Women Released from Prison

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) on obtaining this debate and on putting the issues so succinctly, especially highlighting the fact that we need to question whether incarceration is always the right response to female offenders, and indeed to all offenders. Clearly there are serious offenders who must be incarcerated, but for less serious crimes we need to consider alternative modes of disposal.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) spoke very strongly about the issues, based on her own hard work in and long experience of this area, and she spoke very movingly about the very real issue of deaths in custody and female suicides. She also spoke about the need to transform the way that we rehabilitate women, and about the need to address the issue of the funding that is required to do so. Topically, given today’s debate in the main Chamber, she also spoke about the need to address universal credit issues for women leaving the prison estate.

The hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) again emphasised the importance of resources for support and counselling, and raised the genuine issue of the homelessness of many women who leave our prisons across the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made the point that prison officers in his constituency who serve in the system see the need for reform, and the hon. Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams) emphasised the duty of care that is owed to these women, as well as the great importance of tackling mental health issues.

This is a devolved matter, and in Scotland we have faced similar challenges. The Scottish Government have worked to support the effective reintegration and rehabilitation of women released from prison. To do that, they put together the reducing reoffending change fund, which funds a number of services that provide mentoring support to women in the criminal justice system—in particular, to women leaving prison. They also looked closely at the issue of short custodial sentences, and there is now a presumption in Scots law against short custodial sentences for all prisoners. The idea is that it is easier to rehabilitate people if they do not serve a short custodial sentence. The Scottish Government are doing work in that area.

Let us be frank: Scotland has a serious problem with the number of people incarcerated. In 2015, women made up more than 5% of the prison population in Scotland. That is the second-highest female prison population in northern Europe. Only Spain has a higher female prison population. In response to that issue, a commission was set up under the former Lord Advocate of Scotland—my boss in another life—Dame Elish Angiolini, who looked into how to improve outcomes in Scotland for women in the criminal justice system. She published a report in 2012, which made many wide-ranging recommendations, including the establishment of community justice centres, which offer a one-stop support network for women, the introduction of nationwide mentoring services to support women’s compliance with court orders, and alternatives to remand—a disproportionate number of women end up on remand. She also recommended that the women’s prison—the main women’s facility in Scotland—be replaced with a small specialist prison for women serving long-term sentences and smaller units for women on shorter-term sentences. The Scottish Government have begun to implement those changes. We should pay tribute to the campaigners for penal reform and feminist groups that called for those changes over a long period and were able to influence the system in Scotland.

When we discussed the issue of prisons in England and Wales in the Chamber recently, I invited the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), to visit the prison system in Scotland to see the reforms we are carrying out there, and he very generously did so. I extend that invitation to the Minister. I am not saying the situation is perfect, but we have moved forward and taken the Angiolini report’s recommendations on board. Hon. Members have argued today that the UK Government should similarly take on board the Corston report’s recommendations.

The Scottish Government are also supporting rehabilitation services in the community. I would like to mention Willow, which services women in my constituency and across Edinburgh and the Lothians. It provides a range of services for women who are returning from prison to the Edinburgh or Midlothian area. It is a partnership between NHS Lothian, the City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders. It aims to improve the health, wellbeing and safety of women leaving prison, enhance their access to services and reduce their offending behaviour. It is an excellent facility—one of many that are springing up in Scotland. I am interested to hear from the Minister whether similar facilities will be funded by the sort of cross-government and local government partnerships that have been set up in Scotland.