Farmer Review

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Farmer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in implementing the report from the Farmer Review, The Importance of Prisoners’ Family Ties for Reform: Preventing Reoffending and Reducing Intergenerational Crime.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the final report from the review with so many whose experience and expertise in the broad area of prison reform far outstrip my own. Indeed, some of your Lordships were named in it as major contributors to this vital area. I am looking forward to their speeches today, the content of which will, I am sure, add depth to the work of the review and give the Government much to think about.

I was asked by the Ministry of Justice to study the importance of strengthening prisoners’ family ties to preventing reoffending and reducing intergenerational crime. I will talk a little about what we found and recommended under the three main headings of culture, consistency and safety.

Before doing so, I must rebut the friendly fire that the report drew from honourable Members on Conservative Benches in the other place. Although I am sure their hearts were in the right place, the main criticism was that I seemed to have forgotten the victims of crime. My remit, I repeat, was to reduce reoffending and intergenerational crime. Research shows that better contact with families can achieve both, as I will make clear.

Far from being victim-blind, such a remit prioritises victims, albeit implicitly. Less reoffending means less crime and therefore fewer victims and fewer future prisoners, and therefore less cost and fewer family members themselves serving a sentence for crimes the parent or partner inside committed—an altogether safer society.

As I say in my foreword:

“This report is not sentimental about prisoners’ families, as if they can, simply by their presence, alchemise a disposition to commit crime into one that is law abiding. However, I do want to hammer home a very simple principle of reform that needs to be a golden thread running through the prison system and the agencies that surround it. That principle is that relationships are fundamentally important if people are to change”.


I have talked before in your Lordships’ House about the fundamental importance of human relationships for all of us. Ensuring that as many prisoners as possible have relationships that are strong and stable—I must admit that I hesitated to use that phrase—must be a golden thread running through prison reform and the entire estate.

Therefore, this review calls for cultural change—for relationships to become valued and to be seen as indispensable to the Ministry of Justice’s priority of preventing reoffending. We also need a broader change in the culture of government: all departments need to recognise that positive family relationships are as important for children’s and adults’ lives as education and employment. This came home to me forcefully when I first began to look at the research on rehabilitation. Learning a trade and improving one’s education are clearly essential if someone is to stay on the right side of the law when they leave prison. Healthy, stable relationships provide motivation, yet the role that family and other relationships can play in reducing reoffending is rarely mentioned when politicians and others talk about rehabilitation.

Given that, on average, 43% of prisoners reoffend, at a cost of £15 billion a year, I suggest that we are not doing terribly well at reducing reoffending and that something is missing. Putting it another way, education and employment are only two legs of the rehabilitation stool—and we are surprised that it keeps falling over. Enabling prisoners to maintain and improve family relationships is the third leg of that stool, and this is not the soft option. It can be extremely painful for men to be brought face to face with their family responsibilities and with the effect of their crimes on their partners and children, and more powerful than anything else in convincing them to change their ways.

Almost two-third of prisoners’ sons commit crimes themselves. When a father decides to go straight and put his children first, this can break the cycle of intergenerational offending. Prisoners who receive visits from a family member are 39% less likely to reoffend than those who do not. Therefore, when considering prisoner location, the norm should be that men are kept within their region and, if moved out for tactical management purposes, brought back as soon as possible. The new prison in north Wales, HMP Berwyn, will house many man who are a long way from home. It is encouraging that, from the outset, planning has sought to mitigate the negative effects of this—for example, by appointing a senior uniformed member of staff as children and families manager, a first in the Prison Service.

My second point is the unacceptable inconsistency of respect for family ties across the prison estate. Only half of all public sector prisons had visitor centres run by specialist voluntary sector organisations. The good family work in Norwich prison was backed by a far more outward-looking approach than others I visited. The report refers to the “extrovert” prison, which instinctively looks over the prison walls for resource and aims to be a resource in the community. Norwich’s deputy governor holds regular surgeries with family members to get their input when there are difficulties with prisoners. Category D prisoners run a cafe, which is so good that it is on the tourist bus route. I also saw “introvert” prisons, where grandparents who had travelled more than 100 miles were kept waiting in a dingy, crowded room with other weary and anxious visitors, but there were no refreshments or other facilities.

In my recommendations, I outlined a local family offer for inclusion in the MoJ’s new policy frameworks to drive a consistent approach. Every prison needs a visitor servicing centre. It also needs staff who make family work an operational priority. Offenders’ families have, after all, been described by the Chief Inspector of Prisons as the “most effective resettlement agency”. For example, officers should run visits with the attitude that family members are assets. HMP Parc in Bridgend, south Wales, welcomes families with a courteous customer service mentality akin to good airport security. Some prisons treat families as an inconvenience at best, criminal themselves at worst. Every prison needs extended visits, where families can spend longer with prisoners in less formal surroundings. It needs family skills learning, so that prisoners learn how to be a better parent and partner inside prison and eventually outside prison. Finally, it needs a gateway communications system. If families have concerns about someone in prison, being able to communicate those to the right member of staff could save lives.

That takes me to my third point; the importance of families to safer custody. Men who stay in touch with their children and have a sense of responsibility towards them have a big incentive to stay out of trouble and drug-free. I saw fathers supporting other fathers to keep their noses clean. As one man said, “If I’m talking to my child at 6 pm to find out how he’s doing, I don’t want to be off my head on drugs”. Lack of contact with families is also a key factor in violence, self-harm, suicide and poor mental health. Prisoners need relationships to motivate them and give them hope —they are no different from the rest of us.

The additional 2,500 prison officers, who will give a ratio of 1:6 of officers to prisoners, are essential if they are to have the time to relate to the men in their care. Officers told me that they were so busy they felt deskilled. They were losing the ability to develop a rapport with the men on their wing and in so doing obtain vital insights into their state of mind. Training for new officers must include these vital relational skills.

The Ministry of Justice is now implementing the review, and this debate will be invaluable for its deliberations as it moves forward. I look forward to hearing my noble friend’s response to the wisdom of other noble Lords who have kindly made the time to speak today, as well as to the progress that she can report on the implementation of this review.