Prisons [Relevant documents: Sixth Report from the Justice
Committee of Session 2015-16, Prison safety, HC 625, and the
Government response of Session 2016-17, HC 647; and oral evidence
taken before the Justice Committee on 29 November 2016, 14 December
2016 and 18 January 2017 on prison reform, HC 548.] 12.56 pm
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) I beg to move,
...Request free trial
Prisons
[Relevant documents: Sixth Report from the Justice Committee of
Session 2015-16, Prison safety, HC 625, and the Government
response of Session 2016-17, HC 647; and oral evidence taken
before the Justice Committee on 29 November 2016, 14 December
2016 and 18 January 2017 on prison reform, HC 548.]
12.56 pm
-
(Leeds East)
(Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes with concern recent serious
disturbances at Swaleside, Birmingham, Lewes, Bedford and
Moorlands prisons against the backdrop of a reduction of
more than 6,000 frontline prison officers since 2010; notes
that a planned recruitment drive has a target of hiring
fewer than half the number of officers lost, and that
previous recruitment drives have failed to achieve their
targets; recognises that violence in prisons is at record
levels with assaults up by 34 per cent since 2015, assaults
on staff up by 43 per cent since 2015, and more than 60 per
cent of prisons currently overcrowded; and calls on the
Government to reduce overcrowding and improve safety while
still ensuring that those people who should be in prison
are in prison.
The last Opposition day debate on prisons took place nearly
a year ago to this very day. Back then, as hon. Members
will recall, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith
(Andy Slaughter) opened the debate for the Opposition. He
told the House:
“The inescapable conclusion is that the prison system in
this country…is not working, contrary to the famous
pronouncement of the noble .”—[Official Report,
27 January 2016; Vol. 605, c. 333.]
A year on, the conclusion drawn by my hon. Friend remains
inescapable.
Since 2010, Conservative Justice Secretaries have cut the
number of frontline prison officers by more than 6,000. It
was the political decision to impose austerity on the
nation and our prison service that brought us to this
point. That was married with an erratic prisons policy that
veered first this way and then that way. First, the right
hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) wanted
to reduce prison numbers; he was sacked. Then the right
hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) took a
very authoritarian line, introducing benchmarking and
book-banning, both of which failed. Next, the right hon.
Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) wanted to
decentralise and hand autonomy to governors. The current
Justice Secretary wants a bit of policy from each—prison
policy à la carte.
The number of officers was cut with no check on the number
of people being imprisoned, but the effect of that ought to
have been obvious. The Government are imprisoning more
people than they have decided they can afford. In the 12
months to June 2016, there were 105 self-inflicted
deaths—nearly double the number five years previously, and
an all-time high.
-
(Birkenhead) (Lab)
Before my hon. Friend moves on from this point, may I draw
his attention to the Select Committee report that said that
if we are to try to cut the cycle of prisoners reoffending,
it would be good to try to provide employment for them,
particularly by reducing national insurance contributions
for employers? While that would not be a silver bullet,
would it not play some part in reducing the pressure on
prisons if such a policy were adopted by the Secretary of
State?
-
My right hon. Friend makes a very valuable point about
rehabilitation, a subject to which I will return.
-
Mr (Rushcliffe)
(Con)
The hon. Gentleman quite rightly says that there is, as I
think everybody will acknowledge, a serious crisis in our
prisons, which at the moment are overcrowded slums and
breeding grounds for crime. He sets out a rather
interesting range of options for tackling this but, with
respect, his motion merely concentrates on the Prison
Officers Association’s answer, which is to spend more money
and hire more prison officers, probably with improved pay
and conditions. Does he have any views on the range of
options that includes reducing the number of prisoners by
addressing foolish sentencing policies so that there is
room for the rehabilitation measures recommended by the
right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field)?
-
I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that
constructive contribution. We are talking about far more
than just staffing, so I will touch on sentencing and
prisoner numbers later.
-
(Liverpool, Wavertree)
(Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there are too
many people with mental health conditions in our prisons
who should not be there in the first place? Was he as
appalled as I was to hear the outcome of last week’s
inquest into the tragic death of Dean Saunders, one of 113
people who took their life in one of our prisons in the
past year? The inquest found that he should never have been
in prison in the first place—he should have been in a
mental health in-patient unit.
-
I share my hon. Friend’s concern, which she raised in
Justice questions yesterday. I will deal with the tragic
death of Dean Saunders later.
As I said, the Government are imprisoning more people than
they have decided they can afford. There were 345 deaths in
custody last year. In the same period, serious assaults on
staff increased by 146%, and incidents of self-harm
increased by more than 10,000. Within the space of just a
few weeks, there were prison riots in Lincoln, Lewes,
Bedford, and Moorland—not “Moorlands”, as it says in the
motion. In December, HMP Birmingham saw what many described
as the worst riots at a category B prison since Strangeways
a quarter of a century ago.
-
Mr (Peterborough)
(Con)
A lot of the hon. Gentleman’s criticism is predicated on
the concept of austerity under this Government, but surely
he will concede that the previous Labour Government, in
much more benign economic circumstances, released 82,000
prisoners under the end of custody licence scheme, of whom
2,657 were recalled for licence breaches and over 1,200 for
reoffending. In better financial times, there was still
mismanagement of the prison estate.
-
The prison system has never been perfect, but under a
Labour Government there was not a prison crisis, and under
this Conservative Government there is a prison crisis.
In Birmingham, it took 13 Tornado teams more than 12 hours
to regain control. Some estimate the cost of the damage as
£2 million. The Ministry was warned back in October that
urgent action was required in the light of staff worries
about personal safety, but it remains unclear whether it
did anything at all. Last October, in an unprecedented
intervention—
-
(Chesterfield)
(Lab)
Is my hon. Friend as worried as I am that not only has
there been the huge reduction in the number of prison
officers, but there seems to be a deliberate strategy to
get more experienced, more expensive prison officers to
stand down—to retire—and to replace them with cheap
apprentices and graduates? There is a real lack of
experience in our prison sector as well as a dangerous lack
of officer numbers.
-
My hon. Friend makes a vital point. We have a dangerous
cocktail of experienced prisoners in prison, and
experienced prison officers leaving prison. That is not
good for safety and not good for the service.
-
(Lewes) (Con)
rose—
-
I must make some progress, I am afraid.
In the wake of those riots, the Justice Secretary told the
House yesterday that more Tornado staff are being trained.
Clearly she expects more trouble and expects things to get
worse before they get better.
The Ministry has a long list of problems to contend with:
overcrowding; understaffing; lack of safety; the quality of
delivery from privatised probation services; drugs and
drones, and the nearly 4,000 IPP—imprisonment for public
protection—prisoners who are still in jail way past their
tariffs.
-
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
-
I will not give way.
One prison officer told me that the situation in our Prison
Service is like a game of Jenga where it feels as though we
are on the brink of the final piece being removed and the
whole thing coming crashing down around us. He did not say
that lightly. The Government’s White Paper has had a mixed
reception from those with experience and expertise in the
penal system and penal reform.
-
rose—
-
I need to make some progress.
Nearly all these problems stem from the axing of a quarter
of prison staff since 2010. The Justice Secretary’s
colleague, the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward
Leigh), asked her yesterday at Justice questions whether
she thought that cut was wise. She did not answer; she has
the opportunity to answer today.
-
(Gainsborough)
(Con)
That is fine; I stand by that—we all want more prison
officers. Presumably the hon. Gentleman can now commit
himself to a future Labour Government recruiting all these
officers, can he?
-
A future Labour Government will not treat our hard-working,
hard-pressed prison officers as the enemy—[Interruption.] I
hear the roars of disapproval from those on the Government
Benches. Anybody would think they were presiding over a
successful Prison Service and there was not a prison
crisis. If they would listen rather than roar at me, I
would be grateful.
-
(Banbury)
(Con)
rose—
-
I really do need to make progress, I am afraid.
The ambition set out in the White Paper to increase
staffing levels is welcome, but 2,500 officers represent
less than half the number of prison officers cut by
Conservative Justice Secretaries since 2010, and in order
to get 2,500 extra officers, 8,000 will have to be
recruited in just two years. I wonder whether the Justice
Secretary has confidence that that will happen, because I
do not come across many in the justice sector who think it
any more than a pipe dream under her management. In the
year to September 2016, she had about 400 fewer officers.
There is a crisis in staff retention; they are leaving more
quickly than she can recruit them. The Prison Officers
Association membership has very recently rejected a pay
deal offered by the Government. What plans has she made to
improve the offer and begin to make those jobs more
attractive to the public? She currently faces a recruitment
drive that is in danger of failing before it has begun.
Announcements that ex-service personnel will be recruited
to the Prison Service might grab quick headlines, but in
truth this is nothing new. There have always been former
members of our armed forces taking jobs in our Prison
Service. The role of soldier and prison officer are not
exactly the same, by the way, as prison officers who have
been in the Army have told me. The Secretary of State must
explain how she can compensate for the fact that, as we
have heard, so many experienced officers have left, and are
leaving, our Prison Service.
Overseeing a transformation to a prison estate populated by
more experienced prisoners and more inexperienced prison
officers presents a clear and present danger. Inadequate
staffing levels have a range of consequences. Prisons are
less safe because staff are far outnumbered. Prisoners are
spend more time in their cells because they cannot be
managed outside, and prisoner frustration is heightened by
the lack of time out of their cells.
-
(Leicester East)
(Lab)
I commend my hon. Friend for his excellent speech. Does he
agree that one way to reduce the prison population would be
for the Government to make better progress in the transfer
of foreign national offenders? At the moment, there are
10,000 foreign national offenders in our prisons,
representing 12% of the prison population. The Government
sign agreements, but very few prisoners get sent back.
-
I thank my right hon. Friend for making that important
point. In Justice questions yesterday, the Minister with
responsibility for prisons, the hon. Member for East Surrey
(Mr Gyimah), said that he was in discussions with the
Department for Exiting the European Union about the matter.
We need to hear more about the progress of those
discussions.
The Justice Secretary frequently points to the emergence of
new psychoactive substances as a major factor in the
current crisis. Does she know that in Scotland, where
prison policy has been stable for some years and where
staffing has remained constant, violence has not rocketed
as it has across the rest of the prison estate? Scotland
has NPS issues, too, but it did not axe staff in vast
numbers.
Our prisons are overcrowded. Armley prison, in my city of
Leeds, holds nearly twice the number of prisoners that it
was built to house. Wandsworth, Swansea, Brixton and
Leicester are not far behind; they are all full to capacity
with another 50% on top.
-
(Shipley) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
-
This will be the final time that I give way, if that is
okay.
-
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; he knows that I hold
him in very high esteem. Lady Chakrabarti, the shadow
Attorney General, said recently that she wanted half the
prisoners in the UK prison estate to be released
immediately. Is that Labour’s official party policy? My
constituents would be very interested to know.
-
I am certainly not aware of any such policy announcement
being made. [Interruption.] Conservative Members are making
some strange gesticulations. It is not Labour policy to
release half the prisoners. Why on earth would that be the
case?
We need a lasting way to manage the prison population. In
November 2016, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas,
appeared before the Justice Committee. Not surprisingly, he
was questioned on the prisons crisis, and he offered a view
on what could be done:
“The prison population is very, very high at the moment.
Whether it will continue to rise is always difficult to
tell, but there are worries that it will. I am not sure
that at the end of the day we can’t dispose of more by
really tough—and I do mean tough—community penalties.”
Prison has always been seen as a punishment. A person
breaks the social contract that governs much of our
relations with one another, and they may be imprisoned.
Members from across the House rightly see prison as a
fitting sanction, and it must be right that when a
convicted person is a danger to the public, they are kept
away from the public until such time as they no longer pose
a threat. A significant minority may never be safe to
release. But we must ask whether prison is the right place
for some of those who offend. We should always reflect on
that, because if we do not, we find ourselves in the
position that the Government are in now.
-
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
-
I have already said that I will not give way any further.
The warehousing of thousands of people without any support
or access to rehabilitation means that when they leave
prison, as they inevitably will, they will be in exactly
the same position as when they entered. They might still be
drug-dependent. They might still be homeless. They might
still be in poverty. It is right—in fact, it is our
duty—not to be complacent, but to reflect and ask ourselves
whether the way in which we deal with at least some of
those who break the law is working. With many offenders, it
is not. Their stay in prison is too short to teach them new
skills, or for them to obtain a qualification or stabilise
a drug addiction.
In recent weeks I have met stakeholders who question
whether it is worth sending people to prison for a few
weeks or a few months, and I have met prison officers who
lament that they see the same people over and over again.
When stakeholders, people at the frontline and experts
raise such matters, we must take them seriously. We must
punish and we must deliver smart sentences as well as
strict sentences, always asking ourselves what the best way
is to protect the public. I firmly believe that MPs must
have that urgent discussion.
-
(Surrey Heath)
(Con)
Smart and strict—what does it mean?
-
The number of questions being shouted out by Government
Members makes me wonder whether they know what they are
presiding over. There are risks with sending people to
prison, particularly for the first time. [Interruption.]
There is laughter from the Government Front Benchers, but
the situation in our prison system is not a laughing
matter. They should take this debate seriously.
We throw people into the prison river, and the currents
sweep them towards more drugs and more crime than they
experienced outside. If rehabilitation fails, it is a
failure to protect society. I must ask what the Justice
Secretary is doing about imprisonment for public protection
sentences. She urgently needs to come up with a scheme to
release those whom it is safe to release. She should
consider how that can be done—perhaps by releasing those
people on a licence period in proportion to their original
sentence.
In November last year, my right hon. Friend the Member for
Tottenham (Mr Lammy) published the interim findings of his
review into the treatment of and outcomes for black, Asian
and minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system.
The stark findings of the review have implications for our
prisons. For every 100 white women handed custodial
sentences in the Crown court for drug offences, 227 black
women were sentenced to custody. For black men, the figure
was 141 compared with 100 white men. BAME men were more
than 16% more likely than white men to be remanded in
custody. Those figures ought to be of concern to the
Justice Secretary, and she has a duty to find out why that
is happening and what can be done about it. The findings
are troubling in and of themselves, but such
disproportionate sentencing adds to the strain on our
prison system.
Rehabilitation is essential to any serious criminal justice
system, but we are not yet getting it right. Most people
who are in prison will one day leave prison, so if we are
to protect the public and keep our communities safe,
rehabilitation must be properly funded and taken seriously
by politicians as an aim. It must not be treated as a soft
option. Between January and December 2014, 45.5% of adults
released from prison had reoffended within a year. Of those
released from a sentence of less than 12 months, 60% went
on to reoffend.
