Prisoners: Reoffending

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I beg to ask the Question standing on the Order Paper in the name of my noble friend Lord Hain.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

Reducing reoffending is my top priority. To break the cycle of crime, we are strengthening the rehabilitation offer in prison and the community, including increasing probation funding by 45%. We are recruiting more staff, expanding community housing and ramping up electronic monitoring—and that includes alcohol tags. Supporting prisoners into work is also something I care deeply about. Within six months of being in office, I launched regional employment councils, bringing together for the first time businesses, prisons, probation and the DWP to support offenders into work.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that very positive Answer. I do not think anyone in the House underestimates the personal and professional concern the Minister has with reducing reoffending, which is why he is probably as concerned as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and I that four out of every 10 prisoners still reoffend. Can he comment on that incidence? It seems that one of the problems is that universal credit is a digital benefit, and prison restrictions on computers mean that prisoners cannot easily access computers to make benefit claims for housing or jobs, for example, until they are released. In addition, they have to provide a verifiable address, an email address and a bank account. Is it not possible for the DWP and prison staff to get together to sort out these details well in advance so that when prisoners are released they can access the benefits to which they are entitled and get help with housing and jobs? It seems to me that otherwise we are in a situation where this is going to go on indefinitely because they are bound to drift back, at great cost to themselves and to us, into reoffending.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right. We inherited a very difficult situation. Having been around prisons for 25 years, I know that we need to get to a point where it is sustainable, and that includes when people leave prison and find a job, housing and support. Since I came into the role, I have rolled out the DWP work coaches who engage with prisoners up to 12 weeks before they are released so that they get on to the system, but the other problem is whether they have a digital identity. When I was setting up the employment advisory boards, this was a clear problem, so we set up the banking and identity administrators. It is a mouthful of a job title, but they do a really important job. They get people bank accounts and driving licences, and get them on to the DWP systems. I have met a number of people in prison who, for the first time in their lives, have a bank account. But there is still much more we need to do. There are too many people leaving prison with no job and no house, and without access to alcohol and mental health treatment, as I saw in Bronzeville prison last week.