My Lords, both these amendments are really sensible. I very much hope that the proposers can work together before Report so that we have something quite powerful that we can all back and take forward. I realise that it is not easy for Ministers in your Lordships’ House. They hear all the expertise and sensible arguments, yet they have to go back to their Ministry and try to convey these arguments at the same time as being totally crushed and told, “Go back and just defend the status quo.” Still, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, could be quite tough with the Ministry about this and I very much hope that he will be.
When you hear about what happens to prisoners—a third being released on a Friday when, of course, housing benefits, healthcare, banking and all essential services are basically closed—you cannot believe that anybody would do it. It just does not make sense for those people who are being released. They have paid their debt to society; now we have to support them to make sure that they do not go back inside where they cost society a huge amount of money and contribute very little.
The other issue, of course, is that many people in prisons are miles from home and cannot easily travel home on a Friday; they may not have the money, the trains may not be running over the weekend, and so on. It seems that the Government and prisons are punishing ex-prisoners more and more. Can the Minister tell us why Friday is so popular a day to be mean to released prisoners? Why not give them the best start to reintegration?