Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-01-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): I am obliged that the noble Lord knows what they are; I wanted to advise the rest of the House, since other noble Lords may not be as familiar with these matters as the noble Lord has become following his discussions with my noble friend Lord Howe. I am concerned with the underlying thrust of the noble Lord’s Bill, not with matters of minor detail, and I quite appreciate that in the context of a Private Member’s Bill it may often be of assistance to have discussions about how apparently repealed legislation can be removed from a Bill and the Bill improved. I appreciate that. I am not attempting to make some ad hominem observation or criticism of the noble Lord at all; I just want to underline that the proposals made regarding the Armed Forces are skewed The point I was coming to is that the Armed Forces Act 2006 removed many forms of disposal that were previously used by the Armed Forces. In fact, the reforms to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 have been adopted by the Armed Forces, so we have the same issues arising both for the Armed Forces and elsewhere In summary, the Government understand the noble Lord’s concerns and we are, of course, committed to helping ex-offenders who wish to make a fresh start and put their criminal history behind them. We are desperately anxious to ensure that people do not simply leave the prison gate one day and return another. Despite this, we do not support the noble Lord’s Bill, given the reasons I have already outlined. I note the noble Lord’s views, I understand them and I would welcome the opportunity to engage further with him about how we can increase the support that is available to ex-offenders. We have already made some progress in this area I acknowledge that these matters are all interconnected. Rehabilitation, disclosure, opportunity for education within prison, opportunity for employment as people go through the gate from prison—all these things are linked. Since 2016, we have been running a campaign to encourage more businesses to provide training and work opportunities for offenders and ex-offenders. This has been carried out in close collaboration with the Department for Work and Pensions See Potential campaign. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, cited a number of instances where employers have come forward. This underlines the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that our prison system has to provide hope and opportunity, not just punishment The present campaign emphasises the general advantage to society of securing employment for ex-offenders and thereby reducing reoffending and unemployment. I have other examples, further to those mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord McNally. Amey, the large engineering firm, is now expressly training offenders and then recruiting ex-offenders into its workforce. Bounce Back is a construction training organisation that employs people on release from prison and, indeed, is now training them in construction skills during their period of imprisonment—albeit some prison governors have become slightly concerned at the sight of prisoners erecting scaffolding in the prison yard. It is important that such skills are made available. I understand the challenges on the present prison estate, which is why that, too, is being addressed at the present time. It is also why we have sought to give further responsibility to individual prison governors to determine how they take forward issues of prison education and prison education funding within their own institutions in order to secure the best outcomes It is our hope, now that the matter of education has moved from the Department for Education to the Ministry of Justice, that it can be expanded and improved within the prison estate. But, of course, expanding opportunity within the prison estate can be done only on the foundations of an improved prison estate itself. That is why the Government have made such a commitment to improving the physical prison estate in order to achieve greater and better results so far as recidivism is concerned, so far as opportunity is concerned and so far as the future lives of former offenders are concerned We are concerned to turn lives around and we do not wish to see them turned around and back to prison. We wish to see people given the opportunity for employment, given the opportunity for education and given the opportunity to change their lives. At this time we do not consider that the proposals of the Bill are appropriate. Nevertheless, I thank the noble Lord, and indeed all noble Lords, for their contributions to this debate.