I am glad the Minister is prepared to do that. The letter says that the vast majority of prisoners transferred to NOMS North East Region are from adjacent areas. An adjacent area could be the north-west of England. I know that there are significant numbers of prisoners from the north-west of England in prisons in Northumberland. The north-west region runs from Cumbria to Cheshire. To say that is an adjacent region does not take us very far, especially as I suspect most of the offenders will come perhaps from the Merseyside and Manchester conurbations. That would be a reasonable inference. This is a significant number of people to be resettled somewhere nearer home and that is just from one region. How much have the Government thought through the implications of dealing with this? Have the Government given consideration not only to the numbers but the length
of time during which the resettlement will take place? I raise this point because it has been raised by organisations concerned with women prisoners especially. Has it been looked at from their perspective?
Incidentally, the letter says, in a point which rather echoes the point about women prisoners and which may account for the figures for young offenders, that there are fewer establishments holding young offenders and they are on average likely to be further from their home area. How realistic is this resettlement process likely to be? It looks to me as though the north-east region is accommodating considerably more than its “fair share” of prisoners. It would be interesting to know how many north-east prisoners are housed elsewhere but I suspect that we have a surplus of accommodation in the north-east and that is not going to assist in the resettlement process. How developed are the Government’s plans? The amendment therefore seeks details and for a scheme to be set out in regulations and laid before both Houses for debate. That would be ideal but at any rate some oversight of the detail and the implications of this scheme are needed, which as I say is welcome in principle but it is difficult to see quite how it is going to work. It may be that the Government are going to take some time over this and that may be necessary, but any indications at this stage would be gratefully received. I beg to move.