My Lords, I will add a few words to give some examples of how this actually affects real people. The third sector, the charities in our society, have been very good at helping and supporting people. Given that we now know that a third of prisoners are released on a Friday, one would think that the charity on hand to meet them at the gate and help them through a very difficult period on a Friday would be helped by the prison authorities explaining when the prisoner was going to be released. After all, if you are sitting in a car, possibly round the corner from the prison, waiting for the gate to open and the prisoner to come out, you need to know that you are not going to be waiting there from 8 am or 10 am until 5 pm or 6 pm. Yet, in fact, that is the story I have heard from one charity that helps people in this matter.
The second example was very concerning. A food bank based in Hereford told me that these prisoners—the third who are released without anywhere to live—were
given tents and sleeping bags, directed to a farmer’s field and given the address of the food bank. That is the sort of emergency you then place these people in. These are people who have done their sentence but who face no fixed abode, nowhere to live and certainly no money.
The third thing that worries me is how people get their benefit if you now require a bank account. As I understand it—perhaps the Minister will correct me—setting up a bank account while you are in prison is not a possibility; in other words, even if you were to get your benefit paid at the time you left, you would have to have a bank account to pay it into and to provide the necessary ID as well, all of which of course becomes less popular and less possible on a Friday.
These amendments do not seem to be rocket science. They are actually very practical and since that group of one-third of prisoners who are let out on a Friday are the group most likely to reoffend if they cannot find anywhere, there is a societal impact. We all can benefit by giving these people the right helping hand in their very first window of opportunity in real community life.
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