Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Main Page: Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, for securing this debate and talking about his experience, and all other noble Lords for their contributions. I welcome the opportunity to highlight the progress that has already been made and to outline the Government’s plans for further reform.
The Secretary of State for Justice is clear that education must be at the heart of our prison system if it is to rehabilitate effectively. That way, we stand a better chance of reducing our intolerably high reoffending rates. I agree as well with the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that education is valuable in itself.
As the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said, prisons in Scotland and Northern Ireland are devolved, while in Wales the responsibility for prison education rests with the Welsh Assembly Government. This evening, therefore, I will speak specifically on prison education in England and focus particularly on the adult system.
As we have already heard, the current prison system works to punish prisoners by denying them their liberty, and protects the public by detaining them, but there is no doubt more could be done to rehabilitate offenders. Our prisons must offer them the opportunity to turn their lives around. Much of the current prison estate and the conditions staff have to work in, particularly in older prisons with high levels of crowding, are not conducive to developing a positive rehabilitative environment, which is why we will invest £1.3 billion in prisons to ensure they are places of rehabilitation and not just incarceration.
Education is critical to enable prisoners to change their lives and contribute positively to society. There have been significant improvements in prisoner education over recent years, with participation now at its highest level since we began publishing data. But we absolutely agree that we must go further and ensure that education is at the heart of the prison regime.
As the noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lord Beecham, said, it is of great concern that Ofsted’s inspection of prison education confirms that one in five prisons is inadequate in terms of its leadership, management and delivery of education, and that another two-fifths require improvement. Ofsted has long been critical of the standard of prison education, which is one of the worst-performing areas of further education. But at the same time, we should not forget that great work is taking place, and I commend—as I am sure other noble Lords would too—Her Majesty’s Prisons Hollesley Bay, New Hall, Askham Grange and Hatfield in particular on receiving outstanding Ofsted reports.
To drive forward reform, as noble Lords have said, the Secretary of State for Justice has asked Dame Sally Coates to lead a review of education in prisons. The review is examining the scope and quality of current provision in adult prisons and in young offender institutions for 18 to 20 year-olds. By way of reassurance for the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, it will also look at how we can best support learning at level 3. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, asked about the future of offender learning and skills provision. Dame Sally will be providing independent advice on new contracts, and we will consider that carefully. In parallel, Charlie Taylor is leading a review of the youth justice system which will also include looking at education.
The adult prisoner population has specific educational challenges, as the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and my noble friend Lord Hailsham identified. In 2014-15, only 9% of adult prisoners assessed at reception were at GCSE standard A* to C in maths and only 13% at that standard in English. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, almost a third of adult prisoners assessed had a learning difficulty and/or a disability.
Dame Sally has a wealth of experience and is being assisted by a panel of expert members including representatives from further and higher education and from the voluntary and community sector, employers, senior government officials and experienced front-line prison staff. As part of the review, Dame Sally and the panel have conducted a wide range of prison visits, where they have witnessed some excellent practice. They were particularly impressed, for example, with the open academy at Her Majesty’s Prison Swaleside, where prisoners—mostly those serving long sentences—live, work and study together in support of their learning.
However, as noble Lords have said, it is clear that substantial barriers remain for many prisoners in progressing their learning and skills and ensuring they receive the right support to continue in education or into employment on release. We have received more than 400 responses to our public call for evidence, and initial findings from an evaluation of the current prison education contracts by Ipsos MORI have also been recently presented to the review panel.
The noble Lord, Lord German, asked about the cash savings that improved education in prison could deliver from reduced reoffending. We expect to have more detail on the impact of outcomes of prison education from the Ipsos MORI work that I just mentioned, which will be published in the spring. The Justice Data Lab will continue to provide powerful evidence in its report.
Of course, I cannot prejudge Dame Sally’s review, which is due to report in March, but I can say a little more about the areas being explored. Every prison should foster a culture with learning at its heart. With figures showing that more than 100,000 prisoners participated in education in England in the 2014-15 academic year, we have a good base to build on.
