Better Prisons: Less Crime (Justice and Home Affairs Committee Report)

Baroness Hyde of Bemerton Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hyde of Bemerton (Lab)]

I congratulate the noble Lords on their maiden speeches. They were truly excellent contributions, and I look forward to the one that is yet to come in this debate. I am delighted that they have all chosen to speak and make the ground of their maiden speeches the topic of prisons, which is a topic very close to my heart. I am delighted that we have already heard a lot about the particular plight of women in prison.

I have chosen this debate for my first speech after my maiden speech—the difficult second album genre of speeches—having studied and worked in prisons for many years. I will restrict my comments to three particular areas: the purpose of prison, which has been very well covered already, so I will keep that brief; the use of release on temporary licence to enable people to work; and supporting prison staff.

If we want to reduce crime and ensure that there are fewer victims, we have to sort out prisons—I cannot state it more plainly than that. I welcome the report and my noble friend the Minister’s response to it. But there was a surprising omission, and that is the critical role of experts and those with experience in helping policymakers to get this right—that is both people with lived experience in the justice system and those who work in it.

We have already heard that the context is truly grim. I will not repeat all the things we have heard, but I just make your Lordships’ House aware that the current rate of self-harm in our prisons is 859 incidents per 1,000 prisoners.

I now turn to the second recommendation in the report, which states that

“the Ministry of Justice … should set out a clear and consistent … purpose of prison”.


As others have eloquently stated, if we want the public to understand the decisions being made about prisons, they have to understand what prisons are for. What is the primary purpose? It is an urgent, practical question; it is not an esoteric, academic ponderance, because the answer to that question then dictates a load of answers to what actually happens in our prisons, day in, day out.

I raise this particularly because most people in our prisons now will be released back into wider society. About 14,000 people are released every three months. What each prisoner experiences in prison then shapes how they go on to live after release. We must communicate that purpose and ensure the visibility of evidence for what reduces reoffending and restores communities and lives.

That brings me to my second theme: the increased use of release on temporary licence to unlock employment opportunities. I know that my noble friend the Minister is as passionate as I am about the role of employment in preventing reoffending. Indeed, I first encountered him when I worked for Working Chance, which we have already heard about, supporting women with criminal convictions into work while he was becoming a household name through his pioneering employment schemes in prisons and after. We know that work can provide dignity, purpose and a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and it gives you new skills.

The use of release on temporary licence, which is often limited to day release—people going into the community to work or volunteer, then returning to the prison at night—can help build confidence and get people ready for release. The scheme is available only to some prisoners, appropriately vetted near the end of their sentence, but government data shows that, in 2024, 99.8% of those released on temporary licence completed the period successfully and safely, and those prisoners given release on temporary licence have lower rates of reoffending on release.

When I worked at Working Chance, I had a colleague who had been on release on temporary licence who came in every day to work with us, and about a month in she was finally released from prison. Let us call her Katie. On the day she was released from prison, her whole world shifted. She was struggling to navigate new relationships and thinking, “Where am I going live? How will this go?” But in the midst of that, she continued to come to the job that she had done for several months, from nine until five, Monday to Friday, sitting at the same desk and drinking her tea from the same mug with familiar colleagues. She continued in that role for several years and then got a better job in a large public sector body. The reoffending rate at Working Chance, when I worked there, was 3%.

Witnessing Katie’s transition from prison on that day-release programme gave me a front-row experience of what the data already showed us. It showed somebody able to successfully transition into normal life and make a contribution. Most people in prison today are going be released, so let us crack on with that.

I have left myself with no time to talk about the importance of staff. They do a very tough job. I ask that my noble friend the Minister consider meeting with me to discuss how we can help staff exposed those traumatic events. I welcome the recommendations around sickness levels.

We all agree that it would be better for staff to work in less violent, less understaffed and less traumatising environments, so let us get a clear purpose for prisons, increased use of ROTL and greater support for our prison staff, because most people in prison today are going to be released.