Criminal Justice: Women

My Lords, I add my voice to that of all others in offering my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, on producing her report all of almost a year ago. I also congratulate her on her patience in waiting for some six months for first the Home Office and then the Ministry of Justice to respond to that report with what I think she described as something of a curate’s egg, even if 39 and a half of her 43 recommendations seem to have been accepted. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, described that response as implementation by the Government. I have a sneaking feeling that ““implementation”” might be a rather optimistic word to use about what was in fact just the Government’s response. I also, yet again, offer my commiserations to the Minister, who has had another very busy week with two days on the criminal justice Bill, a number of Questions to be answered at the Dispatch Box, a similar debate to this last week as well as the debate on war-making powers, and so on. It raises one question: if perhaps the Ministry of Justice did slightly less—this is possibly wishful thinking—it might do it slightly better. Yet again, I will make my plea to the Minister that he could start by scrapping the criminal justice Bill and going away to give it some proper thought before bringing it back to this House. I have a number of questions for the noble Lord. I did not manage to get all my questions out last week but there are one or two I certainly want to repeat this week. Last week I mentioned the timely nature of the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in that it came so soon after the launch of the annual report of Her Majesty’s inspector. I asked the Minister when the Secretary of State would be responding to that and whether we will get a chance in due course to debate that matter in this House. I repeat that question and I think all Members of the House would like to hear an answer. Secondly, I must return to Titan prisons and the recommendation in the noble Baroness’s report, which quite rightly goes in the opposite direction when she writes about the need for more smaller, local prisons. The Government seem to have been strangely silent on that point, although I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Coles, whose original report suggested Titan prisons, was in agreement with her in not going down the route of Titan prisons for women’s prisons but looking for smaller prisons. I also noted the point she made that even if there were to be Titan prisons, they must not be mixed. That would be a complete disaster in provision for women. The argument that the noble Lord put forward on Titan prisons—as I understand him, and no doubt he will correct me if I have got it wrong—is that they are not really Titan prisons but a number of smaller prisons on the same site. That misses the point in terms of the recommendation made by the noble Baroness that we need more smaller units. It is not so much the size of the unit, but the fact that we need something local for women prisoners if we are to help them maintain contact with their families. This point was made by a number of noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, made it and emphasised the fact that on average each female prisoner is some 58 miles—I cannot remember if that was the precise figure—away from home. The noble Baronesses, Lady Masham and Lady Massey, also stressed this point. I am sure the Minister will accept that what is needed are more local units so that prisoners can be closer to home. I hope he will accept that that is why so many noble Lords have been objecting to Titan prisons. It is not their mere size that is objected to; it is the fact that, by definition, they cannot be local. I have one or two other points that I would like to put to the Minister, but I am very wary of the time and will make sure that I sit down to give him his 20 minutes to respond. First, I shall ask about overcrowding. Many of the social factors that influence criminal behaviour are broadly similar for men and women. They include mental health problems, drug addiction, education, housing and employment, yet the Government have been exacerbating overcrowding to such an extent that it is almost impossible to rectify any of those issues while women are in prison. Indeed, manifest failures in prison security mean that many offenders are getting on drugs while they are in prison. Do the Government not recognise that tackling overcrowding and reforming prison regimes are vital for reducing offending? The same could be said about the high levels of self-harm by female prisoners that various noble Lords have mentioned. Would the Minister not accept that there is a relationship between overcrowding and the number of women in prison who self-harm or commit suicide? Turning to bail and remand—I will keep my remarks brief so that the Minister can give a full response—the Minister will be aware that the Prison Reform Trust estimates that six out of 10 women imprisoned on remand are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence. Given that, and the recent high-profile examples of offending on bail, would the Minister accept that the Government’s policy on bail and remand is not being directed at the right people? I ask him to look carefully at that figure of six out of 10 women on remand who do not go on to prison. I have other questions and still have some three minutes to go, but bearing in mind that we started at quarter to the hour, I think, I should stop now to allow the Minister to make the full response he always makes to the House and to allow the noble Baroness to respond briefly to his remarks.