Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I do not wish to delay the House. We recognise that this issue overlaps with other legislation currently going through Parliament: the Mental Health Bill and the criminal justice Bill. The number of prisoners with mental health problems is part of the overcrowding problem. If we are to reduce prison overcrowding it must be dealt with. We would like to hear a clear message from the Minister about how the Government intend to give this much greater priority. When I was a parliamentary candidate in Yorkshire, there were two large mental hospitals in the constituency I fought. Both have now become genteel suburban housing areas. We all recognise that too much of the mental health accommodation that was there until the 1970s has gone. That is one of the reasons we have ended up with people being misclassified into prisons. We need to reverse some of that. Part of that involves greater mental health provision, which this Government have not yet invested enough in, but it partly involves what we are talking about here; that is, ensuring that people whose problems are very much matters of mental health do not go straight into the prison system.