My Lords, for me this is a case of “three times pay for all” when it comes to dyslexia. The reason I have tabled this amendment is because you find abundant evidence of special educational needs among our prison population. The estimates for the number of prisoners on the dyslexia spectrum range from 20% to 50%, the higher figure being the more frequently occurring. It is generally accepted now that every problem to do with literacy and educational attainment occurs in abundance throughout our prison population. I have singled out dyslexia for screening because of my interest in it and because it will probably be the most frequently occurring problem.
Why do we need to conduct screening for dyslexia? A few years ago I became familiar with a project in Chelmsford Prison under the leadership of Jackie Hewitt-Main. She discovered that lots of dyslexics would go nowhere near the education department. One realises in three seconds that they go nowhere near it because it constitutes a bad experience for them. Most prisoners are no longer in school by the age of 14. If someone has not been attaining in the education system, it is an unpleasant experience and they often find themselves getting into enough trouble to send them to prison. It is as if they are saying, “Let us go in there and go through a bad experience in the classroom”. Suddenly, it becomes obvious that they
will try to avoid that. The redoubtable individual I mentioned was originally looking at head injuries, of which she found many. She did a survey of prisoners who would not go into the education block. She found that once you had established that link to their previous experience these prisoners became much more open to training and to assistance in changing their lives. The incidence of violence on the wing in question dropped and the prisoners stopped hitting one another quite so much—perhaps they had something to talk about. It was subsequently discovered that half the prison warders were in the same boat. As an aside, dyslexics tend to like regular hours and regular forms et cetera. They do not like promotion when they have to change the form, but that is an aside for another day.
So having a form of assessment on entrance into the system would seem to be sensible idea. Once again, I have one caveat, which I have given before: you should probably extend this to a list of other conditions. For example, I discovered that Asperger’s is overrepresented as well. If you have problems with communication and you have problems with the law, once again it becomes quite obvious how that could happen and you go down the list. But the principle of screening is a good one. Of course, you have to back this up with the correct action. I am afraid that bits of the Prison Service have a history of screening and saying, “Yes you are”, and then doing nothing about it. An awareness programme must back it up. That is what is required.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who I am afraid has had to leave us, asked me to speak to his Amendment 213. The idea that you should maintain the EHC plans once you are inside the prison system or custody service does not require much thought. If you have an identified process going or a pattern of activity, it should be maintained or at least replaced by something extremely similar to it or better. That is fairly straightforward.
Then we come to another thing that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has tabled: removing Clause 70 from the Bill. I was half thinking about putting my name to this amendment, but I was beaten on the draw by many other Members of the Committee. Noble Lords should not press this if the Minister can tell us that the Ministry of Justice has a specially constructed programme that will address the needs of its client base that goes beyond, and is more appropriate than, that provided outside. That would be a good reason for not removing the clause because—nobody disputes this —we have a very high need base. If there is something that it is appropriate for adults or young people disaffected with the education system and is especially suited to them, you should not remove it.
If we do not get that quality assurance, we will not get people who will be able to talk about administering educational needs identification or coping strategies for how to access further education, where it is appropriate, and there will be problems. If you do not have people with a degree of sensitivity and skill in there, you should remove the clause. If we hear that we are going to do lots of wonderful things with people who are not properly trained, not skilled and not accustomed to the environment they are going into, the possibility of
achieving nothing or even doing damage is high. These are probing amendments and I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say.