Offender Management Bill

From these Benches, I also very much support this amendment. I remember, not so very long ago, standing in the queue to get into a prison to take a confirmation. A carer and the young black child with her were just in front of me, but when they got to the relevant authority at the prison gate they were told that they were 10 minutes too late to get in. In spite of my efforts and those of others, they were turned away. We had a child in floods of tears, not able to go and see its parent, which was a salutary experience for me. To back up the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in the two prisons in my present diocese and the four in my previous diocese, the work of voluntary organisations, including Church-based organisations—the Mothers’ Union works in 50 or more prisons in this country, running play centres for children, homework clubs that enable children to work with their fathers, and so forth—is utterly dependent not only on the quality of prison governorship but on the quality and attitudes of the prison staff. Anything that we can do to underline that this is a basic duty, by which everybody has to abide, ought to be welcomed.