Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, this has been a short but very important debate, and I commend all those who have spoken so far, showing great expertise. We have heard their voices before on this subject, much to our advantage. The previous Government commissioned the report from my noble friend Lady Corston after the tragic and avoidable deaths of six women in a short period who were detained in the secure estate. Her report of 2007 was a watershed moment in our understanding of women's experience in the criminal justice system. The recommendations were not limited to the secure estate but extended more widely to the entire criminal justice system, including the aim of preventing offending by women as well as dealing with women who had already offended. I am proud that we as a Government took forward the majority of those recommendations. Within just over two years, several were implemented in full; others were piloted. We are concerned that some of the recommendations are no longer getting the necessary resources. Everyone knows that we all want the same end, but it is a question of what means are employed to get it. We invested £15.6 million in the provision of additional services for women at risk of offending in the community, creating one-stop-shop support services and developing bail support to meet the needs of women. I understand that that has now been lowered to £3 million and that three of the one-stop-shop support services are no longer being financed. One close to where I come from is in Derby. Can the Minister find out and tell us the position? Is much less money being put in than was planned and are three of the one-stop shops not to receive any funding in the next financial year? We set up a central ministerial responsibility. Two powerful women Ministers, Maria Eagle and Vera Baird, were put in charge of ensuring that the Corston recommendations were fulfilled. I believe that Mr Crispin Blunt is now in charge, but no longer is there that successful joint ministerial responsibility. Why has the women's justice policy unit, set up in the Ministry of Justice but including civil servants from many departments, being disbanded? I hope that those are fair questions, and if the Minister cannot answer them tonight, of course he can tell us by letter in due course. I support the two sets of amendments. It is good to hear that both noble Lords will get together so that another amendment can be put at Report, which we very much hope will be accepted by the Government or, if not, by this House. Far too many women go to prison each year. The system is clearly still out of kilter. We should be grateful to my noble friend Lady Corston for starting us on a route to fixing a system that has been described so graphically this evening, not least by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern. Of course, the system is not fixed, as my noble friend Lady Gould said in moving her amendment. We want a system that works for the public, victims and offenders. A powerful statutory voice at the centre of the system, whatever it is called, would be of huge benefit. As has been said around the Committee this evening, it worked very well with the Youth Justice Board. We are delighted that the Youth Justice Board is to survive. That would not have happened had it not been for this House. Its very existence hung in the balance for almost a year. It survived, and we are grateful to the Government, and particularly the Minister, who I am pretty sure played an important part in that decision. However, I hope that that does not indicate a certain state of mind towards the institution or organisation recommended in the amendments. As the Opposition, we certainly support the amendments and very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response to them.