Prisons: Educational Provision (Hansard, 16 March 1998)

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn
My Lords, the Prison Service has a number of initiatives for enhancing education and training in prisons and young offender institutions. They include piloting welfare-to-work programmes; incorporating "key skills" into the curriculum; a model curriculum for juveniles; a nationally-accredited preparation-for-work course; delivering basic skills training; developing family literacy projects and literacy mentoring; and screening for dyslexia.

§ Lord Quirk
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that encouraging reply. Is it not the case that, although the 65,000 inmates of Her Majesty's institutions are but a very small fraction of our population, they are a seriously skewed fraction, being 454 not only disproportionately prone to creating fear and misery, but disproportionately young, disproportionately male, disproportionately from unhappy homes and—to my point—disproportionately ill-educated? Should we not be making a special effort to remedy at least that last deficit, given that in apparently more optimistic times the institutions concerned were known as "houses of correction"? Can there be any possible justification for the priority shown in the most recent annual report of the Prison Service for 1995–96 that, of the £25,000 per annum cost per inmate, in that year only 2 per cent. was devoted to education and training? A fortiori, how can we justify perversely reducing the amount allotted to education and training over the past two years, given that in those two years the prison population has vastly increased?

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn
My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord has a point about the disproportionate numbers in the categories that he identified. The prison spend on education in 1996–97 was £34,481,000. In 1997–98 it is estimated at £36 million, so there will be that degree of increase. We are concerned to echo the noble Lord's comments. Welfare-to-work is very important and I entirely agree with what the noble Lord proposes. We now have 11 pilot schemes in different establishments. As regards preparation for work and work skills, initial evaluations will take place after six months and a full evaluation after one year. The trial itself is being taken seriously and £1.5 million is being devoted to it.

Baroness Sharpies
My Lords, can the noble Lord say how many prisons have writers in residence?

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn
My Lords, I cannot.

§ Lord Ackner
My Lords, does the Minister accept that, so long as the present gross overcrowding of prisons continues and so long as the severe budget cuts continue, there is no real prospect, to quote the words of the Question, of enhancing, the provision of education and training"?

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn
My Lords, gross overcrowding is of course a very serious problem. The present figure for inmates as at 16th March is 64,956. We have to manage, to an extent, what we have inherited. But I stress that many positive initiatives are going ahead. We cannot simply throw up our hands in horror. It is very important that the prison department regards rehabilitation and education for a return to a decent life extremely seriously.

§ The Lord Bishop of Ely
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that these initiatives amount to a quiet and sustained revolution in aspiration and achievement laid out in the most welcome Green Paper, The Learning Age?

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn
My Lords, I hope so. Things are improving. There are now 48 different NVQs offered in prison; there were 24 in 1992; and 455 17,309 individual NVQ units were awarded to prisoners last year, which is 25 per cent. up on the year before. Over 1,800 prisoners achieved full NVQs last year—50 per cent. over the previous year and three times the number of the year before that. There is at least a gleam of hope within what is otherwise sometimes regarded as a gloomy picture.

§ Lord Dholakia
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the figures for 1995–96 and 1996–97 show a cut in the amount of time spent in prison education in at least 71 per cent. of prison establishments? Does he accept that those figures are supplemented by the fact that in 1995 each prisoner spent an average of 1.8 hours in prison education whereas in 1997 that had dropped to 1.5 hours? Will the Minister explain what will be done to remedy that situation?

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn
My Lords, we look not only at the education component, but at purposeful activity generally, which includes work; education and training; supervised PE and sport; evening education; religious activity; social, domestic and family visits; prison induction courses, and resettlement and rehabilitation activities, not all of which come within the component normally thought of as "education". The key performance indicator is that each prisoner should spend at least 22.5 hours per week in purposeful activity. In fact, to the end of January this year, that was exceeded and the figure was 23.2 hours.

§ Lord Acton
My Lords—

§ Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes
My Lords—

§ Earl Russell
My Lords—

Noble Lords
Order!

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Richard)
My Lords, we are doing quite well for time at the moment. I think that perhaps it is time for our side to ask one question, then the noble Baroness, and then, no doubt, the noble Earl.

§ Lord Acton
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that in his report on women in prisons in May last year the Chief Inspector of Prisons recommended at paragraph 12.126 that there should be greater co-ordination and co-operation on educational matters by prisons holding women? Has that been set in motion?

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn
My Lords, I was aware of that recommendation. That is one reason why an assistant director has been appointed to deal with the sort of issues to which my noble friend has referred which relate particularly to the problems that some women suffer in our prison regime.

§ Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes
My Lords, this appears to be a popular topic this afternoon. Is the Minister aware that for at least the past 30 years, if not longer, there has been a Dowty workshop in Gloucester 456 Prison—Dowty being local industrialists—which trains for skills and then undertakes to employ those qualifying when they leave prison? I have always thought that a wonderful example and I wonder why such an example has not been followed more widely by prisons in partnership with local industry.

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn
My Lords, the noble Baroness is right that such schemes have the great virtue of being focused, with the result that we are not training people for opportunities which may not exist, thus not affording them the opportunity to lead a fruitful life. Of course, such schemes depend on the flexibility of the local prison governor and on the generosity of local employers, such as that to which the noble Baroness referred.

§ Earl Russell
My Lords, is the Minister aware that his answers have demonstrated that the penal policy of Her Majesty's Government and their budgetary policy are incompatible? Which one are they going to change?

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn
My Lords, they are not incompatible. There are constraints on public spending, but that does not limit the power of reflective imagination to spend the available money in the most appropriate way.