Meral Ece makes her maiden speech in the Lords

Nick Clegg recently created some working peers, one of whom is Meral Ece, a former health and social care cabinet member in Islington.

She made her maiden speech on Thursday on the subject of criminal justice, which you can read in full here.

In it she perfectly expounds the liberal approach to criminal justice, arguing that it's much better to invest in ways of supporting those with mental health or drug and alcohol problems than keeping them in prison. Her concluding remarks sum it up:

I believe that instead of expanding prisons we should be looking at meaningful ways to reduce the prison population. Mental health trusts in partnership with local authorities should be compelled to allocate adequate resources to treatment and to divert offenders with mental health and drug and alcohol problems to those appropriate healthcare services. Reoffending would surely be reduced with investment in increasing literacy skills. Practical and consistent rehabilitation is surely a better investment.

I'm so glad we have someone with her background and skills in the Lords and I think she's made an excellent start.