When the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell introduced
the transforming rehabilitation programme, the probation
service was reckoned to be performing well. Many
stakeholders issued a warning against the breakup of the
probation service but, as with many Ministry of Justice
consultations at the time, the public were simply ignored
and the proposals pushed through regardless. Community
rehabilitation companies received negative reports last
year in Derbyshire, Durham and London.
-
(City of Durham)
(Lab)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
-
I will give way for the final time.
-
Dr
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Durham used to
have the best probation service in the country, which did
an amazing job of trying to rehabilitate prisoners, but it
has, alas, fallen by the wayside because of the Government
reforms. Does he agree that it would be nice to see
Government Members taking some responsibility for what has
happened to our prison and probation system? It is an
absolute disgrace that it is failing in such a way.
-
What has happened to the probation services in the area and
region that my hon. Friend represents is indeed a travesty.
The privatisation of the probation service has been a
disaster.
-
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
-
I will give way, but I promise that this is the final
occasion.
-
The hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to what he considers
to be weaknesses in current sentencing, the approach to
IPPs, the approach to rehabilitation and the handling of
probation, but he has not come forward with a single
positive alternative. In the moments remaining to him, will
he enlighten the House about what Labour would actually do,
other than simply complain?
-
I certainly will do so, if the right hon. Gentleman will
just bear with me.
The inspectorate of probation’s report of May 2016 found
that the work of the national probation service was
considered better in a number of important areas. As I have
said, privatisation of the probation service has failed. Of
course, it is not just down to the Ministry and to
probation to support people; if people are leaving prison
faced with the same conditions as before they entered it,
that will make any meaningful change difficult.
Support is needed: it is needed for employment and for
housing. One women’s prison had inmates leaving with
nowhere to live, and it was handing out tents and sleeping
bags to people when they left. This cannot be a feature of
a modern justice system in the fifth-richest country in the
world. The Prisoners Education Trust, while welcoming the
White Paper, has said that,
“in today’s economy, gaining meaningful employment depends
on more than just the ability to read and write. If the
government is serious about lowering reoffending, it needs
to equip people in prison with the attitudes and
aspirations”—[Interruption.]
-
Mr Speaker
Order. The Government Whip, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy
Opperman), should not shout out. He should not shout from a
sedentary position, and he should not shout out while
standing up. If he will forgive my saying so, to shout out
while standing right next to the Speaker’s Chair is perhaps
not quite the most intelligent action that he has
undertaken in the course, so far, of a most auspicious
career.
-
I certainly did not take offence when the Government Whip
was shouting out, “Are there any policies?” because I did
not think that that question was directed at the
Opposition.
The reality is that prisons are full of people with a range
of problems—those with mental health problems, those
addicted to drugs and those who are homeless. It is rarely
mentioned that support services focused on issues of that
kind have also been victims of austerity. Drugs support has
been scaled back, and prisoners are leaving prison with
nowhere to sleep. There are too many people in prison with
serious mental health problems.
-
Will the hon. Gentleman please give way?
-
MPs rarely break promises. I promised not to take any more
interventions, but I will break that promise and allow
another one.
-
I thank the hon. Gentleman for eventually giving way; I am
most honoured. The Opposition motion mentions Lewes
prison—it is in special measures, as was raised during
Justice questions yesterday—but he fails to acknowledge the
huge amount of work that is going into the prison. This is
not just about prison officer numbers; there are other
issues, such as the huge rise in the number of sexual
offenders in Lewes prison, which has made that old
Victorian prison very hard to manage. I have not heard any
suggestions by the hon. Gentleman about the way forward in
helping places such as Lewes to tackle those problems.
-
The increases in the number of prisoners convicted of
historical sex offences and in the number of people in
prisons obviously have an effect, but does cutting the
number of prison officers by a quarter mitigate that
situation or make it worse? It seems to me that the answer
to that is quite simple.
Before I draw my remarks to a conclusion, I want to
turn—[Interruption.] The prisons Minister has an
unfortunate habit of heckling at really inappropriate
points. He has demonstrated that before and he has
demonstrated it again now. I want to talk about the case of
Dean Saunders, who tragically committed suicide in
Chelmsford prison. An inquest jury found a number of errors
in his treatment. Although prison staff recognised that he
had mental health problems, they did not follow the
procedure under which he might have been moved to hospital.
The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member
for Bracknell (Dr Lee), has said that he is
“seeking the details of all those cases to see whether
there is a pattern”.—[Official Report, 24 January 2017;
Vol. 620, c. 156.]
Deborah Coles of the charity Inquest, who supported the
family, said that Mr Saunders
“should never have been in prison in the first place. His
death was entirely preventable.”
The fact is that there is evidence in abundance from the
various independent monitoring board reports and inquest
jury findings. The Ministry must ensure that the
recommendations of such bodies are acted on.
In conclusion, we need to be tough on crime, wherever it is
found, and we need to protect the public. At the same time,
we need to make prisons places where effective
rehabilitation is a living, breathing reality. We want
people to leave prison and become productive members of
society, having left crime behind. At present, when it
comes to the Prison Service, as in relation to so much
else, this Government are failing. They are failing prison
staff, they are failing prison inmates and their families,
and they are failing the public. Ultimately, the mess this
Government are making of our prison system means they are
failing society. I commend the motion to the House.
-
Mr Speaker
I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in
the name of the Prime Minister. To move the amendment, I
call the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for
Justice.
1.25 pm
-
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
(Elizabeth Truss)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to
the end of the Question and add:
“welcomes the Government’s comprehensive proposals for
major reform of the prison system set out in the White
Paper; further welcomes plans for an extra 2,500 prison
officers, to professionalise the prison service further and
to attract new talent by recruiting prison officer
apprentices, graduates and former armed service personnel;
notes new security measures being introduced to tackle the
illegal use of drones, phones and drugs which are
undermining the stability of the prison system; welcomes
the commitment to give governors in all prisons more powers
and more responsibility to deliver reform whilst holding
them to account for the progress prisoners make; and
welcomes the Government’s proposals to set out for the
first time the purpose of prisons in statute.”
Since becoming Justice Secretary, I have been clear that
the violence in our prisons is too high. We have very
worrying levels of self-harm and of deaths in custody.
Tomorrow, we will see further statistics on violence for
the period from July to September 2016. The last set of
statistics reaffirmed why we need to take immediate action.
I have been clear that these problems have been years in
the making, and will not be fixed in weeks or months. In
fact, in a piece he wrote this morning, the hon. Member for
Leeds East (Richard Burgon) acknowledged that there is no
“magic fix” for these issues. We certainly did not hear any
magic fixes in his speech today.
-
(Kingston and Surbiton)
(Con)
There may be no magic fixes, but does my right hon. Friend
agree with the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr
Blackman-Woods) that this Government should take
responsibility? They should indeed take responsibility for
banning novel psychoactive substances at the request of
prison officers, and they should take responsibility for a
plan to increase the number of prison officers—she has
outlined that plan—again at the request of prison officers.
-
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I am absolutely
determined to turn around our prisons. Unless our prisons
are places of safety, they cannot be purposeful places
where offenders can reform. That is why we have taken
immediate action, as my hon. Friend says, to stabilise
security in our prisons and to tackle the scourge of drugs,
drones and phones. It is why we have secured additional
funding of £100 million annually to recruit an extra 2,500
prison officers to strengthen our frontline and invest in
wider justice reforms.
-
It is good news that there is some additional money and
that some more prison officers are coming into the service,
but the Secretary of State is right to say that the scale
of violence in our prisons is terrible. She and the
Government must take responsibility for the lower number of
prison officers that we now have. Will she tell the House
how many prison officers are currently off work sick as a
result of assaults received at work?
-
I have been clear that we need extra staff on the
frontline. A number of issues have resulted in the
situation that we now face, including the rise in the
numbers of psychoactive substances, drones and phones. I
have been clear that we need to address the issue of
staffing, and we are determined to do so. We monitor the
level of sickness in our prisons specifically to address
that issue.
-
Mr Jackson
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the only concrete
analysis given by the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman in
his 30-minute speech was that there is a demonstrable link
between staffing and violence. That has been controverted
by evidence given to the Justice Committee by Dr David
Scott of the Open University, who rejected such a link.
There are other much more complex societal factors in the
prison population and across the estate.
-
There are a number of factors, and psychoactive drugs are
one. We need the proper level of staffing, which we are
putting into prisons, to ensure that prison officers can
supervise and challenge offenders properly. That is
important not just for safety, but in reforming offenders.
The “Prison Safety and Reform” White Paper, which was
published last November, detailed the biggest overhaul of
our prisons in a generation to deal with the issues we are
discussing. It is right that prisons punish people who
commit serious crime by depriving them of their most
fundamental right, liberty, but they need to be places of
discipline, hard work and self-improvement. That is the
only way we will cut reoffending and reduce crime in our
communities.
-
Mr (Delyn) (Lab)
I am really grateful to the Lord Chancellor for giving way.
I want to help her on the staffing point. The benchmarking
by the Ministry of Justice indicates that 89 prisons are
under the staffing levels that her Ministry thinks is right
for them. When the 2,500 prison officers are recruited, how
many of those prisons will still be under her own
benchmarking staffing levels?
-
I will address how we will recruit the additional staff
later in my comments, but all of those prisons will not
just be brought up to the benchmark level; we are
increasing staff levels beyond that. We have to recruit the
additional staff to bring prisons up to benchmark and then
further additional staff. That is all within our plan to
recruit 4,000 officers this year.
-
Several hon. Members rose—
-
I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes
(Maria Caulfield) and then make a bit more progress with my
speech.
-
HMP Lewes is mentioned in the Opposition motion, but I have
not heard that the shadow Secretary of State has visited
it, unlike the prisons Minister. The shadow Secretary of
State dismissed the effect of having a high number of
sexual offenders in the prison, but that affects the
retention of prison staff. To dismiss it out of hand shows
a lack of experience and knowledge about what is happening
in our prisons.
-
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to the
prison population later in my speech and address the
specific issue of sex offenders.
-
Sir (Chelmsford)
(Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
-
Very quickly.
-
Mr Speaker
There was no danger of the Secretary of State not hearing
the right hon. Gentleman. I rather assumed that she would
give way, because Chelmsford prison has been referred to.
-
Sir
The extra prison officers my right hon. Friend proposes to
recruit are welcome, but I understand that it takes about
nine months to fully train a new prison officer. As a
short-term stopgap, would it not be sensible to relax the
rules or give more powers to governors so that they could
bring back into work retired, experienced prison officers
on short-term contracts?
-
My right hon. Friend’s assessment is absolutely right and
we are, indeed, bringing back former prison officers on a
temporary basis.
I will move on to what we are doing on recruitment and
retention, because that is the most important issue we face
as a Prison Service. We will not achieve our aims of reform
if we do not have enough officers and if we do not train
them properly and have proper career development to make
the most of our workforce. In October, we started by
announcing our plans to recruit an extra 400 staff in 10 of
our most challenging prisons. I am pleased to say that we
have so far made 389 job offers. We were due to do that by
the end of March, so we are ahead of target. We recently
launched a graduate scheme called Unlocked, which is like
Teach First for prisons, to attract the top talented
graduates. We had more than 1,000 expressions of interest
in the scheme and within 24 hours, we had 350 graduates
from Russell Group universities applying for the scheme.
The idea that people do not want to do the job is not
right. There are a lot of people out there who want to
reform offenders and to get involved in helping us turn
around our Prison Service. We need to talk up the job of
being a prison officer, because it is incredibly important.
One prison officer described themselves to me as a parent,
a social worker and a teacher. What could be more important
than turning somebody who lives a life of crime into
somebody who contributes to society? We find that when we
go out and recruit, a lot of people are interested in the
role.
Of course we have to retain our fantastic existing prison
officers, but I want to correct the hon. Member for Leeds
East. In fact, 80% of our staff have been with us for
longer than five years, so the idea that we do not have a
strong depth of prison officers is wrong. However, we do
need to ensure that they have career and promotion
opportunities. That is why we are looking to expand the
senior grades in the service and to promote our existing
staff. We want to give them a career ladder so that they
have opportunities to train on the job and get the
additional skills they need.
We are giving prison governors the opportunity to recruit
locally for the first time. We have launched that in 30 of
our most hard-to-recruit prisons. That means that the
governor can build much more of a relationship with the
local community, get people involved, show people what life
is really like inside prison and encourage people to work
there. The local recruitment and job fairs have been really
successful.
Of course this is challenging. Recruiting 4,000 people in
one year is challenging, but I think we can do it. We have
the opportunity to do it, we are enthusiastic about it and
we have the budget to do it for the first time in a number
of years.
-
(Bedford)
(Con)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The opportunity
for the governor to do more proactive recruitment has been
welcomed in Bedford. In the amendment, she talks about
decentralising authority to prison governors to enable them
to make their own decisions. Does she find it interesting
that that idea has been missed completely by the Labour
party?
-
I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to give prison
governors power over what happens in their own prison. They
should decide what regimes to operate and what staffing
structures to have. They should motivate and recruit their
own team. They should also have more say over how lives are
turned around. For example, we are giving them the power
over their own education providers. We will hold prison
governors to account for how people are improving in
English and maths; how successful they are at getting
offenders off drugs, which we know can lead to
rehabilitation; and how successful they are at getting
people into work when they leave prison, which will
encourage them to work with local employers and set up
apprenticeships. However, we need to give governors the
levers and the responsibility that will enable them to do
those things. We are also working on leadership training so
that governors have the skills and capabilities to take on
those extra responsibilities.
That is the only way we will turn lives around. Whatever I
and my civil servants do in the Ministry of Justice, we are
not the people on the ground in the wings who are talking
to prisoners day in, day out. It is those people who will
turn lives around. That is why we need motivated staff and
governors who are empowered to do that job. That is what
our reforms will achieve.
-
(Ealing North)
(Lab)
I think the whole House will sympathise with and support
the right hon. Lady’s comments on the morale of prison
officers. When the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald
Howarth) and I were prison officers together in Dartmoor
prison, it was evident to us that prison officers felt that
they were out of sight and out of mind. They felt that
nobody had any interest in their work until something went
catastrophically wrong. Does she agree that it would be an
excellent idea for right hon. and hon. Members not just to
contact the Prison Officers Association, but occasionally
to visit prisons to show that we do care and that they are
not out of sight nor out of mind?
-
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. I am delighted to
hear that he is a former prison officer. Perhaps he could
be a shining beacon of the scheme to bring former prison
officers into service.
-
I am so reluctant to disabuse and disappoint the right hon.
Lady, but the hon. Member for Aldershot and I were only
temporarily in Dartmoor as part of a television programme
called “At the Sharp End”.
-
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I thank Mr Mackay.
