Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Suitability for Fixed Term Recall) Order 2024

Lord Bird Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bird (CB)]

I want to make a few comments. The renaissance should actually start somewhere else. It should start—I have certain experience with this—with all the naughty boys who later become naughtier boys and men; they should be addressed and supported. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, and I have talked about this. What we are largely doing with our young now, although there are some wonderful projects and initiatives, is warehousing them. When I was a young person in the custodial system, if I wanted to climb Mount Everest then, as long as I did not rob an old lady on the way, they were happy to help me. They were happy to help me to do O-levels and that kind of thing.

We have to stop just responding to the problem as it is. There will always be a need to respond to an emergency, but you have to back it up with prevention. That means dealing with our children, largely from the same class that I come from, who fail at school. When I go to Pentonville, the first thing I ask is, “How many people did well at school?”, and only a couple of people put up their hands. The rot starts early on. These children are inheritors of poverty.

Until we have some thinking, we cannot deal with the emergency just by dealing with the emergency. We have to grow up and start creating a system that, first of all, helps the children who come through it. At the same time, we have to look at the social engineering that is necessary to stop producing children who fail at school and whose only inheritance is poverty.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on his intervention. Personally, I think it is full of common sense. We know that a large number of people in prison, particularly in the male estate, are dyslexic. That almost tells you all you need to know about why they are in prison—they have fallen through the various protections. That is somewhat outside the scope of today’s debate, but it is a point well made that all Governments should be thinking about profoundly. We must consider how to tackle this problem as early as we can through a different way of approaching the social problems that lead to the situation that we are in. I thank the noble Lord for those comments.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for her comments too. I hope this is not a cynical move, although I entirely see the potential contradiction in some ways that we are involved in. The Government’s general policy, and probably that of most Governments, is to try to be tougher on the more serious offences but to think harder about how to tackle the less serious ones. Today, we are talking about the less serious offences.

We will come to IPP prisoners on Report of the Victims and Prisoners Bill—we discussed it the other night. Automatic release for low-level drug offenders is a very creative idea; it is some way away from the thinking of the present Government, but is another thing to put on our list of things to think about, if I may put it that way to the noble Baroness in thanking her for her intervention.

Finally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who, with great distinction, discharged the office that I now hold, so I regard myself as his grandson in a way. His approach with my noble friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham was no doubt very sensible at the time but, as all Governments know, one has to deal with the political framework that one finds oneself in. In putting forward this order, the present Government are, I hope, producing a practical solution to a very pressing problem.

Of course, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, that support for the Probation Service—perhaps even its renaissance—is something devoutly to be wished. We have to do what we can, as we can, with the resources we have, but the overall goal is, I think, one that most Members of this House share. So, unless there are any other points I have not dealt with, I now commend this order.