Women Released from Prison

Paul Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) on securing this important debate.

At Justice questions in September, the prisons Minister, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), told me that,

“the Government have a duty of care to everyone we hold in custody.”—[Official Report, 5 September 2017; Vol. 628, c. 21.]

I wholeheartedly agree. Yet the loss of 316 lives in our prison system last year, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) referred to, shows that too often that duty of care is not being met, and that our prisons are sometimes not fit for purpose.

Deaths in custody lead to the headlines when we talk about health and wellbeing in prisons, but when we read between the lines we discover a more startling picture of the fragile state of healthcare within the prison estate. Women in custody are five times more likely to have a mental health concern than women in the general population, 46% of them reporting having attempted suicide at some point. Also, in some prisons around half of healthcare appointments are being missed due to a lack of prisoner escorts.

Last week, in the main Chamber, I spoke of the difficulties of accessing services when someone has no fixed abode; the same can often be said of women leaving prison. At least four in 10 women leave the justice system having no accommodation arranged for their release, and having no accommodation often leaves these women facing difficulty in finding employment, a battle to gain local authority help and support, and even a struggle to do something as simple as to obtain a mobile phone.

I know from my experience as a GP that many women leaving custody find themselves alone and destitute, with no support networks in place. Due to the lack of transitional support, I myself have even had to resort to funding overnight accommodation for those left homeless upon release from prison, so that they do not have to risk their life by sleeping rough.

It does not have to be that way. Prisons literally present us with a captive audience and a host of opportunities to help people to transition back into society. If instead of locking up women as a punishment we invested in unlocking their potential, we would have more of these women out of custody long-term, we would have more mothers back with their children and—crucially—we would have more women contributing to our economy instead of contributing to the cost of the prison estate.

A prison system fit for purpose would ensure that we equip those in custody with the education and skills they need to get back on their feet and into employment; a prison system fit for purpose would provide better support on housing, linking those in custody with charities and other housing providers to keep them off the streets; and on healthcare, a prison system fit for purpose would ensure that prisoners’ health conditions are addressed, prevented, supported and brought under control, so that we would reduce the burden on our NHS in the longer term and have a healthier society.

We should not have to hear horror stories of women leaving prison with nothing more than a cheap sleeping bag and a list of problems that is larger than when they started their sentence. The challenge is not straightforward —we can all accept that—but tackling it requires a better joined-up approach from the Government and other partners. It cannot simply be an afterthought or something that we leave to charities alone to solve.

I urge the Minister to listen to these concerns and to work with his colleagues in Government to bring about the changes needed within our justice system, to ensure that women are better supported upon release from it.