The Government are committed to reducing adult reoffending and the latest figures show that it is down by 5.8 per cent. since 2000. We are now consulting on a new strategic plan to build on our success in reducing reoffending.
This is a good time of year to be talking about the power of redemption and the Minister’s words on the progress being made are extremely encouraging. I particularly welcome some of the imaginative schemes that emerged from the preceding and the current Department—work done with young offenders via HMP Kirkham near Blackpool, and the good work done in local communities. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that when offenders get out of custody and into the outside world, access to jobs and skills will be crucial in preventing reoffending? Does he also welcome, with me—[Interruption.]
Order. A supplementary question must be brief.
My hon. Friend is exactly right that employment is one of the keys to the prevention of reoffending. He will know that, in two test-bed regions in the west midlands and the eastern region, we are trying to link employers outside in the community with work undertaken by offenders serving sentences in prisons. It is key that we look at the skills that people need when they leave prison and try to work with employers outside to prevent reoffending. The corporate alliance is doing some sterling work to link employers with offenders and ensure rising levels of employment.
Seventy per cent. of the defendants whom I have to sentence are addicted to crack cocaine or heroin. They go to prison, take more drugs, come out and reoffend. Does the Minister accept that drug residential rehab beds are a much better form of treatment than prison and are, in fact, cheaper?
The hon. Gentleman is right in the sense that a very strong drug problem is linked to offending. One of the key pathways that we need to work on is how to reduce reoffending through work on drug abuse. I am happy to look further into his suggestions. We have put many resources into the prison system, and he will know that this year some 24,500 drug users are benefiting from clinical services in prison. I want to see more done, because stopping the drug problem and helping to prevent people from going back to the drug culture when they leave prison is one of the key ways in which we can reduce reoffending.
One of the most successful intervention projects in my own area has taken young people with a track record of multiple car thefts and involved them instead with work on building and racing stock cars. The wheelbase motor project, at a fraction of the cost involved in keeping such young people in prison, has been able to keep them out of prison and out of reoffending. The problem it has faced, however, is access to long-term secure funding. Has the Minister been able to look at how we can take the most successful interventionist projects and give them the security of funding that the voluntary sector often lacks?
I know that the scheme that my hon. Friend mentions is very important. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor has visited the scheme and supports its objectives. I am keen to look at any imaginative scheme that can help to prevent reoffending. As the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), said in answer to Question 1, we are now looking into how we can involve the voluntary sector, the private sector, local government and other agencies in working with the Prison Service and the probation service to add value to our attempts to prevent reoffending. I am particularly interested to look further into the schemes that work. If possible, I will gladly visit the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) to see that scheme in operation next time I am in Nottingham.
According to the Government’s report “Re-offending of adults”, of those who spend up to a year in prison 70 per cent. reoffend, of those who spend up to two years in prison 49 per cent. reoffend, and of those who spend more than four years in prison only 35 per cent. reoffend. Does the Minister accept that that means that the longer people spend in prison the less likely they are to reoffend, and if he does, why does he keep letting them out early?
I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should increase the length of prison sentences for some crimes of a lower order. What we need to do is what the Government are trying to do—tackle persistent offenders, and consider how to deal with issues relating to drugs, numeracy, literacy and employment.
One of the reasons why lower-level sentences are not working is that people go through a revolving door, but that does not lead me to conclude that we should increase the length of sentences for those serving under 12 months. I take the view that we should consider what we can do to prevent the causes of crime by tackling drug problems, placing people in employment and trying to introduce some order to what are often chaotic lives.
Does the Minister accept that the factors that contribute to reoffending among women are rather different from those that contribute to reoffending among men? One of the most significant factors for women is contact with their children. Does the Minister share my disappointment that the Department’s spending plans for new prisons do not include substantial investment in small units of the kind envisaged in the Corston report, enabling women to stay closer to their children and maintain contact with their families, thus making them less likely to reoffend?
I know that my hon. Friend takes a keen interest in this issue. I am pleased to tell her that we have accepted in principle my noble Friend Lady Corston’s recommendation on small units, and that I have asked the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), together with my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General and the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett), to take work forward over the next six months dealing with how we can make Lady Corston’s wish for small custodial units a reality. We also wish to consider—this is important—what we can do to remove women from custody altogether through community-based sentences for those who commit the low-level crimes referred to by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).