Offender Management Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for providing us with the opportunity to discuss these very important issues. I share his passion about this particular group of young people and, indeed, his passion for trying to ensure that fathers play a more active and reflective role in the lives of their children. Noble Lords will know that this issue was considered in Committee in the other place. James Brokenshire helpfully tabled an amendment relating to the Children Act, and my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Vernon Coaker, agreed to bring forward a government amendment in due course. Amendment No. 132, which we will discuss shortly, fulfils his commitment. Perhaps in parenthesis I may say to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, how much I echo her experience regarding young children. I am very grateful that the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Chelmsford, added his wisdom in this area. I know how much he and those in the faith community—I do not just talk about the Christian community but all the faith communities—do in this regard. It is a very important point. I hope that I can fulfil my noble friend Lord Judd's aspiration and give a lot of reassurance about what we are doing now. Bearing in mind all the comments that have been made, it would be helpful if I give a little background to the work we have been doing to tackle this issue. In particular, I hope to address the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, on the amendment. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that we very much take on board the role that poor relationships could play. As part of healing it is very important not just for the offender to move on but for the child to move on. The Government collectively committed to tackling the seven pathways to reducing reoffending when we published the National Reducing Re-offending Delivery Plan in November 2005. The children and families pathway of that plan is dedicated to dealing with the very issues on which noble Lords have spoken so eloquently today—I include all noble Lords in that. We do not underestimate the challenges involved. Our up-to-date estimate is that each year 160,000 children in England and Wales may be affected by the imprisonment of a parent, leading to behavioural problems, poor performance at school and mental health problems. So factors such as separation from a parent, the mental health of a child’s mother, family conflict and loss of income can all affect outcomes for children; and families of offenders are likely to have these problems and more. I do not shirk from the enormity of the problem. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, made clear, boys are three times more likely to be at risk of being convicted of a crime if their father has a criminal conviction. We take that very seriously, as I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, does. That is why the children and families pathway is dedicated to improving support for the children and families of offenders. It aims to ensure that the interests of these children are addressed in implementing Every Child Matters, which is the Government’s strategy for ensuring the well-being of children and young people from birth to the age of 19. Aims for the children and families pathway include improving parenting and relationships skills; developing better materials, advice and guidance; and a more family-friendly focus in prisons and through visitor centres—all of which we have touched on this afternoon. Considerable progress has been made, often in partnership with the voluntary sector, as several noble Lords have said, including the establishment of pathway boards, which are now in all the regions. Progress is overseen by the National Reducing Re-offending Programme Board, reporting to the Inter-Ministerial Group on Reducing Re-offending, which I set up last summer. I did that because I absolutely understood that we had to have a conjoined effort to make a difference in reducing reoffending and that it was only by so doing that we would be able to move forward. I can reassure the Committee that, during the whole of this period, I have had a number of discussions with my honourable friend Phil Hope, my noble friend Lord Adonis and my right honourable friend Beverley Hughes about how we make the issue more potent. We want to reduce the risk of reoffending, improve the life chances of those children and reduce the risk of inter-generational offending. To support those aims, the National Offender Management Service and the Department for Education and Skills are undertaking a joint review to consider how to support the children of prisoners to achieve better outcomes. I respectfully say that outcomes are what we should focus on. We are consulting widely and the project will report to Ministers shortly. We will be anxious to look at its conclusions. The outcomes of that project will build on the considerable work happening already at regional and local level. I commend all those who, like the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, have commended Safe Ground and the other initiatives. I must tell the Committee that a lot is going on. In the West Midlands, a£2 million pathfinder has been established under the ““invest to save”” budget to provide practical support for children and families, including family learning and parenting skills, and to raise awareness by mainstream services of the needs of that group. The Eastern Region Families Partnership provides family support in prisons through visits centres, enabling children to have meaningful contact through child-friendly visits, parenting courses, and linking-up with local schools. In the north-west, Partners of Prisoners has Family Link workers involved in Dad’s Days, enabling children to visit fathers in a relaxed atmosphere. The team has just received a Community Care Award. They are doing really well. It is really exciting stuff. Sixty-six prisons participated in the recent Action for Prisoners’ Families Family Friendly challenge – benefiting more than 1,200 children with quality time spent with their fathers. HMP/YOI Parc, run by G4S, has launched the Parc Supporting Families initiative, which includes key community services such as Home-Start and Community First, and representatives from prisoners’ families.  It is taking forward an exciting programme of work, including upgrading the visits area and the visiting experience to make Parc more child and family-friendly, with monthly family visits.   Other work includes a partnership with a voluntary sector organisation, PACT, to establish a family development worker and with Barnardo’s to pilot parenting work with prisoners, which is mirrored by support in the community for their partners.  Parc prison has also developed bespoke material for children to help them understand the experience of their parent in prison, and is actively promoting family and e-learning opportunities for children and families during visits.   So I share that passion. Although we recognise that there is much more to do, I hope it is clear to the Committee that we are fully committed to ensuring the welfare of the children of offenders. I am very happy to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, that his amendment is wholly unnecessary. Governors of prisons and secure training centres, and directors of private prisons and secure training centres, are already under a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children by virtue of Part 2 of the Children Act 2004. Local probation boards are also covered by those provisions, and as I have said, these duties need to be updated to reflect the new arrangements proposed in this Bill, and it is this that government Amendment No. 132 will address. I hope that I have given the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, a more satisfactory answer than perhaps he thought he received in relation to issues with children. We are moving forward. I have a very detailed answer for the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, which I shall outline in brief. We acknowledge that this has been a problem, but many things are in place. To save time I shall write to the noble Earl about those, but I can certainly reassure him that this issue has not dropped off the radar. We are focusing on it and things are getting better. The position is not quite as wonderful as any of us would like, but it is a lot better than it used to be and the improvements are considerable. With that, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, will be happy to withdraw his amendment.