Higher Education

My Lords, I join those who have congratulated my noble friend Lord Luce on obtaining this important debate. I come 24th in the list and I come with one point. It is probably almost a marginal point to some in relation to the many that have gone before. I believe that the only raw material that every nation has in common is its people, and woe betide it if it does not do everything possible to identify, nurture and develop the talents of all those people. With that I couple the marvellous phrase of Sir Winston Churchill that, "““there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man””." I declare an interest as a patron of the Prisoners’ Education Trust, which every year provides 2,000 vocational and academic courses for prisoners, many of them in the field of higher education. Education is said to be the factor with most bearing in fighting re-offending. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the people in our prisons have very low academic ability and some have none at all. It is not surprising that the Prison Service concentrates almost entirely on the people with the lowest form of need but in our prisons there are many others with talents which can be discovered and nurtured. The prison system and the sentence provide an opportunity to make something of those talents. I hope that, when the Government are making their plans for the development of higher education, the ministries concerned will liaise closely with the Ministry of Justice to make certain that the needs of this part of our population are properly met and referred to the people who can help. After all, something may well be discovered which would be to the advantage of the country, and woe betide us for not using an opportunity to identify, nurture and develop it.