'It shall be the duty of the prison service to encourage the reform and rehabilitation of offenders, in particular through education and

the development of social, emotional and behavioural skills, and to identify and account for the resources it specifically provides for this purpose.'.—[Mr. Allen.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 18—Personal plans for prisoners—

'It shall be the duty of the prison service to prepare a personal plan for each offender serving a sentence of over 12 months, setting objectives for his rehabilitation and reform. It shall be the duty of any person making or considering recommendations for the early release of any prisoner to take into account his achievement of the personal plan prepared in pursuance of this section.'.

It seems peculiar to be discussing a Criminal Justice Bill but not talking about ensuring that people do not commit further serious offences. That is a massive omission and I hope that this brief debate will go some way to making amends. I have written to my hon. Friend the Minister on the subject, and without wishing to embarrass him, I must say that his replies are a credit to him and his officials, because they are thorough and show an understanding of the problems that has not always been evident in previous communications with Ministers. If Armley is in or near his constituency, that may go some way to explaining his knowledge of the issue.

At some stage, we might need to consider producing clearer definitions or a clearer distinction between a rehabilitation service for those who could benefit from one and a containment service for those people on whom we have given up in terms of rehabilitation. I do not know whether that clarity is a long-term prospect, but being the generous people that we are, we try to assume that there is hope for everybody—certainly hope for most people—particularly for those who are sent to prison for shorter sentences or for the first time. We hope that, as a result of our actions, people who leave prison will not reoffend. We are not being soft, because it is a simple case of self-interest. It is important to establish the rehabilitative aspect of a prison regime. The new clauses would emphasise that in the Bill and make it clear that that duty falls on the Prison Service.

There is a slightly broader aspect to the issue. I am sure that the Prison Service is already aware of this, but we want to make patently obvious the importance of the personal development of individuals. I have previously quoted from the little piece of paper that I carry around in my diary and referred to the sort of people who are habitual reoffenders. If we can break that cycle of illiteracy and inadequacy and ensure that people understand how they can progress, we will make a serious impact. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey often compares community and prison sentences, emphasising that community sentences are more effective. I hope that he would agree that both possibilities leave a great deal to be desired and are in need of significant reform to provide the sort of contribution that we all want to see from the Prison Service, because we are far from getting it right. The range of opportunities should be

broadened to include the teaching of behavioural skills and parenting skills for people of the appropriate age, even if they do not have children. Teaching in social and emotional skills would also be extremely valuable. I am not saying that we need to give people an easy ride when they are in prison. That is where new clause 18 comes in: it is extremely clear that there shall be a challenging regime on personal development.

It may be pretty tough to serve time in prison, but I can tell the Committee that one of the toughest aspects of life may be if an illiterate person was to learn to read, often without too much support and in a one-to-one situation. If people can meet such challenges, they are doing extremely well. Offenders who serve a sentence of more than 12 months should have a personal plan, setting clear objectives for rehabilitation and reform.

Without wishing to contradict what I said earlier about honest sentencing, one possible carrot for prisoners in such a situation would be the possibility of early release, provided that they had met the targets in their personal plans. Undertaking to reach such targets and reaching them could be rewarded by some time being taken off their sentence. That in itself would be an incentive, as would the achievement. I am talking not about people studying law in their spare time, as it were, and trying to find ways out of prison, but about their learning basic literacy and numeracy skills or studying for GCSEs or trades, which, in the circumstances, would be extremely challenging for them to accomplish. If they can do that successfully, they deserve a reward, well beyond the personal development that will have been achieved.

I apologise to the Committee for taking a few minutes to put my thoughts on the record, but the slight omission from the broad sweep of matters covered by the Bill is a serious attempt to ensure proper reform and rehabilitation. I accept that the Minister takes such matters extremely seriously. I commend him for the work that he has done already, and I hope that there may be a prison reform Bill in the near future that will help to create the sort of individuals that we would have liked them to be before they went into prison.

Again, the hon. Gentleman has done us a good service in highlighting and encouraging debate on such an important issue. When considering the two new clauses, in turn, he is aware that the Prison Service already has a mission statement that is on show in the entrance of practically all prisons and in various other places, too. It is general, but it emphasises rehabilitation. I can almost remember the exact words that are used, but I shall not attempt to quote them off the top of my head.

The proposal is a little more prescriptive in highlighting the issues that need to be considered by the Prison Service. I should be surprised if members of the Committee disagreed with the way in which those sentiments are expressed in new clause 17, but it is an interesting subject for debate. While I suspect that the hon. Gentleman has not necessarily tabled it as material for immediate inclusion in the Bill, there is

a need at some point for a new prison Bill. We need to consider that. It is probably more appropriate for that to be done there rather than here. The criminal justice system includes the Prison Service. We have dealt with sentencing and community sentencing in Committee, but the operation of prisons is taking us a little further down the road than the Bill, in its more general approach, is capable of doing. Prison rules should perhaps be re-examined, and there is plenty of material for the Select Committee to consider in that regard.

