rose to call attention to the case for a women's justice board to oversee the treatment of and conditions for women in the criminal justice system; and to move for Papers.

My Lords, in moving this Motion I am very conscious that this is by no means the first time that this issue has been brought before your Lordships' House. In preparing for the debate, I looked up the last time that women in prison were debated. In a debate in October 2004, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in summing up as Minister for the Home Office, said:

"When noble Lords read this debate in Hansard, they will see that what I am basically describing is the women's justice board, which was advocated but has not yet been created by the Home Office. I supported it from this Dispatch Box when I was a Home Office Minister. It has still not been brought about, but I think that we are doing it in all but name. The proof will be in the pudding. It is not my job to make policy on the hoof. Nevertheless, the recommendation was made and it has widespread support, but it has not been put into operation by the Home Office".—[Hansard, 28/10/04; col. 1418.]

My reason for initiating the debate was triggered by the recent announcement of the re-roling of Brockhill women's prison in Worcestershire into a male prison; and particularly by a comment about that by my successor Anne Owers in her annual report as Chief Inspector of Prisons for 2004–05. She said:

"The proposal to re-role Brockhill suggests inadequate attention to, and even marginalisation of, the needs of women. Eighty per cent of the adult women lived within 50 miles of the prison, and many were trying to maintain contact with families and dependent children. A brand-new, purpose-built and much needed detoxification and healthcare centre had recently been built, to meet the specific needs of women".

In preparing for the debate I also contacted a number of people. I was particularly interested in a comment from Madeleine Moon, the Labour MP for Bridgend. She bemoaned that in addition to what had happened, it made it even more difficult for women from Wales to go to a women's prison near that province.

This is not a new problem. Indeed, looking back over the history of the Prison Service, you see that frequently there have been disasters followed by various inquiries which resulted in change, but unless there is a disaster there does not seem to be change. The riots in Strangeways in 1990 were followed by one of the great penal documents of all time, in which my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf and my predecessor, Sir Stephen Tumim, made the most perceptive comments about what should happen and, in particular, concentrated on appropriate management. In 1993 and 1994, there were escapes from the high security prisons at Whitemoor and Parkhurst, which were investigated by a retired Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir John Woodcock, and a former companion of mine, Sir John Learmont. They recommended the appointment of a director of high security prisons, the result of which has been one part of the Prison Service with someone responsible and accountable for all those prisoners and, until this year, no escape from a high security prison. I was told that the reason people were so keen on that was to avoid embarrassing Ministers. It did, however, result in the sacking of the director-general of the Prison Service.

When I inspected Holloway, my first inspection as Chief Inspector of Prisons in December 1995, I was absolutely appalled by what I found. Of the myriad memories I have of that, three things stand out. The first was finding that women were routinely chained while in labour. That must have been known to the prison authorities, and by implication to Ministers, and yet it was being condoned. The second was being shown the official Prison Service forms on which injuries to women prisoners were recorded. The forms contained the outline of a male body because the service had no forms for women. The third was going after the inspection to see the director-general of the Prison Service, asking whether I could meet the director of women and being told that there wasn't one. When I asked who laid down the policy for women, he said: "A civil servant in the policy office". I then asked, "Who oversees that policy?", and was told that it was the area manager. I went on to ask, "Who sees to it that there is consistency of policy between what happens to women in a prison in Lancashire and those in a prison in London?". The reply was, "No one".

On the question of time, that conversation with the director-general of the Prison Service took place the equivalent of the whole of World War I and the whole of World War 2 bar the last three months ago—and still there is no director of women, although there has been one on the way.

I decided that I should have a report to carry out a thematic review of women in prison. I should like to read out a paragraph from my preface to that report, written in July 1997:

"Central to this report is our strongly held view that the women's prison system ought to be managed, as an entity, by one Director, with responsibility and accountability for all that happens within the women's estate. As is pointed out over and over again, there is an urgent need for a thorough analysis of the needs of women prisoners, and a national strategy for implementing and managing policies appropriate to satisfying them. The present system of geographical management works positively against the all-important consistency that the treatment of such a separate group of prisoners requires. Our recommendations are, I hope, clear and unambiguous, and are put forward for examination by the Prison Service in the context of their own strategic review of the estate. But they also have an underlying purpose, which is to encourage the Prison Service to make better arrangements for the separate management of the fast-rising numbers of women in prison, and to provide regimes appropriate to their needs, not merely to adapt those designed for men. This does not require another policy desk, it requires someone charged with implementing policy, as well as assessing, obtaining and allocating the necessary resources of staff, money and facilities".

I had 160 recommendations, of which I will mention only two. First, transitional prisons in urban centres should be developed to serve the resettlement needs of female prisoners. Secondly, managers in women's prisons should give more emphasis to ensuring that the suicide prevention system is used properly.