-
In any case, we are setting up a parliamentary scheme so
that we can work more closely with prison officers and give
them the kudos they deserve, because they do an incredibly
important job, often behind walls. As part of the reform
programme, I want to see prisons reaching out more into the
local community and working with local employers. As the
shadow Secretary of State said, ultimately, the vast
majority of people in prison will one day be on the outside
and be part of the local community, so we need to work on
that.
While we are putting in place the long and medium-term
measures to get additional staff in to reform our prisons,
we are taking immediate action to improve security and
stability across the estate. That includes extra CCTV, the
deployment of national resources and regular taskforce
meetings chaired by the prisons Minister.
He holds regular meetings with the Prison Service to
monitor prisons for risk factors, and that allows us to
react quickly to emerging problems and provide immediate
support to governors, on anything from transferring
difficult prisoners to speeding up the repair of damaged
facilities.
Hon. Friends have talked about psychoactive substances,
which have been a game changer in the prisons system, as
the prisons and probation ombudsman has acknowledged. In
September, we rolled out to all prisons new mandatory drug
tests for psychoactive drugs, and we have increased the
number of search dogs and trained them to detect drugs such
as Spice and Mamba. We are also working with mobile phone
operators on new solutions, being trialled in three
prisons, to combat illicit phones, and we have specific
powers to block phones too.
-
I am disappointed that my right hon. Friend has not
mentioned the impact on the behaviour of prisoners of
automatic release halfway through sentence. If someone is
sent to prison for six years but knows that by law they
will be released after three, irrespective of how badly
they behave in prison, surely their behaviour in prison
will be worse than if they know they might have to do the
full term if they do not behave. Is she not going to
address that issue?
-
Clearly, if people do not behave, they will receive
additional days. That is an important part of the levers
that governors have in reforming offenders.
I was talking about security issues. We are also working to
deal with drones, rolling out body-worn cameras across the
estate and dealing with organised crime gangs through a new
national intelligence unit.
Hon. Members have also talked about mental health. We are
investing in specialist mental health training for prison
officers to help to reduce the worrying levels of self-harm
and suicide in our prisons. The early days in custody are
particularly critical to mental health and keeping people
safe.
-
Dr
As the Secretary of State will know, many women in prison
have severe mental health problems, having been subject to
much abuse in their lives. Why is there so little about
women in the White Paper? What is she doing to implement
the recommendations of the Corston report?
-
We are working on a strategy for women offenders that
includes looking after women on community sentences as well
as custodial sentences. I want more early intervention to
deal with issues that lead to reoffending, such as mental
health and drugs issues, and we will be announcing further
plans in the summer.
We are investing in an additional 2,500 staff across the
prisons estate, but we are also changing the way we deploy
those staff to ensure more opportunities to engage with
offenders, both to challenge them and to help them reform.
-
May I put to the Lord Chancellor the question I put to the
shadow Lord Chancellor about foreign national offenders?
She will know that an easy way to reduce the number of
people in our prisons is to follow through on the excellent
work of her distinguished predecessors, the right hon. and
learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and the right
hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who are both
in the House today, in signing these agreements to send
people back to their countries of origin. Why has progress
been so slow?
-
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I am
pleased to say that a record number of foreign national
offenders were deported in the last year. We are making
progress, therefore, but there is more work to do. My hon.
Friend the prisons Minister is leading a cross-Government
taskforce on this issue.
I return now to our work in recruiting 2,500 new prison
officers and changing the role of prison officers. By
recruiting these new staff, we want every prison officer to
have a caseload of no more than six offenders whom they can
challenge and support. Our staffing model aims to ensure
that we have enough prison officers to do that. One-to-one
support from a dedicated officer is at the heart of how we
change our reoffending rates and keep our prisons and
prison officers safe.
The hon. Member for Leeds East talked about the prison
population, although I was none the wiser about Labour’s
policy after he had spoken. The prison population has been
stable since 2010, having risen by 25,000 under Labour. As
was mentioned earlier, fewer people are in prison for
shorter sentences—9,000 fewer shorter sentences are given
out every year—but more people are in prison for crimes
such as sex offences. Not only are we prosecuting more
sexual offenders, but sentences for sexual offences have
increased considerably, which is absolutely right and
reflects the serious damage those individuals do to their
victims.
-
It is much more difficult for prison officers to look after
sex offenders than an average prison inmate—they often need
to be segregated, but old Victorian prisons do not easily
enable that—and that only adds to the pressure on officers.
-
We are doing important work on how better to deal with sex
offenders and how to ensure they are on treatment
programmes that will stop them committing such crimes in
the future.
-
Mr
The one policy that the Labour spokesman touched on was the
future of the remaining IPP prisoners, of whom 4,000 remain
in prison, years after the sentence was abolished and
beyond their recommended term. Some are very dangerous and
cannot be released, but is my right hon. Friend looking at
how to make it easier for parole boards to reduce delays
and alter the burden of proof and so release all those for
whom there is no evidence that they would pose a serious
risk to the public if released?
-
The Opposition talked about IPP prisoners. Of course, it
was the Labour party that introduced that sentence, and my
right hon. and learned Friend who abolished it, so well
done to him. There is a legacy here, since some of them are
still in prison, but I have established an IPP unit within
the Department to deal with the backlog and ensure that we
address the issues those individuals have so that they can
be released safely into society. We must always heed public
protection, however, and as he acknowledged, some are not
suitable for release for precisely that reason.
-
(Eastleigh) (Con)
Local police have raised with me the impact, particularly
in Hedge End, of psychoactive drug abuse before people
enter prison. The types of prisoners being managed are of a
different ilk, and the type of addiction is unknown and
difficult to quantify. How difficult is it on the ground
for our prison officers?
-
My hon. Friend is right; this is a very serious issue, both
in society and in prison. We are looking at additional
training for prison officers and have introduced tests to
help to get prisoners of these substances, as well as
prisoner education programmes. These drugs do have a
serious and severe effect. On her point about the
community, I want our community sentences to address mental
health and drugs issues before people commit crimes that
result in custodial sentences. Too many people enter prison
having previously been at high risk of committing such a
crime because of such issues. We need to intervene earlier,
which I think is an effective way of reducing the
circulation through our prisons, rather than having an
arbitrary number that we release. What we need to do is
deal with these issues before they reach a level where a
custodial sentence is required. That is our approach, and I
shall say more about it in due course.
From April, prison governors will be given new freedoms to
drive forward the reforms and cut free from Whitehall
micro-management. Governors will have control over budgets,
education and staffing structures, and they will be able to
set their own prison regime. At the moment, we have a
plethora of prison rules, including on how big prisoners’
bath mats can be. Surely that is not the way to treat
people who we want to be leaders of some of our great
institutions.
-
(Reigate) (Con)
I want to say how much I welcome the passage in the White
Paper that gives to prison governors the very freedoms that
my right hon. Friend has mentioned, particularly in respect
of work and the commercial relationships that governors
will be able to form with companies and businesses to get
proper work into prisons. Will she say something about
One3One Solutions?
-
My hon. Friend must have read my mind, because we were
talking about One3One Solutions only this morning, and I
know that he was involved in establishing that
organisation. Employers are vital to our reforms, and what
I want to happen on the inside has to be jobs and training
that lead to work on the outside. We need to start from
what jobs are available on the outside and bring those
employers into prison. We are looking at how to develop
that. First, governors will have a strong incentive,
because there will be a measurement of how many prisoners
secure jobs on the outside, as well as of how many go into
apprenticeships on the outside. I want to see offenders
starting apprenticeships on the inside that they can then
complete on the outside, so that there is a seamless
transition into work.
We already have some fantastic employers working with
us—Greggs, for example, and whom I met this morning—but
we need more of them to participate. Former offenders can
be very effective employees, and we need to get that
message across more widely. There would be a huge economic
benefit if, once people leave prison, rather than go on to
benefits they go into employment instead. That will also
reduce reoffending. We shall launch our employment strategy
in the summer. I will go into more detail subsequently and
look forward to discussing it further with my hon. Friend
the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt).
A number of hon. Members have mentioned the probation
service. Just as we are measuring outcomes for prison
services, such as employment, housing and education, we
want to see similar measures for the probation services. We
need to make sure that when people are in the community,
they are being encouraged to get involved in activities and
to get off drugs, so that they are less likely to reoffend.
We shall say more about probation in April, when we
announce our changes to the probation service.
It is difficult, of course, for reform to take place in
dilapidated buildings or in old and overcrowded prisons.
That is why we are modernising the prison estate to create
10,000 prison places where reform can flourish. This is a
£1.3 billion investment programme that will reduce
overcrowding and replace outdated prisons with modern
facilities. As part of that, we shall open HMP Berwyn in
Wrexham next month, which will create over 2,000 modern
places. We have already made announcements about new
prisons in Glen Parva and Wellingborough, and we shall make
further announcements about new prison capacity in due
course.
I am pleased to tell hon. Members that the Prison and
Courts Reform Bill will be introduced shortly. It will set
it out in legislation for the first time that reform of
offenders as well as punishment is a key purpose of
prisons. One of the issues we faced as a society was that
we did not have such a definition of prisons. At the
moment, legislation says that as Secretary of State I am
responsible for housing prisoners. Well, I consider myself
responsible for much more than housing prisoners. I
consider myself responsible for making sure that we use
time productively while people are in prison to turn their
lives around so that they become productive members of
society. That is going to be embedded in legislation, and
it will be accompanied by further measures, including new
standards, league tables and governor empowerment.
We will also strengthen the powers of Her Majesty’s
inspectorate of prisons to intervene in failing prisons,
and we will put the prison and probation ombudsman on a
statutory footing to investigate deaths in custody. Hon.
Members have referred to some of the very tragic deaths in
custody, and the prison and probation ombudsman performs a
vital role here.
The whole House will acknowledge that there is too much
violence and self-harm in our prisons. It is also right to
say that we have decade-long problems with reoffending.
Almost half of prisoners reoffend within a year, at a cost
of £15 billion to our society and at huge cost to the
victims who suffer from those crimes. That is why this
Government’s prison reform agenda is such a priority, and
it is why we have secured extra funding and are taking
immediate steps to address violence and safety in our
prisons. This will be the largest reform of our prisons in
a generation. These issues will not be solved in weeks or
months, but I am confident that, over time, we will
transform our prisons, reduce reoffending and get prisoners
into jobs and away from a life of crime.
-
Several hon. Members rose—
-
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I hope to be able to get everybody in on the basis
of a seven-minute limit.
1.56 pm
-
(Don Valley)
(Lab)
I have three prison establishments in Don Valley: HMP
Hatfield, which is an open establishment; HMP Moorland,
which is a category C secure prison with 340 sex offenders,
260 foreign prisoners from 40 nationalities and 480 other
cat C prisoners; and HMP Lindholme, which has 1,000
prisoners in a cat C secure prison. In Doncaster itself and
the Doncaster Central constituency, there is another
prison, which is a private establishment. I have visited
these prisons over many years, and the relationship has
been good, with the community assured that whatever is
happening in the prisons it is not having an adverse effect
on them, although we have seen a rise in the number of
people absconding from the open establishment.
I know that this is a very difficult area. One of the
things of which I was most proud when I was a Minister in
the Home Office was the introduction of drug testing on
arrest for acquisitive crime, so that the drug problem that
was leading people to steal could be identified, and people
could be put into treatment even before they ended up in
court. I believe we should do everything we can to address
the causes of crime, as well as being “tough” when people
break the law.
The Government have owned up to the problem. It has been
acknowledged in the White Paper that the levels of assault
on staff are the highest on record and rising. Comparing
the year to June 2016 with the same period in 2012 shows
that total assaults in prisons are up by 64%; assaults on
staff are up 99%; incidents of self-harm are up 57%; and
deaths in custody are up 75%. So prisons are less safe for
staff, but they are also less safe for prisoners. As the
Lord Chancellor wrote in November,
“almost half of prisoners commit another crime within a
year of release”.
So the system is failing to rehabilitate and, as such, is
failing to protect the public from further crime. As she
also wrote in November in the Daily Mail,
“What is clear is that the system is not working.”
I am afraid that what is also clear is that on the
coalition Government’s watch and on this Government’s
watch, the Government are failing, too. They are failing in
their duty to care for prison officers and staff; failing
in their duty of care of prisoners who are more likely to
be assaulted, to injure themselves or take their own life;
failing in their duty of care to the public, as they are
failing to reduce recidivism; and failing the taxpayer. In
the Justice Secretary’s own words today, the Government
have admitted that the cost of reoffending is £15 billion.
If we look at violence in prisons, we find that the latest
safety in custody statistics show for the year up to
September 2016: 324 deaths in prison; 107 self-inflicted
deaths; a doubling of self-inflicted deaths among women
prisoners—from a low base, but importantly up from four to
eight; and over 36,000 cases of self-harm, which is a
staggering 426 incidents of self-harm for every 1,000
prisoners. The figures also show 10,544 prisoners
self-harming and 2,583 hospital attendances, with injuries
serious enough to require hospital treatment, with the
added pressure that places on staff who have to escort
them, leaving others to deal with situations in prisons
that have seen reductions in staffing.
In the year to June 2016, there were 23,775 assaults, an
increase of 34%—that is 278 assaults for every 1,000
prisoners—and 3,134 serious assaults, an increase of 32%.
This is not a happy situation, as we know from the trade
unions working in the sector, whether we are talking about
the Prison Officers Association, Community or, for that
matter, Unite. A constituent of mine works in a prison
providing training to rehabilitate prisoners and help them
to find jobs when they leave. Little is said about the
prison employees who, if staffing levels are not
sufficient, could also be on the receiving end of assaults.
I was disappointed that the Secretary of State did not meet
members of Community, which represents most of the staff in
private prisons, to discuss its charter for safe operating
standards. Like the POA and others involved, Community has
come up with some very constructive practical suggestions,
but it worries me that, according to the union’s research
findings, it is common for one officer to be on a wing
containing at least 60 inmates. I should be interested to
hear from the Minister how the Government will ensure that
lone working ends as part of their attempts to find better
ways of making prison work.
There is much in the White Paper that needs to be
discussed. It refers to improved training for staff, the
piloting of body-worn video cameras, and cognitive skills
programmes for prisoners so that they respond to problems
without using violence. I approve of all that. The White
Paper also recommends that governors should have more
freedoms. I can tell the Secretary of State that in one of
the prisons in my constituency, the turnover of governors
over the last decade has been enormous. We need governors
who can stay put and bring about any changes that they want
to introduce.
I am sure the Secretary of State agrees that staffing is
still key to improvements in our prisons. Prisons need
stable staffing so that people can work with prisoners, but
also with each other, to the best possible effect. The
Secretary of State has promised 2,500 more staff, but that
will not return staff numbers to their 2010 level. During
justice questions yesterday, the Government claimed that
the 2,500 figure meant 2,500 extra staff members, but in
answer to questions in the Justice Committee on 29 November
2016, the Under-Secretary of State said that it meant
recruiting 8,000 staff in the next two years—1,000 per
quarter. That is two to three times the rate of recruitment
achieved in recent years, and it looks to me like a tall
order.
