Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for the care that she has taken during the Recess to keep us informed of progress, hold meetings with us and send information. It was unfortunate that something went wrong with my computer, so that I did not receive the last document that she sent us on Friday until 20 minutes past two this afternoon. I am very glad that it is there, because it is comprehensive and large. I very much agree with the two amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. At the risk of boring the Committee, I must once again raise the point that it is all very well laying these things down, but unless the context in which they can happen is provided, they will not happen. By context, I mean the organisation of the prison system and the youth justice system within it. These sorts of sentence plans have not only to be made but have to be passed around the system to enable the young people to take advantage of them. This problem goes right back to 1990 and the recommendation that prisons should be grouped regionally so that people never leave their region and therefore the people who are responsible for delivering the programmes, the education, the work training, the medical treatment, the drug treatment and so on are the same people who will be looking after them when they come out of custody and therefore there is some hope of transitioning from one to the other. One of the problems of having a nationally run system, as at present, is that people are sent higgledy-piggledy all over the country, not for reasons of programming but for reasons of empty bed spaces. If you look at current programmes, you will find far too many of them are interrupted because people are moved at the wrong time, before they are completed. The worst example I came across was a boy who was moved the night before he took A-levels, for which he had prepared for 18 months. We are very glad that, at last, we seem to be getting some coherence in delivery but, as I have mentioned before on the Floor of the House, there are two key words in this: "what" and "how". Somebody has to lay down what is to happen everywhere and make certain that it does. The "how" is left to people on the ground to deliver it appropriately with the people and the resources they have. There is an awful lot of "how" about at the moment. "How" is going down in minute detail, but nobody is delivering the "what". Suggesting that governors of prisons should be responsible is absolutely the wrong solution because governors change and when a new governor comes in, he changes all the programmes. Until and unless someone is made responsible and accountable for what happens in all young offender institutions all over the country, including the programming, what is provided and its content, none of this will come to pass. There are far too many people with individual responsibilities not working towards a coherent whole, and we need a coherent whole in which all these things can happen. Yet again, we are discussing a Bill that is being put forward by one ministry but we are really aiming at another. I hope that the messages being transferred to the Ministry of Justice will somehow get through because it is its responsibility to see that all these things that we are talking about can happen.