Invest in children and save on prisons

YOUR columnist Fergus Finlay (October 19) is spot-on in his assertion that investing a little in deprived children would save a fortune on super-prisons like Thornton Hall.

His views go along with a joint Conservative/Labour party report in the Britain entitled ‘Early Intervention: Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens’.

The co-authors, Graham Allen MP and Iain Duncan Smith MP, highlight the importance of new early intervention programmes targeted at boosting the life chances of deprived children from birth to age three and they call for cross-party consensus on “intervening early”.