Education in Prisons

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is aware that we are very reliant on fantastic teachers and educators in our prisons. For me, they are some of the finest public servants. They come in, day in, day out, in often very difficult circumstances. The government procurement situation is something that I am still trying to get my head around, coming from the commercial sector. It takes a little longer and is often more expensive than I would expect. We have more than 500 suppliers delivering education services in our prisons; I want to ensure that they deliver them to a high quality and that we hold them to account.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, when asked last week why the Government were abandoning their manifesto commitment to reduce reoffending through access to prison education, the Minister replied:

“We are rebalancing because some prisons had an oversupply of education”.—[Official Report, 14/10/25; col. 165.]


Given that His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons has just found that education provision is atrocious, will the Minister now tell us how many prisons he believes have an oversupply of education provision?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I met the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, yesterday, and we discussed exactly this situation. We discussed, for example, Manchester prison, which used to have over 1,000 prisoners and now has, I think, about 650 to 700. That is why we have reduced the amount of money being spent on education in prisons such as Manchester, because there are just fewer prisoners. The noble and learned Lord is correct that it is about reducing reoffending. We have to focus on that, and education has an important part to play. But it is not just about being in a classroom. When I go and visit prisons, what is more important to the men and women I meet there is them learning a skill so that, when they are out, they can get a job, which means they stay out of prison. Last week, I visited a workshop at Lowdham Grange, where they were making sofas—on which a number of Members of your Lordships’ House probably sit on a regular basis—and a fantastic bricklaying workshop. It is not just about education but about learning skills for jobs on release.