Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

6. What steps he plans to take to provide relevant skills to offenders to enable them to find work when they leave prison.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

16. What steps he plans to take to provide offenders with relevant skills and training in order to help them find work when they leave prison.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

On 18 May, to great acclaim, I launched “Making prisons work: skills for rehabilitation”, the report on offender learning that I commissioned last summer. It sets out a substantial programme of reform to increase the positive impact of offender learning on reoffending rates and on former prisoners’ capacity to reintegrate successfully into civil society.

[Mr Burrowes]

The Minister will be aware of the good work of National Grid in providing work opportunities to offenders upon release. Does he recognise the common complaint that too many offenders have not been trained with the right work skills to make them employable on release? What are the Government going to do about that?

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, I do recognise that, which was why, in the review that I published, we put the emphasis on employability skills. For someone to leave the life of crime, another life must pay for them, which means getting and keeping a job. I met National Grid this week, actually, to discuss skills issues, and I congratulate it on its work and my hon. Friend on championing the issue.