However, education must meet the needs of prisoners and lead to real jobs on release. On top of this, prisoners must be motivated and encouraged to participate and engage in their own learning. To achieve this, prison governors, with the right tools, need to be more demanding and creative about the range of education provided in the prisons that they run. This can be done. The panel was particularly impressed by the cohesive relationship between the governor, senior staff and education provider at HMP Drake Hall, where an education offer has been tailored to meet the needs of the establishment’s female population, to which the right reverend Prelate referred.
All governors should be freer to engage with a wider variety of partners who can help improve education, building on the work that people such as James Timpson and employers such as Halfords are undertaking via their academies in prisons. Several noble Lords—the noble Lords, Lord Hanningfield and Lord German, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and my noble friend Lord Hailsham—mentioned vocational education. Vocational training that meets the needs of employers in the areas to which prisoners will be released is a keen aim for the Offenders’ Learning and Skills Service. In the past three years, more than 230,000 vocational qualifications were achieved each year by those serving sentences in England.
There is also clearly an important role for the many innovative charitable partners, such as the Prisoners’ Education Trust, the Shannon Trust and the Reading Agency, which are so successful in supporting and encouraging prisoners to read—and, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby said, the chaplaincy. A range of education is delivered by National Prison Radio, with a popular book club airing daily. The Prince’s Trust provides support to young offenders to raise awareness and encourage self-employment on release, while the Learning and Work Institute has used its government funding to pilot a personal development course to engage female prisoners who are resistant to learning at Drake Hall, Eastwood Park and Low Newton prisons.
Building on the good practice already happening, the review will give fresh thought to routes into prisoner education. Of course, we need excellent teachers. Last year, Jerry Nightingale, a course tutor for a cycle maintenance and repair course at HMP Channings Wood, was awarded Further Education Lecturer of the Year. We want more teachers to consider teaching in prison as part of a rewarding career.
While we await the recommendations of the review, I reassure noble Lords that the Government continue to work hard to improve the quality of teaching and learning in prisons. A good grounding in maths and English is essential if ex-offenders are to find employment on release, which is why we introduced maths and English assessment for all newly received prisoners in August 2014. Where learners are assessed at below GCSE standard—that is, below level 2—and a need is clearly evident, they are strongly encouraged to enrol on an appropriate course, and their sentence plan reflects that. In the academic year 2014-15, 74,700 prisoners were assessed for their levels of maths and English on reception. In the same year, 39,300 prisoners participated in an English or maths course.
Within schools and universities, IT has revolutionised teaching practices. To reflect this, education in prisons does not take place only in classrooms, which I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, will be pleased to hear. The Virtual Campus, a secure web-based system, offers a broad range of skills, education and employment-focused material equivalent to provision outside prison. City & Guilds assessment tools are currently being piloted, giving teachers much more information about the maths and English skills of prisoners. This will allow sound choices to be made about the right teaching and learning approaches.
High-quality education is vital for the rehabilitation of young people who have offended, which is why we have doubled the amount of education in public sector young offender institutions for under-18s, agreed in new education contracts since March 2015.
The National Offender Management Service and BIS have jointly commissioned the Education and Training Foundation to deliver a programme of workforce development for teachers and those with responsibility for managing education in prisons. This is a considerable investment, showing the Government’s commitment to driving innovation and standards in the sector. I hope that I have managed to cover most of the points raised by noble Lords; those that I have not covered, I shall to get at with further information.
I shall end by returning to Hatfield, the prison that was last week awarded an outstanding Ofsted report; this shows how much can be done when the right approach is taken. I am confident that the Secretary of State, in light of Dame Sally’s recommendations, will move quickly to ensure that prison education is excellent not just at Hatfield, Hollesley Bay and other outstanding prisons but across the entire estate.