The number of operational staff at HMP Lindholme, in my
constituency, fell from 352 in March 2010 to 296. That is a
loss of one in seven staff in three years. In HMP Moorland,
the number fell from 386 to 354, which is a 9% drop in
three years. Between 2015 and 2016, 300 to 800 prison
officers were recruited in each quarter, but even that has
failed to stem the shortfall. Moreover, we are dealing with
an ageing prison population. It is important to look at new
ideas for the support and rehabilitation of prisoners, but
without the right staff numbers I think that that will be a
tall task, if not impossible to achieve.
2.03 pm
-
(Surrey Heath)
(Con)
It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Don
Valley (Caroline Flint). She is a highly effective advocate
for the causes in which she believes, and she was an
outstanding Minister. I hope that when the Labour party
comes to its senses, she will be restored to the
Front-Bench position that she deserves.
Congratulations are also in order to the shadow Justice
Secretary, the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon).
It is important for us to have an opportunity to reflect on
what is happening in our prisons. The hon. Gentleman has
devoted his life to justice, as a distinguished trade union
lawyer, and I am grateful to him for securing the debate.
It was a pity, however, that while he understandably drew
attention to concerns about what is happening on our prison
estate, he did not put forward a single positive
alternative proposition. The contrast between his speech
and that of my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and
Justice Secretary was striking.
My right hon. Friend has been in office for less than 12
months, but during that time she has unveiled and advanced
a series of reforms that I believe have the potential to
transform our justice system more powerfully, for the good,
than those of any of her predecessors for a generation. The
fact that she dealt so skilfully with interventions, and
also outlined—not just in policy detail, but with authority
and humanity—what needs to be done, underlines how
fortunate we are to have a genuine, passionate and humane
reformer in such an important role.
It is right to pay tribute to those who work in our
prisons, and I expect that nearly every speaker in the
debate will do so. I always remember a visit that I made to
HMP Manchester, formerly Strangeways prison, during which I
talked to a prison officer who was working with the most
refractory and difficult prisoners. I asked him why he had
chosen deliberately to work with some of the offenders
whose cases were the most complex and whose behaviour was
the most threatening. He explained that he had been brought
up in a part of Manchester that was afflicted by crime,
with unique challenges, and that one of the things that he
wanted to do was put something back by working with
offenders to ensure that their lives were changed and that,
as a result, people who had been nothing but trouble—people
who had been liabilities to society, people who had brought
misery and pain into the lives of others, people who were
wasting their own lives—could be turned into assets, and we
as a society could ensure that whatever talents they had,
long buried in many cases, could at last be put to the
service of the community.
I remember being inspired by the fact that this young man
from a working-class background had decided that the
greatest service he could give to the community that had
raised him was to try to turn around the lives of others,
and it is that spirit that animates nearly everyone who
works in our prison system. Despite the occasional
frustrations that I experienced in dealing with members of
the Prison Officers Association when I was Justice
Secretary, I was never for a moment anything other than
grateful for their service, their commitment and their
dedication. That is why I am particularly grateful to my
right hon. Friend for the steps that she has taken to
enhance the way in which the professionals who work in our
prisons can do the right thing—not just the reform
governors who are changing the way in which prisons work by
exercising a greater degree of control and autonomy over
the individual prisons that are their responsibility, but
those who work on the front line in our wings,
particularly, but not only, in our reform prisons, and who
are being empowered to play a much more positive role in
encouraging and securing rehabilitation.
I pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend for an
initiative that she has unveiled, Unlocked for graduates.
As she pointed out, more than 350 undergraduates from some
of our very best universities have now applied explicitly
to work in prisons. Just as Teach First played a part in
transforming the reputation of teaching, so this initiative
is helping to recruit more people to our prisons. Alongside
the work of Unlocked, the implementation of Sally Coates’s
review of prison education is ensuring that those who are
in custody finally receive a higher quality of education
and the chance to transform their lives for the better.
Moreover, the work of Charlie Taylor in reviewing youth
justice is being followed up and implemented by my right
hon. Friend. In so doing, they are making sure that those
whose contact with the criminal justice system occurs
relatively early in their lives, and who would otherwise be
set on a course of criminality, are diverted from crime and
assured of a productive future at the earliest possible
stage.
I think we can all draw an important lesson from the
experience of the youth justice system over recent years.
It is the case that youth crime has fallen dramatically in
the last few years, and that at the same time the number of
young offenders in custody has fallen as well. It is not
the case that in order to be tough on crime, we need to
maintain the same number of individuals in custody as the
number we currently have. There are smarter alternatives to
incarceration that we need to contemplate. Let me be clear,
however: there will always be some criminals for whom
custody is the only appropriate answer, given the
seriousness of their crimes and their capacity to reoffend.
Sometimes society will be so outraged by particular crimes
that incarceration is the only answer.
-
(Plymouth, Sutton and
Devonport) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend may know, I represent an inner-city
constituency. A couple of years ago, on a visit to a
Salvation Army centre, I came across someone who had been
in prison, had become institutionalised by the experience,
and therefore wanted to go back fairly soon afterwards.
-
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Some individuals become
institutionalised by prison life, and many individuals, as
my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out,
are in prison as a result of problems they acquired—mental
health problems, substance abuse, or related issues—which
mean that their behaviour is such that, for their own
health and for society’s safety, they need for a time to be
separated from society. But they should not be in prison;
they should be receiving appropriate mental health care,
because the custody and incarceration environment they face
will only harm them and will do nothing either to heal them
or make sure they become positive and contributing members
of society.
One thing I would like to see—I know my right hon. Friend
is looking closely at this—is the possibility of building
on the experience of problem-solving courts, where those
charged with sentencing offenders have the option, of
course, of custody, but can also say to the offender that
if they commit to undertake either an appropriate course of
mental health care or to deal with their drug or alcohol
addiction or to change their behaviour in a meaningful way,
they have the opportunity to serve their sentence out of
custody.
I also think that release on temporary licence is the right
way to go. There should be the opportunity for people who
have shown genuine redemption and a desire to commit to
society to be released early under strict terms, so that
they can reacquaint themselves with the world of work and
learning. I know of one prisoner, C. J. Burge, who has been
serving her sentence, after one horrendous mistake, in a
women’s prison in Surrey, and who, as a result of the
sensitive use of release on temporary licence has not only
been able to act as a mentor to young offenders, to steer
them away from a life of crime, but is now pursuing
training to become a barrister in order to ensure that a
life that she herself was responsible for harming can now
be turned to good. I think all of us in this House can
embrace that example and that path, and for that reason I
support the amendment.
2.11 pm
-
Mr (Delyn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Surrey
Heath (Michael Gove). He, like me, is one of a number of
exes in the Chamber who have had responsibility for the
prison service; we know how difficult it is to deal with
these issues in the post of Secretary of State or prisons
Minister.
The right hon. Gentleman made extremely important points
about who we imprison, how we use imprisonment and how we
use alternative sentences. Those points should be listened
to. However, even he will recognise that there are many
challenges in the current system. Judging from the current
Secretary of State’s contribution, she knows that as well,
as does the Labour Front-Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend
the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), who moved the
motion. I speak today as a member of the Justice Committee,
supported by the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria
Prentis), in the absence of our Chair, the hon. Member for
Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). I want to set out
some of the challenges as we on the Justice Committee see
them.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline
Flint) told us some of the statistics, and the situation is
extremely challenging. We have had six major incidents. We
have also had an escape—such occurrences have been unusual
over the past 13 to 14 years. Sadly, we have the very high
level of 107 self- inflicted deaths, which is an increase
of 13% over the previous year, and I expect that number to
rise still further in the figures that will be announced
tomorrow.
-
I do not want to interrupt my right hon. Friend’s flow, but
he will be aware, as we all are, that on 16 December last
year, Jenny Swift tragically killed herself in HMP
Doncaster. The position of transgender prisoners is one
that has agonising implications, and we simply have to
recognise that. Does he agree that we need to do more for
transgender prisoners in view of the horrendous record of
self-harm and suicide that has afflicted them?
-
Mr Hanson
I agree. I think the first question at yesterday’s Justice
questions was about that very issue and the Secretary of
State indicated that it is a priority for the Government.
We do have a number of vulnerable people in prison, and the
situation regarding those self-inflicted deaths, as well as
the homicides that have occurred, is extremely difficult.
As we have heard, there has been a 26% increase in reported
incidents of self-harm and we have a massive 35% increase
in hospital attendances. We also, sadly, have a massive 34%
increase in the number of assaults on prison officers.
There are also increases in attacks with bladed weapons,
spitting and the use of blunt instrument, which means that
the situation is very challenging.
I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has to some
extent made a U-turn on the staffing cuts put in place by
her predecessors. She will know that it is a real challenge
to achieve an increase of 4,000 posts over the next two
years to get a net increase of 2,500 officers. I know that
the Committee welcomes that on the whole, but we have seen
a 26% cut in staffing numbers since 2010, so we will not be
anywhere near getting back to the number of prisoner
officers who were in post in May 2010. The Secretary of
State needs to look at how we will achieve that.
That is not the only concern we have today, however, and,
in the absence of the Chair, I want to highlight some of
the things that we in the Justice Committee are currently
considering. I hope that the prisons Minister will respond
to these key issues. As a Labour MP, I would like to be in
a position to be able to implement policies now, but Labour
Members will not be able to do that for some years, so we
need to offer strong scrutiny to what the Government are
doing. That is the key thing for the Justice Committee in
the next few weeks and months.
We have now established a prisons sub-committee to look at
a range of issues to do with governor empowerment and the
challenges faced by the Minister. I am pleased to share a
role on that sub-committee with the hon. Member for
Banbury. However, we are still a little short of some of
the detail about the Government’s programme. It would be
helpful for the Minister and the Government, not only in
the winding-up speech but in the forthcoming debates, to
look at putting the meat on the current extent of their
activities so that we can judge what will be taking place
in whatever time they have left in office.
We can talk about what the Opposition’s alternative policy
would be, but the election could be almost three and a half
years away, and the Government have a key role to play
before then. We have heard today that governor empowerment
will take place in April—just over two months’ time. One
third of prison governors will be given greater power and
autonomy, but I am genuinely not yet clear about how that
will work in practice, what the benchmarks will be, how
Ministers will monitor those governors, what the outcomes
will be for those governors, and what freedoms they will
have to make a difference. I am not sure that the speed of
bringing in those changes has yet been thought through by
the Government. As the Minister will know, six reform
prisons were piloted only in the last six months, and we do
not yet know the outcomes of those reforms. It is incumbent
on the Minister to indicate the current outcomes for those
six reform prisons.
I am not clear about the accountability either. I used to
have the prisons Minister’s job, so I know that when
something goes wrong in a prison, it will end up on the
prisons Minister’s desk, and almost certainly on the front
of the Daily Mail or The Sun. I am not clear about how
accountability will work in relation to prison governors,
so I would like some clarity today from the Minister about
what a decision in a prison 200 miles from his office in
the Ministry of Justice will mean for accountability when
it ultimately lands on his desk.
I want some clarity today about what the commissioning
process will be for prison governors. Do they have the
skills and training to be able to commission services for
employment, health or procurement? Those things have
previously been done centrally. I am not sure whether all
that local commissioning will mean that we will lose some
of the Ministry’s economies of scale.
In a fractured, localised system, what is the role of the
MOJ when setting out directions? I am not sure how
governors will recruit local prison officers. I would
welcome some clarification, on behalf of our Committee, as
to whether terms and conditions of service, training and
delivery will be devolved. Those issues go to the heart of
the Government amendment, and to the heart of the work of
the sub-committee, which will be looking at them on a
cross-party basis in the near future.
I am not sure whether there is discretion. When we heard
evidence from Peter Dawson of the Prison Reform Trust last
week, he said that this would
“unleash competition between governors, prisons and
probation and between prison, probation and the police. It
is a competitive environment. There are pros and cons to
that, but it is likely to drive up cost overall.”
We need some real vision and clarity from Ministers, not on
the direction of travel—we know what that is—but on what
the bones of that travel will be.
It is also important that we have an indication of what the
performance measurements and league tables will look like.
Ultimately, as the Secretary of State, the right hon.
Member for Surrey Heath and my hon. Friend the Member for
Leeds East have said, we are caring for people through the
gate. Most prisoners will leave prison and return to
society, and our duty as the state is to ensure that they
return in a way that does not lead them to reoffend, and
that they contribute positively to society. We need more
facts and more direction from the Government.
2.20 pm
-
(Reigate) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Delyn
(Mr Hanson), another member of the club of exes. When I
held the responsibilities that are now held by the
Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the
Member for East Surrey (Sam Gyimah), the right hon.
Gentleman knew perfectly well which bits of the system were
difficult to change, and I remember being regularly twitted
by him about the impossibility of being able to transfer
the necessary number of foreign national offenders out of
the system. His regular interrogation on how we were doing
on the numbers showed his expertise and understanding of
the system. I am delighted with the work that he is doing
on the Justice Committee and with his contribution to this
debate. I hope that my reflections on the system, as
another of the exes, will also make a positive contribution
today.
I am delighted that my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member
for East Surrey, is now the prisons Minister. In my
experience, he has been open to talking to people with
experience of the system, to getting ideas and to getting
well across his brief. He is to be congratulated on that.
He is lucky enough to be serving under the present Lord
Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, who has the
qualities that my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey
Heath (Michael Gove) had. My right hon. Friend the Member
for Surrey Heath and the current Lord Chancellor put policy
back into the place where it had been left by my right hon.
and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke),
under whom I had the honour to serve. The hon. Member for
Leeds East (Richard Burgon) said that the change of policy
between 2012 and the arrival of my right hon. Friend the
Member for Surrey Heath as Lord Chancellor had created
significant difficulties for the prison service. I know
that the policy during that period will have found some
favour with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip
Davies), but we are now dealing with the consequences.
The Prison Officers Association is not innocent in this
matter. The priority for my right hon. Friend the Member
for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) was to deliver the
savings targets that the Ministry of Justice had to meet,
and they were significant. He was presented with a deal by
the Prison Officers Association: if he ended the
competition programme for the potential privatisation of
prisons—a programme started by the Labour party—and the
wings were left in the control of the public sector, the
POA would agree to the establishment changes in the public
sector bid to try to hold on to the management of
Birmingham prison. Those involved savage cuts to the
establishment. Indeed, the winning bid for HMP Birmingham
by G4S involved about 150 more staff than the public sector
bid.
