Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-15
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment and I warmly commend the speeches of the noble Baronesses, Lady Burt and Lady Jones. Reading the report of the shocking death of Baby A is salutary indeed. It took me back to the debate we had earlier in Committee, looking at the special needs of women in prison and the effect of custody on those women and their children I refer back to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, when he referred to the briefing from the charity Women in Prison. This related how more than 53,000 children each year were affected by their primary carers being sent to prison and that 95% of children whose mothers are in prison were forced to leave home. One sentence encapsulated it for him: "‘We’ve been sentenced’, says a mother, ‘but they’ve been sentenced with us.’".—[Official Report, 1/11/21; col. 1036.] The point was also at the heart of the contribution made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. She said that parental imprisonment was, for the children concerned, a well-recognised predictor of mental ill-health, poor educational achievement and employment prospects, and future criminality. It sets a context for discussing the particular circumstances of Baby A and pregnant women prisoners Of course, there are many lessons to be learned in respect of both HMP Bronzefield and the prison system as a whole. The report of the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman made a number of very important recommendations. In particular, there was a recommendation of principle that, as the noble Baroness referred to, all pregnancies in prison should be treated as high-risk by virtue of the fact that a woman is locked behind a door for a significant amount of time and there is likely to be a high percentage of avoidant mothers who have experienced trauma and are fearful of engaging with maternity care. The noble Baroness, Lady Burt, listed some of the key recommendations. I just want to focus on what I would call "system recommendations". A specific recommendation was made to the director of health and justice for NHS England to consider the findings and recommendations of the report and ensure that the learning is applied across the women’s estate. It went on to say that this should include recognition that a clinic-based community model of midwifery care was not appropriate for custodial settings, and that all pregnancies in prison were high-risk. What response has been received from NHS England and what co-operation is being given by NHS England to the Prison Service to take forward that recommendation I, like the noble Baronesses, welcome the new policy framework for prisons on pregnancy, mother and baby units and maternal separation as a significant step forward, but I am sure we need to do more. I was struck by the comments of Dr Edward Morris, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who said: "The next step is to ensure that these policy commitments are translated into practice on the ground across all women’s prisons, and that all staff in women’s prisons receive the right training to provide women with the information and support they need. Alongside strong links to the local midwifery team, we feel strongly that all maternity services located near to a women’s prison should have a designated obstetrician with responsibility for ensuring high quality care for women in prison." I very much agree with that. I, too, would welcome some reassurance from the Minister that his department is taking these recommendations seriously. I particularly urge on him the need for the closest co-operation between his department and NHS England. At the end of the day, the lessons learned from this tragic case must be applied to the prison system as a whole.