Prisons: Mothers and Babies

Question

14:37:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government how many mothers are in prison with their babies, and what consideration they are giving to making alternative arrangements for them to serve their sentences or for their children to be cared for.

At the end of March 2024, there were 38 mothers and 36 babies in mother and baby units. There are currently six mother and baby units across the women’s prison estate in England, providing specialist accommodation and support services. These enable mothers, where appropriate, to have their babies with them in prison. Sentencing is a matter for the independent judiciary, but this Government have a clear goal of reducing the number of women in prison.

I thank my noble friend the Minister for that Answer. As well as the 38 mothers with babies he refers to, there are more than 200 pregnant women in prison. Typically, babies are parted from their mothers in prison at 18 months. If these mothers are no risk to their babies, are they really a risk to anyone else? Should they be in prison at all? Does my noble friend the Minister think there are better arrangements that we could make for mothers with babies serving custodial sentences—for example, secure mother and baby homes in the community?

To answer my noble friend’s question head-on, whether these women should be in prison is a matter for sentencers to decide in each individual case. However, we have embarked on major changes to the sentencing framework, including to short sentences, to which 75% of women are sentenced. This will help to reduce the number of women, including pregnant women, in prison. On his question about arrangements for women and their babies, just last week I was in the mother and baby unit at HMP/YOI Eastwood Park, speaking to the mums there. In my view, the facilities and support offered were exceptional, and I am grateful both to the staff and to the third sector organisations, such as Action for Children, for providing that support. We need to maintain those standards of care in custody, but the real answer to this question lies in tackling the structural problems that lead these women into the criminal justice system in the first place. That is what the Women’s Justice Board, which I proudly chair, seeks to address—early intervention, diversion from prison and community solutions—so that we have fewer women in prison, including their babies too.

My Lords, the six mother and baby units are successful. However, 17,000 children a year are separated from their mothers by imprisonment, harming both children and mothers. The impact of domestic abuse and drug addiction is overwhelming. Last Monday ITV News ran an article in which the noble Lord was interviewed and rightly described prison for many women as a “disaster”. So how quickly can we cut the use of prison for mothers of young children to a minimum and provide women offenders with the therapeutic environments they so badly need?

I thank the noble Lord for his question. He is exactly right: we need to do more and do it faster. That is why the Women’s Justice Board is acting very quickly and coming up with its answers in the next few months. For me, what is really important is the intensive supervision court model, which we are very enthusiastic about, especially the one in Birmingham that is just for female offenders. Instead of them going to prison, we offer the wraparound support services so that they can stay out of prison and stay in the community. This comes back to a subject that I am very passionate about, attachment. It is really important for mothers to be with their children so that they can gain the attachment that, if not secured in their early years, can cause significant problems later on. As someone who was brought up with hundreds of foster children in my life, I am well aware of the issues around attachment in young children.

My Lords, an experiment in Oxford some 50 or 60 years ago showed that a newborn baby cat, if blindfolded for more than about six to eight weeks, would remain permanently visually impaired thereafter. We know that the infant brain is developing faster in those first two years than at any other time. I congratulate the noble Lord on what he is doing in trying to improve the environment for women and their children. Does he think that more could be done and, if so, how would we do it?

I have seen all the mother and baby units in our prisons, and they are stimulating and incredibly professionally run. I also know that many foster parents and families who look after children of mothers in prison do an incredible job. But we are dealing with women in the justice system, most of whom are victims, most of whom are very ill, most of whom are suffering from addiction and most of whom have mental health problems too. That is why it is important that the wraparound services that we have to support them do so and do so quickly.

My Lords, we are all very grateful for the efforts of the Minister in this matter. He is very careful to maintain judicial independence and independence from sentencing, but is he convinced that the sentencers are invariably cognisant of whether a female offender is pregnant?

The experts who work in the justice system and social services are the best placed to decide how to support mums and their babies when they are in the justice system. We have recently introduced social workers in four prisons. That is a really important role, and I am looking to see how well it is going—but so far, so good. As I said in a previous answer, the complexity of these women’s lives means that we need an awful lot of support, but in my view that support is worth it, especially in those early years.

For mothers in those units, how is the monitoring undertaken to make sure that they are not being given drugs through illicit routes to maintain their drug addiction? Are they routinely tested for substances to try to help them come off drugs and maintain better bonding with the baby as a result? Are they also tested for viruses that might be a problem if they decided that they wished to breastfeed?

I am not familiar with the exact details on testing, but I know that we have mandatory drug testing in all prisons on a regular basis. I am also aware, from having foster children at home, that when we opened the fridge we used to be careful whether we got out the Calpol or the methadone. Too many drugs get into prisons and too many people who go to prison are addicted to drugs. We need to deal with that, and we need to do it quickly.

My Lords, as there is no women’s prison in Wales, can the Minister give an update on the residential centre in Swansea?

The residential centre in Swansea is something that we are considering. We have had the spending review and we are waiting for the allocation process. I know it has planning permission. We talk about it a lot with Welsh colleagues. Other residential and non-residential centres for women, such as Hope Street in Southampton and Willowdene, are really important, not just to help them recover, often from addiction and mental health issues, but as a safe space. A number of the women in the criminal justice system are there because of dysfunctional relationships; often they experience violence at home, so these need to be very safe places.

My Lords, there is a great difficulty here in that the penalties have to be applied equally to men and women despite their circumstances, which might be different. Is the Minister satisfied that it is more in the interests of children always to be with the mother in prison, rather than being outside that environment and being looked after more adequately by society?

Children always have to come first in these decisions. I have met a number of mums in prison who are with their babies, and it is the best place for them and their baby. It is a safe place, they are getting a huge amount of wraparound support and they are able to build really important relationships with their young children, but it is for the judiciary to decide who goes to prison.

My Lords, is the Minister able to share what support is given to women once they leave prison and how long it is provided for?

The general rule is that babies can stay with mothers in prison for up to 18 months, but there is flexibility so they can stay longer if required. It is really important that when women leave prison with their babies, they have somewhere to live and a wraparound support network. That is why it is important that we give them a soft landing when they leave prison. This is where probation comes in and where the £700 million in extra funding that we have will be really important to make sure that we get that first night accommodation, because we do not want anybody leaving prison with no fixed abode.

My Lords, the Prison Reform Trust’s 2025 report found that two-thirds of mother and baby units are operating above safe capacity. Can the Minister confirm how many mothers are currently held in standard, non-MBU prison accommodation with infants due to those shortages? What urgent steps are being taken to address this?

Having been chair of the Prison Reform Trust, I should know the details of that question, but I do not have them to hand so I will write to the noble Lord with the exact details. It is really important that we keep monitoring what happens in mother and baby units, because the children are our priority. We need to make sure that mum and baby leave there in a very safe way.