The second round of cuts, which were put into the service
after 2012-13 and implemented during the course of 2013-14,
involved severe establishment reductions in the prison
service, all in the public sector. My hon. Friend the
Minister is now having to wrestle with the consequences of
that. The Government have now woken up to those
consequences and are putting 2,500 prison officers back
into the establishment. I know that my hon. Friend the
Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) had to
deal with the consequences of the previous policy when he
was prisons Minister, and immensely difficult it was, too.
The message that I want to give to my hon. Friend the
Minister involves the possible role of the private sector,
and I want to try to win this argument across the House.
The problem under my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom
and Ewell was the row with Serco and G4S over the
management of the tagging contracts. Whatever the rights
and wrongs of that, it resulted in those companies—the
biggest suppliers of private sector services in the
custodial system—not being considered for contracts. That
meant that we lost a serious amount of competition; indeed,
the whole competition programme was stopped.
The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint)
referred to Doncaster prison, which is run by Serco. When I
went to see it as prisons Minister, it was a quite
outstanding prison. Serco had engaged with the Department,
and its contract to manage the prison incentivised it to
deliver the necessary rehabilitation. There is no right or
wrong answer on public or private sector involvement, but
the big advantage of private sector prisons is that they
are cheaper to run and cost the service less. The companies
also invest heavily in leadership in those prisons. In my
experience, the most innovative practices and regimes,
particularly around rehabilitation and the management of
offenders, were in the private sector. I know that the
reforms in the White Paper will try to give some of those
freedoms to the governors of public sector prisons, and I
wish my hon. Friend the Minister all power to his elbow in
achieving that.
There are two ways in which to get resources into the
custodial estate, and that process has to be done in
partnership with the private sector. First, we need to
change and improve the estate, which means continuing the
process of selling off the old prisons—they are expensive
to run and often occupy expensive real estate—and building
new ones. Those new prisons should be built and operated by
the private sector. We can take the savings there. If the
money is not available in the public sector budget just
now, at least the private sector will give us the ability
to deal with the funding over a prolonged period.
-
(Darlington)
(Lab)
What about Oakwood?
-
The former shadow spokeswoman asks about Oakwood prison.
The cost of a place there was £13,000 a year, compared with
an average cost of £22,000 per place in a more expensive
prison.
2.27 pm
-
(City of Durham)
(Lab)
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin
Blunt), and I thank him for the interest he showed in the
Durham prisons while he was prisons Minister. However, I
profoundly disagree with his view that the privatisation of
prisons is the answer to the problems that they are facing.
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley
(Caroline Flint), I have three prisons in my constituency:
Durham prison, a community prison with about 1,000
prisoners; Frankland prison, a high security prison with
more than 800 prisoners; and, more unusually, a women’s
prison. There are not many of those in the country. I also
have a youth offender institution. I am therefore in a
pretty good position to have direct, first-hand knowledge
of what is happening across all aspects of the prison
estate, and the picture is not a good one.
Prison budgets have been reducing since 2010; they have
been cut by almost a quarter since that time. Up to last
year, savings of up to £900 million were made, with another
£91 million of savings being requested from prisons this
year. At the same time, the prison population has not
really fallen, and most of the cuts have been to prison
staff numbers. There has been a reduction of more than
6,000 since 2010. This has had an enormous impact on the
ability of our prisons to run effectively. As we have heard
this afternoon, welcome though it is that the Government
are recruiting another 2,500 prison officers, it does not
make up for the shortfall or the cuts since 2010. Of
course, the Government will have to recruit many, many more
than 2,500 to get back to the number of prison staff that
we need.
What has been the impact on our prisons? Deaths in custody
are up by 14%, self-harm is up by 21% and assaults are up
by 13%, with assaults on staff up by 20% and serious
assaults on staff up by 42%. I do not know about the
prisons Minister, but that is not a record that I would
want to stand up and defend. In such circumstances I would
want to come to the House to say, “We recognise that there
are real problems in our prisons, and these are the
measures that we shall take as a matter of urgency to get
our prisons back on track.”
A White Paper does not really cut it, so one of the things
I want to hear from the prisons Minister in his winding-up
speech is what he will do as a matter of urgency to tackle
some of the problems facing our prisons. As I have only a
minute for each of them, I will quickly run through what I
think he needs to do.
Far too many women are inappropriately sent to prison, such
as Low Newton women’s prison in my constituency. Some 52%
of women in our prisons have children, and lots of those
children end up going into care when their mother is
inappropriately put in prison, often for quite short
periods. I would like to see a clear Government strategy to
deal with women prisoners and direct them to other forms of
custody. I look forward to hearing the plan for women
offenders that the prisons Minister and the Justice
Secretary said they would come forward with later this
year, particularly as it relates to cutting the prison
estate so that more women are given sentences in the
community or other types of custody, rather than being sent
to prison.
At Durham, a community prison, the rate of recidivism is
really high. Measures are needed to cut recidivism and, in
particular, to continue investing in education, skills and
work experience. We know from the monitoring reports and
the inspections that not enough attention is paid to
education and skills, and it is really difficult to
maintain high levels of education when numbers are being
cut. That is an area that the Government need to address.
In some respects, Frankland prison presents the biggest
challenge to the Government. Its prisoners have very
complex needs, and we know from the monitoring reports that
it is crucial that the Government continue to resource, for
example, the centre that aims to turn around violent
behaviour in the prison population.
All those specialist services are at risk if prisons are
not properly staffed and resourced. I want to hear what the
Minister will do quickly to resource our prisons more
effectively and to ensure that recidivism is reduced and
that alternatives to prison and custody are adequately
resourced for men and for women.
-
Several hon. Members rose—
-
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Before I bring in , I advise
people that the time limit is going down to six minutes. We
may have to review it again later.
2.33 pm
-
(Sittingbourne
and Sheppey) (Con)
Thank you for sharing that good news, Mr Deputy Speaker.
-
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
It can be five minutes if you want some even better news.
-
It is great to follow the hon. Member for City of Durham
(Dr Blackman-Woods). Like her, and like the right hon.
Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), I have three
prisons in my constituency: Elmley, Standford Hill and
Swaleside, which is mentioned in the Opposition motion.
Combined, those three prisons house almost 3,000
inmates—one of the largest concentrations of prisoners in
the country.
I start by paying tribute to the fantastic men and women
who work in Sheppey’s prisons. They are dedicated,
hard-working professionals, of whom I am immensely proud.
They work in an extremely challenging environment, facing
the threat of violence almost daily, with few complaints
and great courage.
That threat of violence is growing for all sorts of
reasons, some of which have been mentioned. Those reasons
include: the increased use of drugs, which are smuggled
into prisons, often by drones that deliver contraband
direct to cells; the consumption of illicit alcohol; an
increased gang culture in prisons; retribution for
non-payment of debts; violence generated by the recovery of
stolen contraband such as mobile phones; and frustration
caused by a reduction in recreation time as a result of a
shortage of prison officers. I am particularly concerned
about that last factor because unless something is done
soon to increase staffing levels in Sheppey’s prisons, all
those other problems will simply get worse.
There is no denying that morale among prison staff is low,
which is hardly surprising given the environment in which
they have to work. The police are dealing with people all
day, but many of those people are either victims of crime
or people suspected of a crime but who turn out to be
innocent. The people with whom prison officers have to deal
day in, day out have all been found guilty of a crime, many
of them violent crime.
If a police officer is attacked and injured, the
perpetrators are rightly tracked down, prosecuted and, if
found guilty, sent to prison for a lengthy sentence.
However, if a prison officer is attacked by a prisoner, too
often the only punishment meted out has been withdrawal of
privileges. I believe that prison officers should be
treated in exactly the same way as police officers. If a
prisoner attacks a prison officer, or indeed another
prisoner, that person should be tried and, if found guilty,
given as harsh a sentence as if the crime had been
committed outside prison. That sentence should then be
added to the sentence that the prisoner is already serving.
We need a proper review of the working conditions and pay
structure of prison officers, which might include a
regionalisation of pay to recognise the higher cost of
living in the south-east of England and the difficulties of
attracting people into a job with so many challenges when
better employment opportunities are available. I believe
that the Government also need to re-examine their policy on
prison officers’ retirement age. It is simply unfair that
police officers and firefighters can retire at 60, whereas
prison officers, whose work is just as physically
demanding, are expected to work until they are 68.
My prison officers have a very difficult job, made worse by
the ratio of frontline officers to inmates, which I will
set out using information from the National Offender
Management Service quarterly workforce bulletin. The key
operational grades in public sector prisons are band 3 to 5
officers. According to the most recent available figures,
on 30 September 2016 there were 18,000 band 3 to 5 officers
in post. At the same time, of course, there were 80,000
prisoners, so what are the implications for those 18,000
band 3 to 5 prison officers?
First, we have to take into account the fact that at any
one time about 20% of those officers are off work for one
reason or another, such as sickness, court duties or
holidays, which leaves a total of 14,400 officers. But, of
course, those officers work only 37 hours a week, yet
prisoners are incarcerated 24/7, which is 168 hours a week,
so it takes 4.5 officers to provide continuous cover over a
whole week. That means that at any one time there are just
3,200 band 3 to 5 officers on frontline duty in prisons in
England and Wales. Each officer on duty has to look after
25 prisoners.
Finally, I will quickly address the Opposition motion.
There is much in the motion with which I cannot disagree,
not least because the facts it sets out are
incontrovertible. Indeed, if the motion had finished on the
word “overcrowded”, I would have been happy to support it.
However, I am not happy with the remaining lines of the
motion. Calling on the Government to,
“reduce overcrowding and improve safety while still
ensuring that those people who should be in prison are in
prison”
is both illogical and nonsense. I will not be voting
against the Labour motion, but I cannot support it.
2.39 pm
-
(Dwyfor
Meirionnydd) (PC)
It is a pleasure to follow such an informed and powerful
speech by the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey
(Gordon Henderson). I should declare that I am co-chair of
the justice unions parliamentary group and the family court
unions parliamentary group.
The Ministry of Justice cites three key objectives that
underpin the operation of the Prison Service: to hold
prisoners securely, to reduce the risk of prisoners
reoffending and to provide
“safe and well-ordered establishments in which we treat
prisoners humanely, decently and lawfully.”
Wales has four jails, housing 3,436 inmates—4% of the total
prisoner population in the joint legal jurisdiction of
England and Wales. On Monday, I visited HMP Berwyn, the
brand-new prison in north Wales, which is due to open next
month. With places for 2,106 men, this so-called
“super-prison” will increase Wales’s capacity for housing
prisoners by over 50%.
Plaid Cymru continues to have several concerns about the
prison, especially the massive strain it will place on
North Wales police, which is expected to face extra
staffing costs of £147,000 a year as a direct result. At a
time when the already underfunded police force is
stretched, with limited resources and tight budgets, I must
question why it is acceptable to expect a local force to
foot the bill for a UK Government project. That
super-prison is designed first and foremost to meet the
needs of north-west England, not those of north Wales, yet
the Government insist that North Wales police is
responsible for covering the cost of policing that
facility.
My reservations about this Government’s prisons policy
should not be mistaken for any kind of criticism of the
dedicated staff who work in the criminal justice system. I
thank operational supervisor Peter Buffel, who was an
excellent guide and advocate for the ethos of HMP Berwyn. I
was struck by a strong sense that the staff—both
experienced prison personnel and new recruits—were looking
forward to contributing to a worthwhile social facility.
Two prison officers were forthcoming in explaining that
they had moved from posts at other prisons specifically
because of the quality of the new-build estate at HMP
Berwyn and the prison’s innovative, exciting offender
management objectives. Those reasons are important. I am
sure that we will be following the prison’s progress
closely.
However, I ask the Minister once again to ensure that we
have the correct staff in terms not only of experience and
skill, but of language, because HMP Berwyn is in close
proximity to some of the most Welsh-speaking regions in
Wales. I want to give the Minister the opportunity to
assure the House that appropriate provisions, including the
hiring of Welsh-speaking staff, will be made to enable the
prison to operate effectively bilingually. Will the
Minister confirm that NOMS will work with HMP Berwyn to
draw up an institution-specific Welsh language plan?
While Wales has the ability to set much of its own health
and social policy, the criminal justice system is still
dictated by Westminster, which of course prioritises the
needs of England. If Wales is truly to help people
reintegrate into society and to prevent reoffending, those
powers must be devolved to the Welsh Assembly. I have a
request: this Government are supposedly committed to
decentralisation and if the Minister and the Secretary of
State are committed to reducing reoffending, will they once
again consider the devolution of the criminal justice
system? At the very least, will the Minister respond to the
Silk commission’s requests that a formal mechanism be
established for Welsh Ministers to contribute to policy
development on adult offender management, and that a
feasibility study of the devolution of the prison and
probation services is undertaken?
2.43 pm
-
(Shipley) (Con)
I want to confine my remarks to the subject of fixed-term
recalls, which I wish were much more widely understood by
the public and in this House. They represent one of the
biggest outrages of our prison system, and yet hardly
anyone knows anything about them. Most people believe that
if someone is let out of prison early—whether halfway
through their sentence, a quarter of the way through the
sentence on a home detention curfew, or at some other point
before they actually should be let out—and they reoffend or
breach their licence conditions, they should at least go
back to prison to serve the rest of their original
sentence. Unfortunately, that is often not the case. In
reality, the overwhelming majority of the public believe
that offenders should serve the whole of the sentence that
they were given by the courts in the first place. In a
survey carried out by , 82% of those asked
thought that prisoners should serve the full prison
sentence handed down by the court. That, for many, is not
rocket science; it is just common sense.
Fixed-term recalls were introduced to reduce the pressure
on prison places in 2008, and many people do not know about
what is going on. A fixed-term recall is when the offender
breaches their licence or reoffends and is returned to
prison not for the rest of their prison term—not even for
most of it—but for a mere 28 days. When fixed-term recalls
were introduced, they excluded certain offenders. However,
when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for
Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) was Lord Chancellor, he relaxed the
rules by way of a change to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and
Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 in a bid to reduce the
prison population still further. As of 3 December 2012,
fixed-term recalls were made available to previously denied
prisoners: offenders serving a sentence for certain violent
or sexual offences, those subject to a home detention
curfew and, most shockingly, those who had previously been
given a fixed-term recall for breaching their licence in
the same sentence. Now, I do not think that many people out
in the country know that, but I certainly know that many
people will not like it.
Fixed-term recalls do not happen just occasionally. They
were given to 42% of all offenders who were recalled in
both 2013 and 2014 and to 28% in 2015. That is an awful lot
of people going back to prison for only 28 days instead of
the rest of their sentence. Those 28-day recalls relate to
sentences of one year or more, so we are talking about the
most serious of offenders. Recalls of 14 days apply to
shorter sentences, but they are a much more recent concept.
