Offender Management Bill

I, too, support the amendments. I shall speak particularly to Amendment No. 41A. Everyone is aware of the historical disadvantage experienced by women and disabled people, extending at times in the latter case almost to invisibility. The moral case for purposeful action to address continuing problems is thus clear. However, I wish to make the practical case, particularly for the disability provisions in proposed new paragraph (d), although my remarks apply equally, mutatis mutandis, to the gender provisions in proposed new paragraph (e). An article was recently published on the BBC news website about the need for speech and language therapy in young offender institutions. A quarter of inmates in one institution had clinical communication difficulties. Research suggests that providing such therapy leads to a 50 per cent drop in reoffending. The more we get equality right, the better the outcomes, which is surely the object of the Bill. End-to-end offender management must include end-to-end provision for ameliorating disabilities. Amendment No. 41A relates to probation, but I hope that the Committee will entertain a parallel amendment on prisons when we come to that part of the Bill. This is an area in which partnership working is essential. Every organisation must be equally committed, which is what the amendment would require. These equality duties would cover not only offenders but staff and volunteers, who would also be protected. This is important. A recent Disability Rights Commission report considered the disclosure of disability by public sector workers. The researchers found that many people would avoid disclosing a condition, particularly in mental health settings, because of the stigma of disability and the risk that they felt disclosure involved. This is bad for staff and bad for the organisation. Sadly, there is evidence that the importance of specific duties bearing on public authorities is not sufficiently grasped in the penal system. A Home Office spokesperson, in a response to the article about speech therapy, complacently observed that people were usually incarcerated for too short a time to do anything useful and that in any case education was usually sufficient. Such attitudes need to be challenged and the amendments would challenge them. There tends to be equality only when there are specific requirements and transparency; hence the provisions about preparing and publishing disability equality schemes and action plans, about reviewing and revising the schemes at least every three years and about reporting on progress annually. The Minister may feel that there is no need to include these provisions in the Bill because they exist by virtue of disability and discrimination legislation anyway. But, as I have just illustrated by reference to the Home Office reaction, that is clearly not enough. Many duties arise as a result of the general law. It is all too easy for individual duties to get overlooked. In the case of disability, which it would not be unfair to describe as a Cinderella among the areas where equality needs to be promoted, it is all too easy for the duty to become invisible, which is why it would be particularly helpful to have this amendment in this legislation. I hope that this is uncontentious. I do not think that we have agreed any changes to the Bill as yet. This simple and straightforward amendment might give the Minister an opportunity to show how much she is listening to noble Lords and I hope that she accepts the amendment.