My Lords, I thought that my noble friend preferred to be Guildenstern, but I am quite happy if he wants to rename himself Rosencrantz.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, Juliet Lyon and Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, among many, have raised this issue. Concern was focused on the need to prioritise women offenders' needs with effective management and provision of adequate resources. We, too, recognise and share the concern that the distinct needs of women in the criminal justice system must be met, but there are no current plans to create a women's justice board.

I was asked to say why. There is currently no separate framework in law for women as there is for young offenders. We have a different structure. Attempting to go down that route could risk marginalising women further, when what is needed is to mainstream the provision that we give women and ensure that under the national offender management structure sufficient priority is given to service provision for, and management of, women offenders.

I shall touch on what unites women and men. There are two things we have to do if we are to change dramatically and significantly the way we deal with offenders. The first is to make an accurate risk assessment: what is the danger that they pose? The second is to do an accurate needs-based assessment. If we are going to stop the revolving door, we really have to better understand what we need to do with and for those offenders. If we do not assist them to break the cycle, those offenders will keep coming back. When we then look at the needs of women, we have to be clear that those needs differ from those of men.

As the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and I think the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, among others, said, the system was created and developed by men, for men. It does not necessarily respond in a way that meets the needs of women easily. As policy and programmes evolve, we have to take into account those sometimes quite stark differences.

I hope noble Lords will agree that the seven pathways out of crime we have identified are very similar for men and women. Whether it is work, education, housing or health, those issues impinge significantly and almost equally on men and women, save for one element: for men, employment is the big factor that cuts into whether they will return to offending, while for women it is accommodation, because they have to care for children and others. We are committed to making fast and significant progress in developing our strategy.

The strategic policy direction of the management of women offenders flows from the central National Offender Management Service through the framework of the women's offending reduction programme, whose intent is to ensure that policies and practices are appropriate to meet the needs of women, and to encourage joint working across departments and agencies to tackle the range of factors that impact on why women offend. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, says that we have to work together; that this is not just a criminal justice issue. I absolutely agree with her. The issues of education and health are important.

I want us, however, to be accurate, and to acknowledge the marked changes that have been made by making the DfES responsible for education in the community and in prison. Making the Department of Health responsible for the health of women both in prison and outside is also a marked change, if we are to have end-to-end offender management and move smoothly from one to the other. We allocated £9.15 million of funding to the Together Women programme in March 2005. This is the first time that specific funding has been made available per gender, as opposed to any other criterion.

I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, that the whole process we are looking at is predicated on the approach adopted by the Asha Centre programme. That is what we are trying to replicate: a holistic response. I wish to see a development of that inclusive, multi-agency approach right across the country. The geographical line management of women prisoners, but with central oversight of operational policy development and implementation, has led to improvements in performance and gender-specific interventions. That has been very hard-won and difficult to achieve.

There is a policy group directly responsible for women's policy, headed up by Hazel Banks, which is aggressively looking at how we can make best use of this money. Within NOMS we are developing a national specification for women offenders in the community and in custody, which will ensure a central framework for the commissioning and delivery of appropriate provision for women. Gender-specific performance-monitoring arrangements will enable us to monitor and evaluate provision in a way that we could not do before. We are not complacent—more needs to be done. That is why I have asked my noble friend Lady Corston to undertake a review of vulnerable women to ensure that we are doing everything possible for women with particular vulnerabilities who come into contact with the criminal justice system. I look forward to receiving her report at the end of December 2006. I am determined that we should do better and leave no stone unturned in addressing the needs of women.

The women's offending reduction programme, launched in March 2004, aims to improve community interventions and services to ensure they are appropriate for women, and to reduce use of custody. It is a real step forward. The first annual review of progress was produced in September 2005. I hope that many noble Lords will have seen it.

I think that we are all agreed on the difficulties which we face. I turn to some of the specific issues that have been raised. I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, that I do not have a snooze button. I wish that sleep would occasionally come my way to make a snooze button possible. I hope that I shall satisfy noble Lords that we have made many changes. All women's prisons now have some form of first-night support for women newly entering custody. However, we recognise that the level and type of services in prisons differ. The Prison Service is working hard to improve those services across the board.

Noble Lords have rightly asked what has happened to re-roling. One has to understand the role that Brockhill plays. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, will be aware of that. Unsentenced women are most likely to be impacted by the change of function at Brockhill, as once women are sentenced they are all transferred out of Brockhill to other prisons to create spaces for newly remanded women. NOMS is finalising the revised court catchment areas arising from the Brockhill change of function. The analysis of the impact on the closeness of home will follow from that. I have insisted—I am assured that this has been done—that there has to be an assessment of each woman's needs before she is moved, that there has to be a discussion with each woman, and then that the most appropriate placement is found for her. That process will be rigorously adhered to so that we can ensure that the needs of each woman in the prison estate are dealt with appropriately.

Noble Lords know of the pressure on the prison estate. We have an oversupply of places in the women's estate and a tension in the male estate. That is the reality. Therefore, if we are to deliver parity of treatment and fairness to all our prisoners, it is incumbent on us to try to ensure that each prisoner has the best possible care that the system can devise. I do not hesitate to tell your Lordships that those issues are always difficult and complex, but that the needs of each person are looked at very fully indeed.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, rightly raised concerns about the care that is given to pregnant women and the way in which we are dealing with that. The New Beginnings parenting courses, run by the Anna Freud Centre, are being piloted at three prisons and will be evaluated for their effectiveness in improving women's parenting skills. The pregnancy services should comply with the NHS guidelines. Therefore, a Prison Service order would not be appropriate, but I understand why the noble Earl raised the point, because at the time when it was suggested the NHS was not fully responsible for those services, and that would have been appropriate. Now we expect all women in prison to receive the same quality of care that they would receive from the NHS outside prison.

I know, too, that there has been concern about the difficulty in transferring men and women. I assure the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that there is separation between young people and men and women, and all appropriate steps are taken. On occasion, it is right because of the geographical positioning of the transfer that men and women are taken together, but children and young people are always taken separately, and appropriate steps are taken to make sure that is securely and properly done.

The right reverend Prelate rightly raised the issue of how others can contribute to the care that we give to those in prison. I commend, as he did, the work done by the Mothers' Union and by the chaplaincies of all faiths in prisons to drive that forward. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, described the conditions in prisons as medieval and barbaric. That is an unjust assessment.