Prisons: Rehabilitation

Lord Bird Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, we absolutely agree that education, training and work are central to prisoners turning their lives around and we believe it is right and sensible for ex-prisoner employment to come from a number of different sources. The corporate social responsibility agenda has an important place here. We have also launched the New Futures Network to engage and persuade employers to take on ex-prisoners and are developing a new policy of release on temporary licence to increase the opportunities available to prisoners to gain experience in the real workplace.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, next week I am going to a wonderful literary festival in Erlestoke prison. It is a brilliant idea and, even though there are problems of money, it shows that, if you have leadership in prison among governors, you can turn things around. It is called Penned Up, it is next week and I would love all noble Lords to come.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I might prefer to be there next week—I might even be available. Be that as it may, the noble Lord makes an extremely good point. That is why, from 1 April, one change we are bringing in is the delegation of responsibility in these areas to individual governors so that they can take this sort of initiative forward for the benefit of all prisoners.