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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, crime hasn’t played much of a part in the election campaign so far, Nick Clegg will try to change that tomorrow when the Deputy Prime Minister makes prison policy a key part of the Lib Dems manifesto.  Well Simon Hughes is a Liberal Democrat MP, if you didn’t know already, and is Minister of State for Justice and Civil Liberties and he joins me now, a very good morning to you Mr Hughes.  Just some of what Baroness Warsi was talking about, she’s got a point hasn’t she?

SIMON HUGHES: We all have to reach out, I have a large Muslim community in my constituency and I as a regular basis engage with them and talk to them, take their advice, go to the mosques and so on.  We absolutely all have the responsibility, we can’t have a society where black representatives in parliament speak for black people and Muslims speak for … I mean that just wouldn’t work and if people are to feel fully included, if the opportunities are going to be there particularly for the young people, to know that this is their society, that they can come to the top in the private sector, they can run businesses, they can be in the Cabinet, they can be Prime Minister, then inclusion starts at primary schools and…

DM: So what’s gone wrong?  You have been in government for five years, what’s gone wrong that three young bright schoolgirls, British citizens, have gone off to we think perhaps to Syria or Iraq to join Islamic State?  Something has gone wrong hasn’t it and in that conversation I was talking with Baroness Warsi with, countering the radical conversations they are having?

SIMON HUGHES: Everybody in the country will be concerned that youngsters, young girls might be on their way as we speak.  We don’t know where they are, we are hoping they are getting the messages that we want them to come home and turn round but this is actually more akin to a grooming issue.  It looks as if, this isn’t I don’t think about horrible terrorists selecting … it is about adults, older people actually seeking to get youngsters to follow, this is 14 and 15 year olds being persuaded and therefore we have to deal with that.   

DM: How do we deal with that?  Do the security services have to monitor it?  

SIMON HUGHES: Well the security services already had the woman who apparently might be involved on their radar, so we don’t need more powers, she was known to the authorities and I don't think that anybody would argue that you suddenly had every single teenager going through our airports being stopped and checked in a way because lots of youngsters go in and out every day to see their families who live abroad, to come back from the services so you can’t suddenly change, you’d need hundreds, thousands more people to do that.  The way is to make sure that in our schools, primary schools, secondary schools, sixth form colleges, colleges, always are making sure that there is a counter argument being put that a) what ISIS is doing is terribly unacceptable to society as a whole, is dangerous, is perverted, it appears – I’m not a Muslim but it appears to pervert the whole argument about Islam but also to show them that that’s not where excitement and success should like, that they have opportunities as young women, as they do in our society.  Unemployment is going down, employment is going up, more youngsters from backgrounds who have never been to university are going to university.  So we have to win that argument and I found in the schools in my constituency in south London that we are able to do that.  Never think that it is only families who have a tradition of being out of the mainstream who suddenly have their children who might be picked up and groomed and taken away, it can be the most respectable of families.  

DM: Some of that radicalisation, and to turn to the issue you want to discuss, a lot of it is taking place we hear in prisons.  Now there is a big speech coming tomorrow from the Deputy Prime Minister on policy on crime  and part of it is that you want to see the end to the relentless rise it seems in the prison population.  You must understand though in the course of an election campaign, you are going to get the charge as Liberal Democrats, you’re back to the Liberal side of that equation, you’re wishy-washy and you’re soft on crime and the causes of crime.  

SIMON HUGHES: Can I say why it is absolutely the opposite of the truth.  In the last 20 years we’ve seen the prison population in this country nearly double, 40 odd thousand up to 80 odd thousand.  I can’t believe that we are twice as dangerous, twice as evil a society in 20 years.  So what’s going wrong?  There are people who absolutely need to go to prison and they need to go to prison for a long time so there is no argument, some people do horrible things and they need to be punished and punished very severely.  But there are lots of people who go to prison, who go to prison for a very short time, who actually have mental illness as their main issue.  We are very keen and the Deputy Prime Minister, Norman Lamb my colleague in the Department of Health, are very keen that we should spot that when people go through the door of the police station, on the first time when they are picked up by the police.  The police are now much more willing to do that and we should divert them to …

DM: Well the police say we shouldn’t be dealing with it, if they have got health problems.  

SIMON HUGHES: Absolutely, absolutely.  

DM: But do you have to divert resources, have you got anything within the prison budget that can pay for this?  

SIMON HUGHES: Well we have already allocated money in the Department of Health budget.  It is actually going to save money, if you think about it.  It is about £45,0000 a year to keep somebody in prison, if you can prevent somebody going into prison as I see many people, for six months and then coming out and then reoffending and then going back, they lose their home and when they come out they have to be on social security and housing benefit because they don’t have a home. Their children, between 15-20,000 children have no mother at home, why?  Because their mother is in prison.  

DM: Well let’s talk specifically about the female population, it’s much smaller than the general prison population but nevertheless an awful lot there you feel who just don’t need to be there, many who are there for completely non-violent crimes and …

SIMON HUGHES: Most of them, most of them.  Most of them are in for a very short time, most of them are there having committed no violent offence at all, many of them have been abused, many of them have been victims of violent relationships, many of them have mental health problems, many have sought to take their own life, so what’s the answer to that set of problems?  The answer is firstly to make sure that you spot the mental health issues as they come in, then to allow the courts as a matter of course to deal with the drug or alcohol problem which is actually often the issue, by an order that says we are going to require you to have treatment and then have the alternative in the community that is tough and efficient and effective.  There are courts now that can watch somebody over six months to make sure they comply with requirements.  

DM: There’s an interesting and worrying wrinkle within those figures for the female prison population, I read here that 60 of the women inside at any one time are there because of evading the BBC licence fee.  Don’t you need to get on very, very quickly with decriminalising that?  

SIMON HUGHES: Well there’s a separate debate about how you fund the BBC and what that …

DM: But it’s not about that, this is non-payment of a debt okay, but you don’t need to go to jail because you don’t pay the licence fee.  

SIMON HUGHES: Most people believe there are certain offences for which you should not go to prison and we are very clear that there are people in prison who shouldn’t be there.  I’ll give you a more substantial example, we believe that people who use drugs, illegal drugs for their own personal use, we’ve debated this before, should not go to prison.  They should be punished but they should not end up going into custody for drugs for your person use, having in your possession drugs for your personal use, because in the end you have got to deal with the drug addiction.  So the whole of the approach that the Deputy Prime Minister and I are seeking to argue is that we can reduce the number victims, that’s where we start, reduce the number of re-offenders, deal with some of the endemic problems and I’ve been working hard really successfully with the prisons and others to make sure that every woman for example who goes into prison has their plan for their housing when they come out but also work and training so they have the education and skills to earn to support their family, that’s what we want offenders in the future to have as a future.

DM: Okay, we’ll listen very closely to the speech tomorrow.  Justice Minister, thank you very much indeed, Simon Hughes there.

SIMON HUGHES: Thank you very much.