Woman's Hour - 26/11/2009

With Jane Garvey. Kate Humble, star of the BBC's Springwatch and Autumnwatch series, gives her first radio interview since becoming president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. She tells Jane about what it means to be head of Europe's biggest wildlife conservation charity, what she hopes to achieve in the role and how she owes her TV success to a sixgill shark. Elizabeth II has been Britain's head of state since 1952 when she succeeded her father George VI. As Channel 4 brings out a series of five programmes, each documenting a challenging time in the monarch's life, Woman's Hour explores how British society has transformed during the new Elizabethan age, for the better and for the worse. With Marion Milne and AN Wilson. Last week Woman's Hour reported from the Mother and Baby Unit at Holloway Prison in London, where the staff strive to provide a calm environment for the babies who live there. A roof garden, a sensory room and a creche help to make life as normal as possible for the eleven or so children who stay in the unit while their mothers serve out their sentences. But the babies can't experience being taken out to the park or the supermarket by their mums because the women aren't allowed to leave the prison grounds. We hear from the volunteers, known as the Holloway Babywalkers, who step in to help. Over two years ago Baroness Corston published her report into women in the criminal justice system. At the heart of the report were a number of proposals to reduce the number of women in prison. Despite the government's acceptance of nearly all of the recommendations, the female prison population has doubled in the last decade, and it has recently been reported that the number of women jailed last year was the highest on record. Jane discusses why this is the case with Frances Crook from The Howard League for Penal Reform and justice minister Maria Eagle.