Cherie's parting shot

Mrs Blair speaks out against pregnant women sent to jail

By Marie Woolf, Political Editor

Sunday, 13 May 2007

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Cherie Blair last night made her first foray into British politics since her husband announced he was standing down as Prime Minister by attacking the Government for sending pregnant women to jail.

In what will be interpreted as Mrs Blair's first attempt to stake out her own political credo even before the couple leave Downing Street, the human-rights lawyer has warned that sending mothers to prison increases the risk of their children turning to criminality later in life.

As new government figures showed that about 100 babies a year are born to mothers behind bars, Mrs Blair called for "alternative sentences" for all except the most serious women criminals. Speaking exclusively to The Independent on Sunday, Mrs Blair warned that society will pay the price of removing children from their mothers' care while they are in jail.

Stating that action should be taken so "today's sons and daughters of prisoners don't end up tomorrow's offenders", Mrs Blair's intervention is a sign that, liberated from the restrictions of office, she will become increasingly vocal on issues that concern her when she leaves Downing Street.

Her comments also offer a fascinating glimpse into what friends say are her own deeply rooted political views, and throw into stark relief the expected contrast between Mrs Blair's role in Downing Street and that of her successor, Sarah Brown.

Signalling that the country will be governed "in a different way from now on", Mr Brown yesterday set out his own vision for his premiership, stating that there will be an end to the politics of celebrity.

But Mrs Blair, criticised for her influence over her husband during his 10 years' in office, made clear yesterday that she was now prepared to campaign vigorously on policy issues.

In a direct attack on the Home Office, Mrs Blair stated that it is right that "we consider using alternative sentences for mothers. It is not a soft option to make an offender face up to what she has done, to repay directly to her victim or do enforced community work. Nor is it a soft option to be tagged electronically".

Mrs Blair's intervention came as other human-rights lawyers renewed calls for a review of how pregnant women in prison are treated. Although women giving birth are no longer shackled, some prisoners, deemed a security risk, are handcuffed to a guard in the hospital waiting room, while in the early stages of labour and on the way to and from hospital.

Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, the Labour peer and human-rights lawyer, called for criminal courts to compile a report on the effect of jailing the primary carer, usually a woman, on their children before they are sentenced. She has warned that the children of women in prison, most of whom are convicted of shoplifting offences or fraud, are being punished, despite committing no offence.

About 80 babies are currently cared for by their mothers in prison mother-and-baby units, but Lady Kennedy said work should be done to stop babies being born in prison at all.

"While the mother and baby units in the British prison system try to create some semblance of normality, the conditions are hardly favourable for new arrivals into our world. Babies just should not be in prison if it can be at all avoided," she said.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said sending mothers to jail would contribute to later criminality in children. "Crime doesn't have to run in families but to break the cycle you do need to take account of the impact of imprisonment on those children separated from their mums, or in a few cases lone fathers," she said.