Since then, I have counted 31 reports of various kinds from various organisations, all saying roughly the same as we said in 1997. As my successor illustrated in a report that she published only this year, much of that remains to be done. I should like to quote from some of the reports. Justice for Women: the need for reform, published by the Prison Reform Trust in 2000, made the specific recommendation that a national women's justice board should be established forthwith as a separate authority, charged with the development and implementation of policy for women offenders, consistent with all the principles. That should cover women's supervision, rehabilitation and support centres, for which a network was recommended; geographically dispersed custodial units to replace the existing system, which has silos in inappropriate places; and a great amount of attention to transition between prison and the community.

That was followed by a follow-up report of mine, published in 2001. I went through all the recommendations that I had made and found that an awful lot had not been achieved. That was followed by a very good report from the Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System, by the Fawcett Society, which contains a number of very relevant points. The commission was chaired by Vera Baird MP, and in its report, published in 2004, it talks about women faring particularly badly in the system because their specific needs are not being looked at. It talked about a review which had been carried out by the Prison Service in which a separate management system had been put in place but was now dismantled. We were concerned that without a specific structure to deal with women offenders at both policy and operational level, the National Offender Management Service will fail to address fully the nature of female offending.

There have been two follow-up reports, which I do not have time to quote, both saying the same thing. As they pointed out, it has been said that a women's operational management board is not needed because the Minister who is replying to this debate and, at that time, the two Ministers responsible for penal affairs in the House of Commons, the chief executive of the National Offender Management Service and the National Offender Manager were all women. It was therefore felt that there was no need for anyone else to consider women's issues.

I fear that the evidence, particularly that produced by my successor, suggests that that is not so. I quote from her last study, entitled Women in Prison, in which she says:

"The assignment of a single operational manager to manage women's prisons in 2000 brought about greater consistency and more sharing of best practice . . . However, during 2004, the women's estate was disbanded and the management of women's prisons reverted to local areas. This has raised significant concerns that women-specific policies and procedures may be diluted or lost; particularly as there is now no specific policy lead for women within the National Offender Management Service. It is imperative that finances are ring-fenced for the women's estate as well as pressure applied to ensure that these policies and procedures are fully implemented".

I have quoted all those people because they are experts in this field and they are all speaking from experience. What you are hearing is the true voice of people who have been looking and reporting on the facts.

The aim given to the criminal justice system in 1997 was to protect the public by preventing crime. It is a good aim, but it was given to the wrong people. The prison and probation services are engaged only when a crime has been committed. The aim is to prevent reoffending or, as was so well put by the governor of a young offender establishment, to prevent the next victim. That matches very neatly with the statement of purpose of the Prison Service, which is:

"It is our duty to keep securely those committed by the courts, to treat them with humanity and to help them to lead useful and law-abiding lives".

To do that effectively the Prison Service has to make provision for many different types of prisoner, with their myriad different problems, and to put in place a management structure that can ensure that their treatment and conditions match the statement of purpose. Exactly the same applies to the probation service with its responsibility for all those who have to serve their sentence in the community.

My case for the appointment of a women's justice board, already recognised by the Government as I have just quoted, boils down to this. The needs of women of whatever age who come into the hands of the criminal justice system are different from those of men, as are the domestic pressures with which they have to cope, including family responsibilities. If they are to be helped to live useful and law-abiding lives, those differences need to be recognised and appropriate treatment and conditions provided. There are far too many women in prison and far too many are held far too far away from their domestic and family responsibilities. I am therefore extremely interested to know what factors allowed the Minister to make the change at Brockhill, as opposed to the other factors that must have been put to her for leaving it where it was. It is the only women's prison in the West Midlands. With 80 per cent of the people there within 50 miles of home, it was the best situated prison in the country for them.

We are continually hearing extolled the virtues of the vision of NOMS—because NOMS is not yet a reality. The reality is that it is 1,647 civil servants and two additional tiers of management. It is not much else at the moment. One of the Government's successes has been the formation of the Youth Justice Board, particularly the multidisciplinary youth offending teams, which are part of the responsibility of local authorities. In recommending a women's justice board along the lines of that proposed by the Prison Reform Trust, I am also recommending the formation of adult offending teams—male and female—also to be the responsibility of local authorities. The beauty of that concept is that it makes provision for local agencies—public, private, and not for profit—to be included in work done with local offenders. Moreover, if the supervision of less serious offenders were made the responsibility of such offending teams, it would free up the desperately overstretched probation service to concentrate on the heavy-end offenders—offenders whose treatment, or lack of it, continues to excite hysterical attention in the media.

I hope that the Government will look at all the facts and evidence and realise how often so many people have already put the proposal to them. Rather than yet another report—and this is not an aspersion at all on the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, who has been given yet another report to do—instead of programmes, bodies and everything else, the Government should consider history. It tells us that necessary change happens only when someone is made responsible and accountable for it. That is what this board would do. I beg to move for Papers.