The more I investigated 28-day fixed-term recalls, and as
more figures have been released, more disturbing things
have become clear. In 2014, 7,486 prisoners were recalled
for just 28 days. Of those, 3,166 had been charged with a
further offence. That means that 3,166 people were charged
with a further offence when they should have been in prison
in the first place and then escaped serving the rest of
their original sentence despite committing this further
offence. The vast majority had 15 or more previous
convictions. Burglary is the most common original offence
for which a fixed-term recall is given for a breach or a
further offence. Over half of all those given this pathetic
slap on the wrist were people who had committed a very
serious crime. They were also given to people convicted of
manslaughter, attempted homicide, wounding, rape, and
robbery.
Perhaps the icing on the cake in this whole sorry state of
affairs is that, in 2015, 816 offenders were allowed more
than one fixed-term recall on the same original sentence
for another breach or offence. In just three years, 3,327
of the most serious offenders in our prisons were released
from prison, breached their licence, were returned to
prison for 28 days, released again, were returned to prison
for just 28 days for a further breach of licence and then
released again. That is a complete failure of policy and is
completely indefensible. I raised fixed-term recalls in
Justice questions yesterday, and the Minister’s reply about
risk was very interesting, but this is a sad joke. As far
as I am concerned, these people should not have been
released early in the first place but, having been
released, there should be no other option but for them to
be returned to prison for breaching their licence,
especially for reoffending, for the remainder of their
original sentence at the very least.
Finally, the weak response to reoffending is becoming so
well-known in the criminal community that some people are
taking the chance of getting recalled knowing that the
punishment is pathetic. It is like a 28-day, all-inclusive
mini-break. Worse still, some prisoners who have been
released deliberately try to get themselves back into
prison to give themselves enough time to see how their
criminal operation in prison is carrying on while they are
out, knowing that they will only be there for 28 days. That
has been confirmed in research by Manchester Metropolitan
University, which stated that prisoners had reported being
able to earn £3,000 in just 28 days by bringing in drugs.
One prisoner said that
“everyone keeps going and coming back in on these recalls
with more drugs.”
This is an absolute farce. The criminals are laughing all
the way to the bank while nothing is being done to stop
this nonsense. When will the Minister get a grip and end
this fraud on the public?
-
Several hon. Members rose—
-
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The time limit is now five minutes.
2.49 pm
-
(Leicester East)
(Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow a fellow member of the Justice
Committee, the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). He
has raised the issue of fixed-term recalls before, and I am
sure that by the time the Minister responds to the debate,
he will have got a grip on the matter and announced some
changes that will satisfy the hon. Gentleman. If he does
not, I am sure it will be raised again, not only in the
Justice Committee but in the House.
In the short time available, I shall raise just one
issue—foreign national prisoners. I agree wholeheartedly
with what has been said by other right hon. and hon.
Members about the crisis in our prisons. If we are thinking
about having a club of ex-Ministers, I should say that I
used to be a Minister in the Lord Chancellor’s Department,
but at that time, responsibility for prisons lay with the
Home Office, so I take no responsibility for what happened
in the past. Perhaps a seminar of ex prisons Ministers,
chaired by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), the
author of that definitive book on prisons, could meet to
come up with the solutions that all Members would like to
see adopted to bring the crisis to an end.
To return to foreign national prisoners, I am delighted
that the prisons Minister is chairing the taskforce, about
which we want to hear more. It remains a mystery to me why
12% of our country’s prison population happens to be
foreign national prisoners. Half that 12%—more than 4,000
prisoners—are from EU countries. Bearing in mind the fact
that we will continue to be a member of the EU for the next
two years, it is extraordinary that we have not been able
to send back more foreign national prisoners from our
prisons. After all, what is the point of undertaking
negotiations and signing transfer agreements with EU
colleagues if they are unable to take back their own
citizens? It must be a priority for the Government to
ensure that, in the two years available before Brexit,
citizens from countries such as Poland and Romania, which
are top of the list in terms of numbers, should be returned
to their countries.
I was surprised to hear in the Select Committee the
Minister’s chief officer, Michael Spurr, tell the House
that more prisoners would have been sent back to Poland
under the agreement had it not been for a mistake. I think
he said that 130 should have been sent back but had not
been. As the Minister and the House know, the derogation
for Poland ended on 31 December, so when the Minister
responds I hope he will tell us that the matter is being
looked at very carefully and that prisoners are being
transferred. I am glad that a record number were removed
last year, but the headline figure was so low that
practically any additional figure becomes a record. We need
to do much better than we are doing at the moment.
We have heard recently that, under the agreement with
Albania, only 17 Albanian prisoners have been transferred
from our prisons. It is not that we are against foreign
national prisoners, we are just in favour of their being
able to serve their sentences in their countries of origin.
If that happens, it will reduce the prison population by
10,000 and save the taxpayer £169 million, so I very much
hope that the Minister will give us some new information
that will encourage the House to believe that this issue is
being taken very seriously.
2.53 pm
-
(South West
Bedfordshire) (Con)
I declare an interest as a trustee of the Butler Trust, an
organisation that seeks to improve the skills of prison
officers throughout the country and share best practice. I
have the pleasure to serve alongside P. J. McParlin, a very
distinguished former chairman of the Prison Officers
Association with whom I am proud to be a fellow trustee.
I am pleased that the Ministry of Justice has managed to
secure the funding to recruit an extra 2,500 prison
officers. I pay tribute to the work that prison officers do
day in, day out. They are an outstanding group of public
servants whose work is unfortunately not as well known and
well appreciated as it should be. The moves towards more
autonomous prisons with greater community links will help
local communities to appreciate more fully the sterling
work that prison officers do day in, day out.
On safety, I want us to ensure that prison officers are
always supported as well as possible by good local police
co-operation, so that when there are assaults on prison
officers, the information can be passed on and the matter
dealt with effectively. In my time as prisons Minister, I
found that the co-operation between local police forces and
prisons varied throughout the country. It needs to be
uniformly good to provide the support that our prison
officers deserve.
I am pleased that both Opposition and Government Members
have spoken about reducing the numbers of foreign national
offenders, which is important not only because the British
taxpayer is paying, but because if we could reduce that
9,000 prisoners in our prisons, it would give us the
headroom and flexibility to do rehabilitation better
throughout our prisons. Both sides of the House are keen to
see that, and it is very much the focus of the “Prison
Safety and Reform” White Paper, which I was delighted to
see published in November.
I am pleased that the Ministry of Justice is taking forward
the Farmer review on prisoners’ families. Strong families
are essential to strong communities throughout the country.
They are engines of social mobility and matter very much
for prisoners for lots of practical reasons. We know that
if a prisoner’s relationship or marriage does not fall
apart, they are more likely to have somewhere to live when
they come out of prison and are more likely to get into
work, so I strongly welcome the MOJ’s support for the
Farmer review.
The continuing emphasis on education is excellent, and
there is greater focus on testing and making sure that
there is improvement.
-
(Wirral West)
(Lab)
On that point, there was an event in the House of Commons
yesterday that was organised by the Cultural Learning
Alliance, of which I should declare my sister is a member.
The actress Fiona Shaw and artist Grayson Perry were here
in Parliament to support the publication of their most
recent research, which shows that young offenders who take
part in arts activities are 18% less likely to reoffend.
That is of huge benefit to the public purse and, of course,
to the prisoners and their families. Does the hon.
Gentleman agree that it is important that we invest in arts
education in prisons?
-
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that issue. When there is
clear evidence that arts education leads to reduced
reoffending, we should absolutely support it.
One phrase that I never liked to hear when I went around
prisons was that prisoners were being “taken to education”.
Education should run across the whole prison: on the wings,
in the landings and in prisoners’ cells. We need to have a
whole-prison learning environment. I commend what is
happening in Wandsworth prison, where the inspirational
governor, Ian Bickers, has taken 50 prisoners with level 3
qualifications—he is paying them and has given them a
uniform, and they can lose their job if they do not perform
well—and getting them to work alongside those doing
education in the prison to spread learning throughout the
prison. That is an excellent initiative.
The focus in prisons on work and training that will lead to
a job on release is absolutely right. I am really pleased
that prison apprenticeships, which will carry on when
prisoners move into the community, have been established
well. We often hear namechecked the employers who do the
right thing and take on ex-offenders—that play fair by
everyone to reduce reoffending and keep everyone safe—but I
have to tell the House that a number of employers,
including several very well known national employers, do
not take on ex-offenders as a matter of policy. I am not
going to name and shame them today because I am in
correspondence and dialogue with them, and I hope that
quiet persuasion will lead to them doing the right thing.
Nevertheless, just as we namecheck those who do well, I put
those who do not do the right thing on notice that there
will come a time when we will call them out and urge them
to do better.
I was pleased to hear from the Secretary of State that in
April she will be saying more about probation. We need high
standards for probation. I pay tribute to our probation
officers, as they are yet another very dedicated group of
public servants. They need to work hand in glove with
prison officers. I know that the Under-Secretary of State
for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr
Gyimah), will make sure that that does happen. In
particular, I want to see probation officers making sure
that the emphasis on education and employment that is
taking place in prison carries on during the probationary
period—for example, that the focus on work continues and
that the ex-offender is attending the local college. That
will take us forward and is extremely important.
-
Several hon. Members rose—
3.00 pm
-
(Chesterfield)
(Lab)
Like many Members today, I wish to pay tribute to the
people who work in the Prison Service. They take on an
incredibly difficult task and we are very grateful to them.
What they do was brought home to me when I took up what my
hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound)
said, in advance of it being made a challenge, about
visiting a prison. I visited Nottingham prison, and I
encourage others to do the same. Any MP who is voting in
this debate but who has not been around a prison are doing
so from a position of ignorance.
There was much in the Secretary of State’s rhetoric that I
support. We all agree with much of what she said about the
issues and challenges facing the Prison Service, but her
vision of what is going on and the policies of this
Government bear little relationship to prison officers’
actual experience.
The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr
Clarke) criticised the motion. Although we recognise that,
of course, there are many more aspects to prison than those
contained in the motion, it seems to me that there is
little to disagree with in it.
Four of my friends were recently employed at Moorland
prison in Doncaster. Two have been recently retired on
medical grounds and one is off sick at the moment. This
debate rightly refers to the overall reduction in prison
officers, but what is not so much focused on is the
deliberate strategy of replacing experienced prison
officers with cheap replacements and people right at the
start of their career. That is an extremely dangerous
policy. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard
Burgon) spoke about private prisons, but such practice is
also happening in the Government estate.
One of my friends who worked at Moorland recently left the
service. He was assaulted three times in a six-month
period—once very seriously indeed. On the first occasion,
he was encouraged to phone the staff welfare hotline. The
third time he phoned it, he was told that he had used the
hotline too many times and, although he had been seriously
assaulted, he was not allowed to take time to get any
support.
Another friend in the service needs knee surgery, but he
has had to cancel the operation because he believes that if
he takes time off to get his knee repaired he will be
sacked on capability grounds. He specifically asked me why
experienced prison officers should feel too intimidated to
get the medical treatment they need.
Another friend who worked in the service for 25 years left
last year. He said that when he started at Moorland there
were 12 prison officers to a landing containing 90
prisoners; now, just three prison officers are there. He
said that three prison officers are adequate when things
are quiet and everything is going okay, but it leaves them
with little capacity to engage with prisoners and carry out
rehabilitation work, as they want. When a prisoner takes a
phone call at 7.55 am, telling him that his wife has left
him or that his children have been taken away by social
services, he needs support. Prison officers have to step in
and do an incredibly important job. When those resources
are not there—whether it be for a moment of crisis in a
prisoner’s life, to prevent fights, or simply to support
prisoners and advise them on what courses to take on their
path to rehabilitation—a vital chance is lost to help a
prisoner back on to the right path.
Prison officers no longer feel that their role, which is
incredibly important in our society, is as fulfilling as it
once was, and that should concern us all. When prisoners
start to think that no one is interested in them, we see
the violent episodes that have taken place recently. Not
enough is being done to prevent reoffending.
Experienced prison officers are crucial to the development
of new staff. Managers in prisons now are much less
experienced than once they were. What chance do the new
£19,000 prison apprentices have if they are put into
overcrowded prisons with disillusioned and inexperienced
prison officers and if the mentoring that would once have
been available for new staff is no longer there? Are we
just setting them up to fail?
I support the motion in the name of my right hon. Friend
the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), but I go
further and say that, unless the Government recognise why
the riots are happening, stop their deliberate attempt to
chuck experienced officers out of the system to save money,
and implement their strategy to retain experienced staff
and see them as central to the success of the recruitment
of the new generation of prison officers, not only will the
problems continue to escalate but our prisons and our
society will pay a very heavy price for that failure in
years to come.
-
Madam Deputy Speaker
I call—.
3.05 pm
-
(North Dorset)
(Con)
I hope that there are no lessons to be learned from the
fact that mine is the first speech that you, Madam Deputy
Speaker, have reduced to four minutes and that you forgot
my name. I shall of course be editing my Christmas card
list when I get back to the office.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chesterfield
(Toby Perkins). I agree absolutely with him and with the
hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) that it should
be a requirement of all of us who have prisons either in
our constituency or close by to visit them so that we can
see things on the ground.
I have Guys Marsh prison in my constituency, which I have
visited on a number of occasions—so many in fact that some
of the prisoners and I seem to be on first-name terms. I
have seen the excellent work done with the prisoners by
both the Prison Officers Association and the voluntary
sector. I sat in on a training session by Cleansheet, which
was delivered by one of my constituents, Jane Gould. It was
all about preparing prisoners to get skills and a good CV
to equip them for work. Working alongside that charity were
a number of national businesses, reflecting on what my hon.
Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew
Selous) has just said, which are very keen to take on
ex-offenders when they have finished their sentences.
-
I am very glad that my hon. Friend mentioned volunteers.
Does he agree that we should salute the work of the
volunteers who go into our prisons across the country to
work alongside prison officers?
-
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend if for no other
reason bar the fact that it says to those prisoners that
society has not forgotten them and has not dismissed them
out of hand, and that it still sees them as, potentially, a
productive part of the community when they come back.
There are two things that I wish to talk about today and to
which I hope the Minister will pay attention. The first is
in very specific relation to Guys Marsh prison, which the
Ministry of Justice team will know was in the media
relatively recently and has had problems. I will, if I may,
make a brief comment about the robustness of Carillion as
the contractor. Contracts have two sides to that particular
coin. The first is clearly on the company that is
contracted to deliver the service to actually deliver that
service. The other side of the coin is for the person who
lets the contract to monitor it properly and to enforce
what is required from it. I remain to be convinced that
Carillion—certainly as far as it has performed in relation
to Guys Marsh—is up to the job and that NOMS as the monitor
of the contract has actually done the job it is required to
do.
