Offender Management Bill

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman’s proposition. May I tell him a little anecdote in response? I mentioned earlier that last Saturday morning I visited a voluntary group in London made up of previous offenders who help offenders. They paid me the compliment of telling me that I was not as starchy as they had anticipated—I think it was a compliment. As I was talking to them I noticed pictures on the walls of faces that I recognised, but I could not see the writing underneath. When I looked more closely, I saw that one of the pictures was of Einstein and another was of Churchill and that the word I could not read was ““dyslexia””. That group had realised that central to many of the difficulties in rehabilitating offenders was not just lack of education but problems in acquiring it. One of the reasons why I want more prison places is based not on the assumption that we can build our way out of difficulties by constantly building more places but on the need to create time and physical space to increase further the education carried out in prisons. If rehabilitation is not carried out, the reoffending will not drop, and if the reoffending will not drop, the public will be no safer than they were in the first place. I entirely agree with what the hon. Gentleman says.