Speeches by Munt.

“I would be very grateful if the three of you would write to the Chair about your perception or experience of what actually happens because what I heard before sounded quite nice, and I am slightly alarmed now.”

“You mentioned a helpline, do you run helplines that are free?”

“Not when you are in prison, when you are out.”

“Is it free?”

“You were talking about effectively gifting the kit—the equipment. Is that common, and can they take their equipment from one prison to another when they are moved? Does their kit go with them?”

“They can literally pick it up and take it with them, so they do not have the break.”

“I am the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills in Somerset, and all my declarations are on the website.”

“I might be trampling over something that I know Andy wanted to ask, but you said 62% of prisoners have literacy and numeracy needs. When and how does that get measured?”

“Are there courses that they then cannot take? That might be a question for Michala. I understand there are courses that prisoners may not study. What are those?”

“I might have not been very clear. Can a prisoner study law and eventually become a solicitor or a barrister?”

“I do not want to get bogged down in this, but I am pretty clear, having dealt with one particular prisoner, that he was absolutely forbidden from studying law, even though he had five A-levels way before he got to prison. I would ask you to write to the Chair of the Committee to just explain what one may not study, if …”

“You talked about a personal plan. Does the prisoner carry that or is that held by the prison? I am aware that sometimes when prisoners are moved, which is sometimes very frequently, it takes months for their plans to pick up with them. They sometimes have moved again; by the time the plan gets to prison B, they are alr…”

“I wanted to ask about the six-year rule, if I may. The previous Education Committee recommended the lifting of the six-year rule. Can I have your opinion on that—particularly yours, Michala?”

“Might I assume that all three of you would want the lifting of that six-year rule?”

“I want to reverse a little and go back to something you said about the assessment of special educational needs. If I am right, Victoria, you said that prisoners came in who had not been assessed but they told you what their experience was.”

“I am checking my understanding of what was said in a previous session, which was, as prisoners enter the system, they are assessed. What does that mean? Is that just somebody going, “Well, I think you’ve got this; and I think you’ve got that?”, or are they professionals?”

“Could you write to the Chair about that?”

“I want to really understand, because I have misunderstood. I thought that an assessment was done by somebody who—you are shaking your heads; that is very alarming.”

“I would be very grateful if the three of you would write to the Chair about your perception or experience of what actually happens because what I heard before sounded quite nice, and I am slightly alarmed now.”

“Is an assessment done by an ed psych?”