I do not take a “private sector good, public sector bad”
view, or vice versa, but sometimes I do think that some of
these companies that are contracted to do this very
important work need to raise their game. I have spoken to
the Minister about that, and I know that he and the Lord
Chancellor are receptive to the case.
Yesterday, I was called at Justice questions to talk about
recruitment—an issue that has dominated the debate today.
In response to my question, the Under-Secretary of State
for Justice replied that
“Guys Marsh has been made a priority prison, which means
that the governor is getting extra resource, in addition to
our national campaign effort, to recruit the staff he
needs.”—[Official Report, 24 January 2017; Vol. 620, c.
147.]
Of itself, that is excellent news. I thank the Minister for
it. I welcome it, as does the governor, Paul Millett. As I
pressed in my question—I make no apologies for pressing
again today—having a prison in a rural area presents
recruitment problems. The cost of our housing is high.
Public transport is scarce. Our unemployment rate, luckily,
is very low. We only have about 300 people on jobseeker’s
allowance in North Dorset. In that recruitment drive, may I
urge Ministers to ensure that there is flexibility and
scope for innovation? That might be providing help for a
new prison officer to buy a vehicle or motorbike so that
they can get to and from the prison. It might be help with
relocation or housing costs—some form of grant to help to
pay a deposit, or a loan. Terms and conditions should be
looked at. I appreciate that this is a sensitive matter,
but I hope that the POA would support something such as
that if the end game were to deliver more prison officers
to rural prisons, thus making the regime and atmosphere
much safer for staff.
I encourage the Minister to work far more closely with the
Ministry of Defence. Blandford Camp is a few miles from the
prison, and there are a number of military institutions in
Wiltshire, which seems to be a fertile recruiting ground
for new prison officers as we meet the challenge of
staffing.
-
Several hon. Members rose—
-
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Peter Heaton-Harris.
-
(North Devon)
(Con)
No, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am terribly sorry, you have
conflated two hon. Members. I am very closely related to my
hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris),
but I am not he. Is it me you intend to call?
-
Madam Deputy Speaker
It is you—.
3.10 pm
-
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The prison system faces challenges, but the Government have
taken enormous steps to address them. We have heard about
some of them, and extra investment of £1.3 billion to
reform and modernise the prison estate is front and centre
in the White Paper that was published last October. None
the less, the prison system faces challenges. I was taken
with the comments of my right hon. and learned Friend the
Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) that no one on either
side of the House would deny that the Prison Service faces
serious challenges. That is absolutely the case.
I welcome the White Paper, and I have mentioned the £1.3
billion to reform and modernise the prison estate, which I
greatly welcome. I also welcome the fact that we are
recruiting 2,500 frontline officers. I was pleased that the
Lord Chancellor mentioned at the beginning of the debate
the further commitment to fast-track 400 new prison
officers into 10 of the most challenging prisons by the end
of March. We are more than on track with that, and I think
that she said that 389 appointments have been made under
the scheme, which is excellent news.
In the remaining time, I want to discuss security, which
concerns me. I have discussed it with Ministers in the
past, and I am particularly concerned about the growing
problem of drones being used to deliver drugs, contraband,
mobile phones and various other things to prisoners. I have
long held the view that, as a society, community and
perhaps Government, we have not quite grasped the
difficulties caused by drones. There has been an explosion
in the number of people who own them. Quite apart from
security matters in prisons, there have been awful cases of
near-misses with aircraft, and we need to tackle that. We
need to look at that very seriously when considering the
problem of security in prisons. Practical measures have
been taken, including basic things such as putting up
netting to prevent things from being dropped. We need to
look at that more carefully and at the issue of drones
overall.
I am also concerned about the continuing challenge we face
with the misuse of mobile phones. Mobile phones are being
delivered to prisons using what I understand are
increasingly ingenious methods—I do not use that word as
praise, but merely to say that new ways are being found all
the time to deliver mobile phones to prisons. We have to
stop that, with practical, hard measures. The mobile phone
industry has a responsibility as well, and it needs to do
more technically to work with us and the prison authorities
to ensure that that there are ways of blocking mobile phone
signals.
More can be done. I know only too well as the MP for North
Devon that many places do not have a mobile phone signal.
That is unintentional, but I am sure that there is a
technical solution. We can ask mobile operators to take
responsibility and make sure that there are intentional
blackspots to stop mobile phones getting into prisons.
I support the Government amendment, I praise the work that
is being done, and I welcome the White Paper.
3.14 pm
-
(Banbury)
(Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for
North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones). One of the most exciting
parts of the speech made by the Secretary of State
concerned the pilots on blocking mobile phones in prisons.
Mobile phones increase the amount of organised crime that
can be carried out on a daily basis in prisons, so it is
critical that we deal with that. It is also a pleasure to
follow a number of distinguished exes who have offered
fantastic ideas. Aren’t we lucky that we do not have to
recall them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley
(Philip Davies) would like us to believe, to benefit from
the brilliance of their ideas to improve the serious
problem of prison safety?
The Justice Committee published its report in May 2016,
when we urged the Government, as the right hon. Member for
Delyn (Mr Hanson) said, to act quickly on prison safety. It
is clear from everything that has been said, not least by
the Secretary of State, that the MOJ is bursting with
ideas. The Justice Committee welcomes the White Paper. In
due course, we will scrutinise, and probably welcome a
great deal of, the police and crime Bill—we have been given
some nuggets this afternoon. However, to do our job of
holding the Department to account, we need adequate
information.
On 29 November, when the prisons Minister kindly appeared
before us, he said that he would give us monthly reports on
safety indicators. We have not had them, despite our
chasing, so I urge him again to produce them as quickly as
possible because we need that information. We also welcome
the extra money that has been given to our prisons. About a
fifth will be spent on staff, which we support, but we need
more information about where the rest of it will go.
Substantially higher funding will be given to Bristol,
Hewell and Rochester so that they can improve safety. We
will want to know if that works, so we need the data to
assess that.
I understand the Department’s frustration with Members who
say that reducing prison numbers is an easy solution to its
problems. My ideas about who to release—they are not, I
stress, the Committee’s ideas, many of which have been
mentioned—include IPP prisoners; foreign national
prisoners, although we know that is not easy; and women
prisoners and veterans, who have low reoffending rates.
However, that is tinkering at the edges of the large prison
population. If we cannot recruit—I accept that the
Department is trying desperately hard to do so—will the
Minister make a commitment at least to consider whether
there should be a shift in the sentencing framework, as my
right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael
Gove) suggested, towards community-based alternatives? I
would also ask the Minister to consider the fact that we
desperately need more secure mental health beds so that we
can screen prisoners immediately on reception and divert
them to the best place. No one on the Justice Committee
thinks that the prisons Minister has an easy job, and we
welcome many of the reforms that the Government have
recently set out, but we need the data so that we can do
our job of holding him to account.
3.18 pm
-
(Salisbury) (Con)
It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate. When I was
first elected as a Member of Parliament, I remember being
taken to a police station and seeing a room with 18 faces
on the wall. The police officer said that when a large
number of those people were on remand or in prison, crime
went down, but that the opposite happened when they were
not. I served as a magistrate in Westminster for six years.
Although we had very strict guidelines, and we obviously
listened carefully to the excellent probation officer
before giving sentence, I was always aware that we would
not know the outcome of the judgment that we were making.
A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit the Amber
Foundation, which is a very worthwhile charity in Exeter—it
has a number of sites—that works with ex-offenders to give
them a pathway back to full citizenship. I want to use the
time available to talk about the importance of education.
Education and rehabilitation have to be the Department’s
major focus, because unless we get this right, we will be
in the awful cycle of putting people away and then
releasing them, only to have them go back in again, which
has a very poor impact on crime levels and on those
individuals for the rest of their lives.
I hope that the Government will continue their ambition to
give prison governors real autonomy so that programmes that
are put in place will work for their institutions and can
command authority to drive real change. We also need to be
realistic about the complexity of reforming prison
education. What incentives is the Minister considering to
ensure that prisoners will choose to take part in
educational and vocational programmes? I am pleased to hear
about apprenticeships, but given that so many prisoners
have learning difficulties and no formal education, will he
allow them to have increased pay, time out of their cell or
even early release in exceptional cases? We must
contemplate radical policy options if we are to see a step
change in this area.
What is the Department’s view of the balance between
providing holistic education that is focused on developing
potential, including in the arts as well as in basic
literacy and numeracy, and vocational programmes that are
focused on local labour market outcomes after prison? Will
the Minister give local governors sufficient autonomy on
that issue? We need to bear in mind that a very high
proportion of prisoners have special educational needs and
therefore need individual attention, which is expensive.
What plans do the Government have to help with the
recruitment of those with the specialist skills to work in
what is a very challenging sector? I welcome the
announcement on investment and increased resources, but let
us be under no illusions about the complexity of the
challenge. I hope that the Minister will give some detail
when he responds to the debate.
I congratulate the Government on getting to grips with many
of these issues and the original thinking that I am hearing
from the Dispatch Box.
3.22 pm
-
(Bedford)
(Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for
Salisbury (John Glen). With the House’s permission, I will
be very parochial and focus on Bedford prison, given that
it is mentioned in the motion. I commend the Minister,
because on the afternoon and evening of 6 November,
following the disturbances in the prison, he managed,
notwithstanding his responsibilities to recover the
situation, to keep me fully informed throughout. As my hon.
Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) said, that is
a hallmark of this particular Minister, and I am very
grateful to him. Since the disturbances, the prison has
been recovered and rebuilt. As I have been nice to the
Minister, I would ask him to meet me to discuss the
possibility of a very small investment that has been
pending for Bedford prison, which could make a substantial
difference.
I want to talk about accountability. One of the issues
leading up to the problems at Bedford prison was that 72
recommendations for change and improvement had been made by
the inspectorate, but only 12 had been enacted two years
later. I have every confidence that the governor, who has
recently returned to her position, will find remedies to
those problems. However, as governors are given more
accountability, how does the Minister think that they
themselves will be held to account? Bedford prison has an
excellent independent monitoring board. What will be the
role of IMBs across the country with regard to
accountability?
Prison officers have been mentioned frequently with regard
both to numbers and to pay. Having spoken to a number of
members of staff at Bedford prison anonymously after the
disturbances, it is clear to me that two other issues ought
to be addressed. First, this is not just about pay; it is
also about the prestige of the profession. Many Members
have paid strong compliments to the profession today. Too
often prison officers are seen as the “nearly force”—they
are not quite held in the same regard as the police. There
are a number of things that the Minister could do on
prestige as well as pay that could make a difference.
Prison officers also talked to me about the importance of
experience. There has been a downgrading of the age range
at which people can be brought into the prison officer
corps, but that does have a knock-on effect for confidence
and teamwork when people are put in very difficult
situations.
Finally, given that last year was the 150th anniversary of
the Howard League—it is named after a former high sheriff,
John Howard—may I reinforce the comments that have been
made about the attention that needs to be paid to suicides
in prison? I will be interested to hear what the Minister
has to say about that. At its 150th anniversary, I said
that the Howard League was the essential irritant to
Governments on prison reform.
Having listened to the Opposition today, I have to say
that, unfortunately, the Labour party has absolutely no
positive suggestions. I expect the Minister to do much
better in his contribution.
3.25 pm
-
(Lewes) (Con)
I start by paying tribute to all prison officers in this
country, who do a fantastic, difficult and often dangerous
job, and particularly to those at HMP Lewes in my
constituency, which has seen disturbances in recent months
and was put into special measures just before Christmas. I
am not sure whether the shadow Minister has visited Lewes
prison—I know that the prisons Minister has—but I encourage
him to do so if he has not. Having visited the prison on a
number of occasions, I know that one cannot fail to be
moved by the dedication of the prison officers who work
there so tirelessly.
I am disappointed by the Opposition’s motion—I note that no
more Opposition Members wish to speak—because it fails to
demonstrate any understanding of the issues facing prison
officers day in, day out. This is not just about staffing
levels. In Lewes prison, for example, there have been a
number of vacancies for some time, but the prison has not
been able to fill them. I take on board the point made by
my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare)
because it is hard to fill such vacancies in a rural
constituency in the south-east of England. I welcome the
Secretary of State’s moves towards local recruitment,
whereby a governor can manage people leaving and have
replacements ready at hand, as well as managing the skills
mix and experience of their prison officers to make the
transition much easier.
Lewes prison is difficult to manage because its old
buildings make it difficult to see what is going on,
particularly with reduced staff numbers. It is also a
depressing prison inside—there is hardly any lighting—which
makes it a tough place not only for inmates, but for the
prison officers who work there day in, day out. The inmates
are changing. While there are the usual faces who keep
coming through the revolving door, there are also now
sexual offenders. That type of prisoner was never there 10
or 15 years ago, so that has increased pressure on the
prison officers and prisoners.
In the minute and a half remaining, I want to support what
my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) said
about the Opposition. Labour Members have not even touched
on what motivates people to commit crime, and therefore
enter prison, in the first place. We know that a quarter of
prisoners have been in care at some point in their lives,
that 59% of those entering prison are reoffenders who have
been in prison before, and that about three quarters of
prisoners have problems reading or writing.
-
(Central Suffolk and
North Ipswich) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
-
I will not because there is so little time.
We absolutely have to deal with the way in which people
enter prisons. I have talked to young people in Newhaven
Foyer in my constituency, many of whom have come from the
care sector. Many of them deliberately committed crime to
get into prison, because they were not confident about
getting housing or care, and many of their friends are in
prison already. Until we address issues relating to life
chances, the same people will be going through the prison
system.
I know that the Ministry of Justice is not working in
isolation. It is working with the children’s Minister, with
the relevant Health Minister on mental health problems, and
with the Housing Minister to deal with housing problems.
That is why I am so disappointed with the Opposition
motion, which fails to tackle any of the factors that
contribute to prisoner numbers and shows no understanding
of them at all.
3.29 pm
-
(Wealden) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my neighbour, my hon. Friend the
Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield).
Last year Anjem Choudary, an extremist preacher and vocal
supporter of the death cult Daesh, was jailed for five and
a half years. Like many, I was pleased that justice had
been served, but I was also deeply concerned about what
influence he might have over his fellow inmates while
serving his sentence. The impact that radical inmates can
have on other prisoners should not be underestimated.
Prisons have always had gangs, and this death cult is just
another gang on the prison block.
I therefore firmly welcomed the measures introduced
following the Acheson review—particularly the stronger
vetting of prison chaplains and front-line staff, and the
removal from the general prison population into specialist
units of those spreading extreme, violent and corrosive
views. I ask the Minister to do all he can to ensure that,
once contained in those specialist units, extremists are
not able to collaborate and further propagate their
dangerous ideologies. I have long asked for tighter vetting
for so-called faith leaders, and for all sermons and
services to be conducted in English.
