce figures, published in August, show that the Probation Service is almost 2,000 full-time equivalent officers below its target level; that is a significant gap. The changes to early-release arrangements next month will mean that probation has even more on its plate, especially with the increased emphasis on intense supervision, electronic tagging and monitoring, alongside the increased casework. Where does that leave effective and meaningful rehabilitation, especially when reoffending rates remain high? If we are increasing the demands of probation, we must also ask whether we are giving it the capacity to deliver the rehabilitation that reduces reoffending.
Perhaps there are more important lessons that we can learn from the youth justice system. Last Friday saw Second Reading of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (Restoration of Powers and Responsibilities) Bill, brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Oates. Concerns were raised about the Government’s proposed changes to its functions and responsibilities, and the extra burden placed on the MoJ. I am not certain that the MoJ needs any more responsibilities or work. As a former youth magistrate and former member of the board, I have seen at first hand what the youth justice system has achieved. The marked fall in youth offending and youth custody is an extraordinary achievement. It is not always how you spend the money but where you spend it.
Perhaps one of the most important lessons that can be learned is the holistic approach taken in youth justice. As His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation, Martin Jones, said of youth justice earlier this year,
“we have all the building blocks of success, and we need to ensure that we carry that across into the adult system”.
As the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, mentioned, those building blocks could also help us address the challenges faced by young adults as they transition into the adult system. As we know, those aged between 18 and 25 have some of the highest rates of reoffending. Crucially, that is a period in which effective intervention can change the trajectory of young people’s lives. If we get the right interventions, it will mean fewer victims, fewer people returning to prison and, ultimately, a better use of taxpayers’ money. We know that this age group is an important stage of development: education, employment, relationships and independence are still taking shape, while maturity is still developing. Therefore, we should think of the 18 to 25 age group as more of a coherent end-to-end cohort, with much greater continuity between the youth justice services and adult probation—an issue that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has also spoken about today.
However, rehabilitation is not only about what happens after someone leaves prison; it also depends on what happens while they are in prison. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, highlighted, this is where purposeful activity matters. Education, skills, training and physical activity can all contribute to a purposeful prison regime and an effective rehabilitation. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, highlighted, for many people entering prison with existing health needs, access to the right support plays an important part in their rehabilitation, and yet purposeful activity remains a serious weakness in our prisons. As His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, has highlighted, of the 38 men’s and women’s prisons inspected in 2024-25, 28 were rated poor or not sufficiently good for purposeful activity. This matters not only in prison but through the gate too.
Probation needs the resources and time to build partnerships with employers, charities, training providers, families and communities. This is fundamental to the success of rehabilitation. The noble Lord, Lord Timpson, said:
“By tackling the root causes of offending and giving people the second chance they need, we can help them rebuild their lives and stay on the straight and narrow”.
Therefore, how can we expect the Probation Service to have the capacity to tackle the root causes of offending when there are so many other pressures on the system? We know that the true test of probation is not simply whether it can monitor someone when they leave prison; it is whether it can help them turn their lives around and build a better future. Once again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this excellent debate.