My experience of visiting prisons is that something close, if not identical, to the personal plan in new clause 18 is already in place for individual prisoners. I do not know whether I have just been lucky in my visits as my party's prisons spokesman and whether, like the visits to the Potemkin villages, I have always succeeded in visiting good prisons. Some prisons may not have such plans, and the Minister may be able to clarify the point. However, I think that personal plans for prisoners are being almost universally applied. Once their anticipated release date has been identified, there is a build-up towards that. The difficulty in my experience is that personal plans for offenders are continually disrupted, and the principal disruption is because of prison overcrowding.

The problem is not that prisoners do not have something approximate to what I have called a personal prison plan. The problem is the disruption that the hon. Gentleman is about to describe, as well as the fact that the plans are not properly resourced or taken seriously enough by either the offender or the institution. It is not the fact that we do not have them, but the degree of seriousness in applying the criteria.

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. As one visits prisons, one is struck immediately by their immense variability. Governors have considerable power, which can be good, but a prison is ultimately the product of the material conditions and physical environment in which the prisoners are detained, in particular with overcrowding, and the governor's dynamism in running the prison. Those are two key determinants. Money is obviously important, but I think that it is a lesser consideration.

I often visit prisons 12 or 18 months after they have received a devastating report from the chief inspector of prisons. I walk in and get the impression that I am seeing a completely new world. Having found out that a new governor has been appointed nine months previously, I notice that many of the problems identified by the inspector have been addressed through purposeful activity. I speak to the inmates, believe that I am getting an honest answer and come out impressed. Nine months later, I read that that prison has been subject to massive overcrowding problems, and the inspector's next report shows that the situation has deteriorated again. Maintaining improvement is immensely difficult, and that is brought home to me each time I visit a prison.

That said, in fairness to the Government, progress is being made. I have seen positive changes in prison officers' ethos and approach to work, but my experience is that the key problem is that a purposeful regime cannot be delivered in an overcrowded environment, for two reasons. First, the

strain on officers in managing the prison means that classes and opportunities for activity go by the way. Secondly, the planned progression of the offender through the prison system is disrupted, and in particular sudden and arbitrary moves to other locations become so common that the offender never completes a full programme. The Minister will again say that steps are being taken to remedy those problems, but I have heard examples of prisoners on educational programmes finding themselves 250 miles away in a new location 48 hours before they are supposed to take the NVQ tests. That is scandalous. We should not be surprised if prisons do not rehabilitate if we do not have planned progression. That is why I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for highlighting that point in new clause 18.

However, if we have got the provisions right we do not need new clause 18, because the Prison Service has the issue very much in mind, although it might provide an interesting benchmark to have plans set out in that form because the Prison Service would have to explain why the programmes have not been fulfilled. That would involve not only the unwillingness of the inmate to perform them but the demoralisation attendant on the programme fizzling out. That is probably a greater issue than we can deal with this afternoon. I think that the hon. Gentleman is right, but it would be interesting to hear from the Minister what the Government are doing about it.

The hon. Member for Nottingham, North has brought us to matters of central importance. We do not have a prison reform Bill here, although I am less persuaded that we need a new Bill; I think it is more a matter of administration than legislation. I support new clause 17; I believe that we could pass it into law because although it has implications it would simply formalise the set of principles in the Prison Service's current statement of purpose, which has been developed and thought through and is likely to stand the test of time.

Would it not be odd to pass into law a statement about the purpose of the Prison Service that did not include the duty to keep prisoners in prison?

That is a good point. I am sure that we could all sign up to an amendment that included it. Interestingly, however, it is not in the Prison Service's statement of purpose as I understand it.

I think it is.

I stand to be corrected if other hon. Members know better than I—the Minister may correct me. If I am wrong about the current statement of purpose, an accurate version should be included. If the hon. Gentleman's evidently important point is included, it should be included here, but my recollection from when I was in the Prison Service buildings and my advice is that that was the current statement of purpose. There is also the fact that the Prison Service is partly responsible for some activities of prisoners who are outside on courses and schemes and so on, so the issue may become complicated. No

doubt the Minister will tell us whether this is an accurate reading of the current statement of purpose.

It is perfectly reasonable to put new clause 18 into law, although I accept, as the hon. Member for Beaconsfield put it, that this is in practice what the Prison Service aspires to.

Will the Minister confirm that this is a current requirement of the Prison Service, although it is a non-statutory requirement, so the provision would turn a policy requirement into a statutory requirement?

The proposal for sentences of 12 months and above might be a practical place to start, but the same logic should be applied to all prisoners. The implication of custody plus, as I have understood it, is that the whole sentence is a package and the package implies a sentence plan for the individual prisoner. I presume that it might be possible to have a sentence plan for prisoners whatever their length of sentence. It should be easier in the future because there will be fewer variations in the length of short sentences as the Minister has indicated. Sentence plans are a good idea which could be put into law.

