Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this debate and his excellent opening speech. The noble Lord has campaigned tirelessly on prison reform as he has on family life, so he unsurprisingly stressed, with others, the importance of prisoners’ contact with their families. We have heard a brilliant, sympathetic and far-reaching maiden speech from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson—our “new boy”, as he modestly described himself. We, for our part, are honoured to have such an extremely distinguished new boy and will continue to benefit greatly in this House from his wisdom, incisiveness and humanity. This Government inherited a crisis in our Prison and Probation Service. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, for the progress he made in tackling this as Prisons Minister. His presence in the Government will be missed. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said, until the Sentencing Act the threat of our criminal justice collapsing for want of prison space was all too real. The last Government recognised this problem far too late and introduced a haphazard series of crisis early-release schemes, but without offering any long-term solution. We have at last put the management of determinate sentences on a more organised footing, moving towards an earned progression model and restructuring such sentences in an orderly way, with the first third of sentences to be spent in custody and the second third, barring bad behaviour, to be served under intensive supervision by the Probation Service in the community. For this second stage, offenders would be subject to tagging and a series of tailored restrictions as necessary, designed to address concerns among victims and the public on security and safety grounds following prisoners’ release from custody. Stage 3, the last third, will then be spent on licence. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that we must be clear with the public about what we are doing and why. We must hope the new system will work, with the aid of extensive use of better technology. There is evidence from Texas and elsewhere that gives grounds for optimism, although I would have preferred to see earned release with more emphasis on rewarding good behaviour in custody rather than simply punishing misbehaviour. Moreover, many have pointed out that the length of prison sentences has doubled in recent decades. Our sentences are longer than almost everywhere else in Europe and there is no evidence that longer sentences reduce reoffending or aid rehabilitation. On the contrary, offenders serving long sentences in overcrowded prisons become institutionalised and lose hope, suffering increased mental damage over time, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, pointed out. Overcrowding is made worse because there are too many unconvicted people in prison on remand and for far too long, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Leveson, said, and too many are unnecessarily recalled for inadequate reasons, as my noble friend Lord Foster and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, argued. Far too many people receive prison sentences rather than community sentences, which would genuinely address their difficulties. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, spoke of treatment of addiction within the community, which prison cannot realistically replicate, and she was right. I invite the Government to continue along the path of the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, of according a greater priority to developing a more humane and effective penal system, prioritising reducing reoffending and rehabilitation and moving away from the wasteful and ineffective use of ever-longer sentences of imprisonment in response to ill-advised press and public demand. End the media drama, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, put it. We must improve conditions in many of our unhealthy prisons. We must continue to increase staffing levels and help dedicated staff in assisting prisoners to turn their lives around. Instead of aggravating drug addiction, mental health issues, appalling violence and criminality in our prisons, and a lack of education and training and consequently unemployability, our prisons and probation services must be dedicated to addressing and overcoming these issues. That was the essence of the argument made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, with which I agreed fully. These issues are often worse for Black prisoners, as the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, said. My noble friend Lord Foster and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, spoke of gambling addiction, also needing urgent action which cannot be provided in prisons. Furthermore, release from prison is not the end of the story. The Probation Service has a huge challenge to be effective in continuing the rehabilitation of prisoners on release. While tagging and the enforcement of restrictions on released prisoners’ movements, exclusion orders and the like are very important as safeguards for victims and for the public, the Probation Service is about much more than tough offender management. Our probation officers do a fantastic job. However, to reduce reoffending, the Probation Service must have the numbers, the space, the resources and the training to be able to assist clients with accessing mental health and addiction services, education, training, employment, and of course housing, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, stressed. To train a new probation officer takes at least 15 months, and the application process adds a further six months. Therefore, we worry that the extra £700 million for probation services, welcome as it is, may not cover both the extra work needed for rehabilitating offenders and coping with the increased demands of intense supervision of many more prisoners released into the community, a point well made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. So, I repeat the question I asked the Minster last Tuesday, to which I had no answer: what contingency plans are in place to provide further funds should this allocation of £700 million prove inadequate? Even with the implementation of the Sentencing Act and increased work by the Probation Service, the shortage of prison space will not go away. Even the most optimistic predictions suggest that the prison population will rise again. Add to that the need to replace many of our older and unsuitable prisons in crying need of replacement, and we will inevitably need more space. The Government are optimistic on prison building, but we cannot build ourselves out of this crisis, so clearly more—and more suitable—space is necessary. I am concerned that the proposal to build more cells into existing prisons may increase pressure on other facilities within those prisons. Furthermore, building more new prisons involves long delays. The Minister says the Government have acquired suitable land and that they can mitigate the delays inherent in designing and building new prisons. I hope he will forgive me for being sceptical about that. Recent experience of planning applications for prisons and local objections to such applications gives no reason for optimism. It is therefore very important that we consider a realistic assessment of the demand for new prison places and test it against a realistic programme of acquisition and building of new prisons. Furthermore, any prison building programme must allow for sufficient headroom to allow prisoners to be housed in prisons located with their needs and rehabilitation in mind, including, as the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, said, the need for prisoners to be close to their families and communities. Shuffling prisoners around an overcrowded prison estate throughout the UK is a recipe for failure of rehabilitation and for failure in the drive to cut reoffending, and for increased public expense—a point which follows from the analysis of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. That means more crime and the public continuing to be let down by a penal system that is not only inhumane but continues down a road that has failed in the past and threatens to fail us again unless we genuinely concentrate on developing and funding an approach which works, which will ultimately bring benefits in falling crime and in reduced public expense.