{"id":193176,"date":"2024-12-11T18:10:19","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T18:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/11\/lord-timpson-having-conversations-about-public-sector-hiring-more-ex-prisoners\/"},"modified":"2024-12-11T18:10:19","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T18:10:19","slug":"lord-timpson-having-conversations-about-public-sector-hiring-more-ex-prisoners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/11\/lord-timpson-having-conversations-about-public-sector-hiring-more-ex-prisoners\/","title":{"rendered":"Lord Timpson having ‘conversations’ about public sector hiring more ex-prisoners"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Prisons minister Lord James Timpson has told Sky News that he is having “a conversation” with parliament and the public sector about hiring more ex-convicts.<\/p>\n

Lord Timpson pushed for ex-offenders to get employment at his family’s Timpson chain while CEO – with around 10% of employees being former convicts – and previously chaired the Prison Reform Trust.<\/p>\n

He stepped down from both roles when he became a minister and peer after the last election.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge<\/strong><\/a>, Lord Timpson was asked if parliament should “lead the way” by hiring more ex-offenders.<\/p>\n

Lord Timpson said it was “a conversation” he was having across the whole public sector.<\/p>\n

He said that some departments – like the Ministry of Justice<\/strong><\/a> – already hired “people with prison experience” in specific roles.<\/p>\n

But he said that some job roles are “not really right for those kinds of people” – adding that in his 20 years in the private sector, hiring former prisoners “hasn’t always gone right”.<\/p>\n

He added: “Over time, we learnt that when you find the right people at the right time in their life, they can make really good colleagues and turn their life around.”<\/p>\n

Lord Timpson was speaking to the Politics Hub as the government announced a 10-year prison capacity plan – including plans “to build the 14,000 places the last government failed to deliver”.<\/p>\n

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Prison space may still run out
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The minister told Sky News that while rehabilitation and reducing reoffending were important, the UK still needed more prison places.<\/p>\n

Lord Timpson was asked about Reform UK<\/strong><\/a> MP James McMurdock, who was jailed 18 years ago<\/strong><\/a> for repeatedly kicking his girlfriend, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

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The minister said that while he did not know about Mr McMurdock’s case in particular, “what I do know is that when prisons<\/strong><\/a> work well, they can rehabilitate people”.<\/p>\n

He added: “It’s not just about what the prison can do, it’s what the offenders can do themselves.<\/p>\n

“And the number of people who leave prison and go on to have fantastic lives – they form loving relationships, they have jobs, they’re colleagues of yours, probably, and mine.<\/p>\n

“But there are too many people who are just re-offending and over and over again.”<\/p>\n

Read more:
Prisons system was ‘teetering on the edge of disaster’<\/a>
Under-strain prison system to shut thousands of cells<\/a>
Inside UK’s ‘wild west’ court system<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mothers in prisons<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another area of the justice system Lord Timpson was asked about was mothers who have children while incarcerated – and whether the newborns should be inside prison walls.<\/p>\n

The peer shared a story from his youth, as his mother was a foster carer who used to look after babies born by women in prison.<\/p>\n

He said: “I used to spend a lot of time sitting outside Styal Women’s Prison while my mum took the babies in on a visit.<\/p>\n

“So it’s something I’m, you know, I find… It’s a very complex problem.<\/p>\n

“The fact is that the best place for a baby is with their mother, but, unfortunately, when their mother is in prison, it causes lots of problems.”<\/p>\n

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\ud83d\udc49 Click to listen to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts<\/a> \ud83d\udc48 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Lord Timpson says he has visited mother and baby prisons, and there are “amazing volunteers” that take the newborns out “for a couple of days a week so they get used to normal life”.<\/p>\n

“There are a small number of babies in prison with their mothers,” he added – and says the Women’s Justice Board is looking at the issue and more work will be done in the new year.<\/p>\n

The minister also says that 80% of women prisoners are in for non-violent offences, and a lot “are victims themselves” and should have been “diverted” away from custody earlier on.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Prisons minister Lord James Timpson has told Sky News that he is having “a conversation” with parliament and the public sector about hiring more ex-convicts. Lord Timpson pushed for ex-offenders to get employment at his family’s Timpson chain while CEO – with around 10% of employees being former convicts – and previously chaired the Prison […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/24\/12\/768x432\/a453f6410ce1e725e3f3153f1d92d0d9b6a82f49fdf3c52b3c3c4577a0969f49_6772956.jpg?20241211081006","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[31503,151376,6847,35,3560,5394,77223],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193176"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193178,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193176\/revisions\/193178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}