I guess sentence plans would be best drawn up under the new regime as a combination of input from the Prison Service and the probation service, because they will be partners in delivering the two parts of the sentence. Like the hon. Member for Beaconsfield, I pay tribute to Martin Narey for his conduct while director general of the Prison Service. I have not seen him since the announcement, but I understand that he has been promoted to become one of the permanent secretaries in the Home Office with a more general responsibility for those matters. I have heard, but not seen, that his deputy has been appointed to take his place but has not yet taken up office.

The Prison Service has made a lot of progress, much good work has been done, and there are many good members of the senior management team and many good prison governors. However, as the hon. Member for Beaconsfield pointed out, its failing, shown in the prison statistics, is that overcrowding has caused the most significant deterioration in the services provided for prisoners.

The Prison Service has targets and performance indicators, of which I understand that there are 15. Six of those were not met during the year that was reported on yesterday; one was to do with the level of assaults in prison, but more significant is the failure to meet the target for the time that prisoners spend in purposeful activity. The hon. Member for Nottingham, North was right to remind us that it is purposeful activity and people's response to being given something constructive to do that allows prison officers to judge whether prisoners deserve to be released early, and to make a contribution to the community, but we cannot have purposeful activity if it is not available because of overcrowding, and if it does not happen, it will be to everyone's disbenefit.

I hope that the Minister will pass on my congratulations to Mr. Narey. More important, I hope that he will remember that we all share the same objectives, but it frustratingly looks as if they are getting further away under this Government's

stewardship. If we hold down the prison population and reduce overcrowding, a commensurate increase in purposeful activity will surely follow. Those matters need to be urgently dealt with, and only then will individual prisoner plans be able to deliver the sort of rehabilitation that we all want.

This has been a short but excellent debate. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North for initiating it. I echo the kind words spoken about Martin Narey by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey. During his time as director general, Martin has made decency the watchword of his stewardship of the service. He is widely admired for that, and he will take that skill and experience to his new post as commissioner of correctional services.

In answer to the hon. Member for Witney, the statement of purpose of the Prison Service is clear. It says:

''Her Majesty's Prison Service serves the public by keeping in custody those committed by the courts. Our duty is to look after them with humanity and help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release.''

Those words are to be found at the front of every prison. It is further supplemented—this is why the new clause is not required, although I concur wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend's aim—by the Prison Service objective of

''Providing constructive regimes which address offending behaviour, improve educational and work skills and promote law abiding behaviour in custody and after release.''

That builds on the statement of purpose.

Reform and rehabilitation have a place in the Bill, which we considered when debating the purposes of sentencing in clause 126. The clause, the statement of purpose and the Prison Service objective cover the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North. That is reflected in the work that the Prison Service is doing to reduce reoffending and to rehabilitate. It is reflected in the increased investment in education and drug treatment, resettlement and offending behaviour programmes in prison. It is reflected in the Prison Service's current target of 45,000 key work skills achievements by prisoners. Other targets relate to basic skills at levels 2, 1 and entry level.

In an excellent speech, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield put his finger on the big issue for the Prison Service, which is maintaining improvement. That is something on which I reflect, because the truth is, as he said, that when things are not going terribly well, the Prison Service is effective at making improvements. That may involve a new governor or a new approach, but it is maintaining the improvement that is the real challenge. That simply reflects how difficult it is to run a prison. The hon. Gentleman was right that the impact of population pressures, overcrowding and the sudden movement of prisoners does not assist efforts to achieve the objectives that we all share.

I have sympathy with my hon. Friend's second point about sentence plans, and I am happy to confirm that all prisoners with a sentence of 12 months or more currently have a sentence plan. An expression of the closer working of the prison and probation services involves the new assessment tool, OASys, which we discussed previously. That is being rolled out over 18 months throughout the Prison Service, starting in April. Following implementation, every prisoner serving a custodial sentence of 12 months or more will have an OASys assessment completed for them, which will inform the sentence plan.

There is a difficulty with my hon. Friend's new clause, however. Let us say that early release—depending on the length of sentence, that assessment may fall to the Parole Board to undertake—were made dependent on completion of the objectives. There may be reasons why the prisoner was not able to achieve the objectives set out in the sentence plan. That may not be the offender's failure. They may have had to move somewhere or they may not have been able to undertake the course that they hoped to in the establishment where they found themselves. For that reason, it would not be sensible to create the link that my hon. Friend seeks.

However, the Prison Service shares the general objective of promoting rehabilitation in prisons. The amount of time, attention, effort, professionalism and dedication that goes into rehabilitation in prisons today is unrecognisable compared with what happened a generation ago.

It is ironic that stability and staying in one place is as much a problem in educating prisoners as it is in maintaining an effective local police force. Movement of people is the bane of both areas. None the less, my hon. Friend the Minister has, as always, made an eloquent and persuasive argument and talked me into begging to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.