I want to put on record my abhorrence at the idea of the giant children’s prison. Not one of the witnesses we heard from spoke favourably about it. I know that it is being packaged as an educational establishment, but there is nothing in the Bill to tell us that there will be qualified teachers and social workers or anything about the level of education that the children will be offered.
Particularly worrisome for me is that, given that only 4% of the young people and children in the prison population are between the ages of 12 and 15, the vast majority of the young people will be much older than that, and only 4% will be girls—out of 320 young people, about 12 will be girls. Those girls might have committed crimes, but there is an awful lot of evidence
that when girls commit crimes, it is normally because they are coerced into it, or they are acting up because of some gross abuse that has already happened to them and it tends to be a cry for help. I find it deeply abhorrent to put them in a very testosterone-led environment, and worry for their psychological futures.
I also find the fact that there was no commitment for qualified teachers extremely worrying, and it confirms to me that the college is just a holding borstal, rather than an educational establishment as it is described. I also found it troublesome that there is a lot of mention of restraint in the Bill, and some of the techniques being used are not legal according to the UN—that should not be happening, particularly to children. Again, I make a plea to the Secretary of State to please consider that matter.