We hear of a reluctance among prison staff to challenge
pernicious extremist views, particularly radical Islamic
beliefs. Prisons must not be allowed to exist as breeding
grounds for Wahhabism or Daesh, and it is vital that we
continue to push for the appropriate training of prison
staff in this area. I welcome the recruitment of more
prison staff, but they must be properly equipped and
deployed to combat extremism. I was shocked to read that
inmates in Belmarsh and other prisons were found with
publications containing extremist content. Surely the
Minister will agree that that is an offence under terrorism
legislation, and that penalties must therefore be served.
In addition, I ask the Minister to ensure that there is
greater emphasis on the education of inmates who are
identified as being at risk of radicalisation. There
appears to be an important link between poor education,
mental health issues and radicalisation. Education, from
basic English to maths, must of course run in tandem with
the pastoral and mental health support provided through the
Prevent programme.
Beyond educational assessment, prisoners should be screened
for radical beliefs on entry into prison to make sure that
such beliefs are detected as soon as possible. That would
mean that, from day one, prison staff were aware of those
likely to pose risks. I would also suggest that prisons
record inmates’ religious beliefs, if they have any, on
entry and on exiting prison. That would throw up data on
how many were converting to an alien faith or being forced
to convert in prison to survive.
I am a member of the Home Affairs Committee, and we have
investigated the rise of psychoactive substances. I am
pleased that groundbreaking reforms have been introduced to
tackle the use of legal highs in prison. In addition to
those reforms, I ask the Minister to ensure that the link
between mental health and drug use is not ignored, and I
welcome the fact that prison governors will be given
greater flexibility and autonomy in allocating mental
health resources.
Finally, to turn our prisons into places of safety and
reform, we must track the progress made by prisoners in
combating addiction, and address the extremist prison gangs
and the levels of religious conversions to Wahhabism and
other violent, oppressive cults. We must also help our
prisoners to gain the critical skills, and meet the basic
educational requirements, that they need to get a job and
function outside prison.
3.33 pm
-
(Plymouth, Sutton and
Devonport) (Con)
If I am honest, I am entering the debate with a certain
amount of trepidation, for the simple reason that we seem
to have a veritable cricket team of former prisons
Ministers and, for that matter, lawyers who have been
involved in this area.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate
(Crispin Blunt), who came with me on a cricket tour to
Jamaica, where we visited a very interesting prison. The
work he did to make sure there will be a new prison there,
so that we can, hopefully, transfer some of the Jamaican
prisoners in this country back to Jamaica, was quite
helpful.
I am not going to pretend for one moment that I have any
prisons in my constituency. However, in the 1980s and
1990s, I worked as the Conservative party agent in Mitcham
and Morden for the prisons Minister at the time—one Angela
Rumbold—and I learned quite a bit. Indeed, I visited
Wandsworth prison, where staff were trying to get Ronnie
Biggs to go back. When I asked what was happening, they
said that they had his clothes and that they wanted him to
go back and collect the stuff in person, which, of course,
he eventually did.
In my constituency, I have probably the busiest custody
suite in the whole country, and that is the end we have to
start from.
We need to make sure that three things happen. First,
people must be able to read, write and add up. I commend
the Government for producing a league table of prisons that
are achieving that. That is very good news. Secondly, we
must get people off drugs. The Government are obviously
very aware of that issue. Thirdly, we must think about
veterans. I represent a naval garrison city with a large
and growing Royal Marine population. I pay tribute to
Trevor Philpott, who runs an organisation called Veterans
Change Partnership that is seeking to change the justice
system so that we do not get veterans in it in the first
place. I encourage the justice system to make greater use
of people who have served in the military as magistrates.
That would be incredibly helpful, because at least they
have some idea of what happens—
-
rose—
-
I am sorry, but I will not give way because I am very short
of time.
I am involved in an organisation called Forward Assist in
which the shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, the hon.
Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson), has also been very
involved. When I served on the Northern Ireland Affairs
Committee, we went to Washington, where we learned how
veterans are dealt with in veteran treatment courts. I urge
the Government examine at that in no uncertain terms,
because it is vital that we get this right. We must also do
something about mental health, where I ask the Government
to look at better training for prison officers. Prison
officers do a brilliantly good job. I have a lot of prison
officers in my constituency who work just outside it in
Dartmoor. I am really looking forward to visiting Exeter
and Dartmoor prisons.
3.36 pm
-
(Bolton South East)
(Lab)
It is a pleasure to be able to close this debate, in which
Members have spoken very eloquently and knowledgeably about
the issues facing our prison system. Before I go into what
they have said, I want to thank our prison officers, prison
governors, and all those who work in the Prison Service.
They face very great challenges every day of their lives,
and we owe them a lot for the work that they do for us.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline
Flint), who has three prisons in her constituency, talked
about the work that she achieved as a former Minister in
trying to reduce the amount of violence in prisons. She
comprehensively set out some of the failures of this
Government. I am sorry if that disappoints Conservative
Members but, as I will explain, there has been a failure to
tackle some of the big issues facing our prisons.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr
Blackman-Woods), who also has three prisons in her
constituency, said that the prisons budget had been cut by
a quarter, with £900 million being taken away. That will
obviously have an impact on how prisons are run and on
their staff. She raised three issues that the Minister
should be looking at. First, there are far too many women
in prison, especially women with children, and there does
not seem to be any clear strategy within the prison system
to assist them or to deal with situations such as how
children can visit their parents. That is reflected in the
Ministry of Justice’s figures on suicides that have
occurred in prison, which show that a much higher
percentage of women have committed suicide and self-harm.
My hon. Friend also talked about reoffending, and the
education and training that would prevent it, as well as
mental health issues and personality disorders. Funding for
those services has been cut, and those things need to be
addressed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins)
talked about the fact that many experienced staff have left
the Prison Service and been replaced by inexperienced
staff. It is well accepted that prison officers do far more
than simply locking and unlocking the gates and taking
prisoners in and out. They are often the only people
prisoners will speak to. Prison officers act as mentors,
advisers and family members, and they provide a sympathetic
listening ear. It is not good enough to have inexperienced
people taking over that work. I agree wholeheartedly with
what the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon
Henderson) said about the tremendous work that prison
officers do. As he said, their terms and conditions should
be looked at properly and put on the same footing as those
of people who do other difficult and sensitive jobs, such
as police officers. Prison officers should be remunerated
properly.
Since the Government came into power in 2010, they have
made massive cuts to the number of prison officers, and
that is a big reason for some of the current prison issues.
It is all very well for the Government to say that they are
trying to do things; that is good, but they should never
have cut the number of prison officers in the first place.
If they had not made that false economy, we would not be in
half the mess we are in now. I try not to be party
political about this, but it was the wrong decision and it
would be good if the Government accepted that. There is no
harm in owning up to the fact that an error was made.
One suggestion for dealing with some of the prison problems
was made by the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt),
the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Although I more
or less agreed with him on international issues when I was
a member of the Committee, I have to tell him that
privatisation in prisons is not the answer. It has not been
the answer for probation. The probation service used to
have a four-star gold rating but it has gone downhill since
the privatisation, and that has had some impact on the
Prison Service.
-
The Foreign Affairs Committee’s loss is the Opposition
Front-Bench team’s gain. Will the hon. Lady be explicit
about the potential role of the private sector under Labour
policy? Labour had a commercialisation strategy, and Labour
opened up the competition for Birmingham prison in the
first place. Is the Labour party saying that there is no
role for the private sector in the delivery of justice in
our country, simply on ideological grounds?
-
The Labour party also introduced IPP sentences, and I was
not one of those who favoured that provision. I will touch
on its impact on our prison system. The Secretary of State
spoke about the fact that the Government are trying to deal
with the issues caused by the remnants of the IPP regime.
One problem is that people who have served their IPP
sentence cannot get out of prison until they have done
specific, designated training courses, but unfortunately
there has been a lack of funding for those courses. The
Government have to take responsibility for the fact that
many thousands of people in that position have not been
released from prison.
As I have said, this has been a very good and interesting
debate. Many experienced people have spoken, including
former Ministers and Secretaries of State. I think we can
all agree that everyone is concerned about this issue. It
is not a big vote winner or an issue that is often spoken
about on the doorstep, but it is important because it shows
what we stand for as a society. The one thing on which most
people agree is that we have got problems, and there is a
crisis in our prison system.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), a
former Minister, talked about some of the proposals in the
White Paper that the Government have brought forward to
deal with this issue. He set out all the shortcomings and
all the questions that have not been answered. The White
Paper seems to suggest that each prison will be run by its
governor and then every problem will somehow be resolved.
However, it does not provide answers to questions such as
whether governors will have complete autonomy from the
centre, and whether they will have enough money to be able
to carry out everything they want to do. For example, if a
prison governor thinks that 500 inmates require a two-month
detoxification and rehabilitation programme, will he or she
have the money to carry that out? It is all very well to
say that governors can do such things, but where will the
funding come from, or will they have an unlimited pot of
money? How will people be recruited, and to whom will they
be answerable? The White Paper raises a lot of questions
that have not been answered, and it does not deal with the
problems.
-
The hon. Lady has raised a number of issues, but we have
yet to hear the Labour party’s solutions. Does she agree
with , the shadow
Attorney General, that half of all prisoners should be
released immediately? Is that the policy of the Labour
party?
-
If the hon. Lady had been in the Chamber at the beginning
of the debate, she would know that that question was asked
by another Member; I think it was the hon. Member for
Shipley (Philip Davies). On the first point, you are the
Government—[Interruption]—and it is for you to deal with
the crisis of the—[Interruption.]
-
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. The hon. Lady will resume her seat while the Chair
is standing. May I just remind her that there is a reason
why we do not address people directly in the second person?
It is because things can get very heated. The hon. Lady
should address her remarks through the Chair.
-
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.
They are the Government. They have been in power for the
past seven years, and prisons have been under their
control. It is under their watch that 6,000 staff have been
cut.
-
I will take the hon. Lady’s lead and not be party
political, but given the huge crisis that she is outlining
to the House—her Front-Bench colleagues clearly share her
view—will she explain why, on an Opposition day motion,
Labour ran out of speakers and we did not?
-
The hon. Gentleman is trying to deflect attention from what
the Government should have been doing for the past seven
years.
As I was saying, about a quarter of all prisoners are held
in overcrowded or unsuitable conditions. In the past 12
months, there have been 6,000 assaults on staff and 24,000
assaults on prisoners. There were also 105 self-inflicted
deaths of prisoners, which is a record increase of 13% on
the previous year. The levels of poor mental health and
distress among prisoners are higher than those for the
general public. The number of incidents of self-harm in
prisons has increased by more than 25% in 2016 compared
with the previous year. When we look at all the statistics
provided by the Ministry of Justice, we can see that the
number of incidents of self-harm has gone up and the number
of assaults has gone up, and that deaths have occurred and
suicides have happened. I am afraid to say that that is the
responsibility of this Government because they have been in
charge of prisons for the past seven years.
3.49 pm
-
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr
Sam Gyimah)
I echo the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin
Qureshi) in thanking our brave prison officers for the hard
work they do and extend those thanks to the Prison
Service’s Tornado officers, who have been active over the
past few months and have done a splendid job.
This has been a well informed and, at times, lively debate.
We heard one speaker from Plaid Cymru, five from the Labour
Benches and 13 from the Government Benches. The Government
Members included two former prisons Ministers and two
former Justice Secretaries, which shows how seriously we
take issues in our prisons and turning around people’s
lives.
-
Will the Minister give way?
-
Mr Gyimah
I will make some progress first.
The Government have owned up to the problem. My right hon.
Friend the Secretary of State has said from the moment she
was appointed that the level of violence in prisons is too
high and has acknowledged that staffing is part of the
answer to that complex problem, which has developed over a
long period of time. There is consensus across the House
that something needs to be done about this problem. The
difference between the Government and the Opposition is
that in the 30 minutes for which the shadow Secretary of
State spoke, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey
Heath (Michael Gove) so eruditely put it, we did not get “a
single positive alternative”. Listening to the shadow
Secretary of State, I realised why one old wag referred to
this House as the gasworks: his speech was full of hot air.
Our plan is very clear. In the immediate term, we are
monitoring the situation and supporting governors to
maintain order across the estate. In the longer term, we
are tackling security threats, improving staffing levels
and transforming the ways prison officers support and
challenge prisoners. As part of that, we are looking at
raising the prestige, status and role of prison officers.
Those are not just words; they are backed by action, as was
set out by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
There is a White Paper, new investment in staffing has been
secured, and a prison and courts Bill, an employment
strategy, a strategy to deal with women offenders and the
probation service review are on the way. That is real
action to tackle the serious problems in our prisons.
-
Does the Minister take any responsibility at all for the
deterioration in our prisons since 2010?
-
Mr Gyimah
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it very
clear that it is incredibly simplistic to say that the
problems in our prisons are simply due to staffing. There
is the rise of new psychoactive substances and old taboos
in prisons have been broken. It used to be the case that
prisoners never attacked a female prison officer. Now, we
see that routinely on our wings. Our prisons have changed
and to deal with that complex problem, we need a
multifaceted set of answers. That is what this Government
are delivering.
The Opposition made two principal points. The first was
about overcrowding. However, we still do not know whether
the Opposition agree with themselves, given Lady
Chakrabarti’s view that we should reduce prison numbers to
the tune of 45,000. Even on the issue of prison officers,
when my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward
Leigh) challenged the shadow Secretary of State to commit
to increasing prison officer numbers by 2,500, he could not
make that commitment. At the end of an Opposition day
debate, I am none the wiser about Labour’s solution to a
problem it calls a crisis. It called the debate but has
been unable to offer a solution.
In the brief time I have to sum up, I will pick up on some
of the points made in the debate. The right hon. Member for
Don Valley (Caroline Flint) made a very good speech. On
leadership, I agree that we want governors to stay put for
longer. We also want to ensure that staffing is effective
on the wings, and I totally agree that we do not want the
1:60 ratio she mentioned. The former Secretary of State, my
right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath, made a
characteristically erudite and eloquent speech, and I agree
on the need for smarter alternatives to incarceration. One
way is to deal with problems before custody. He also
mentioned problem-solving courts. That concept, which we
are currently trialling, is one I am very hopeful about.
-
Dr Poulter
I commend the Government for taking action on some
important issues. Does the Minister agree that the key to
breaking the cycle of reoffending is tackling substance
misuse not only in prisons but on discharge and release
from prison, but that there is a problem with the
fragmentation of substance misuse services in so many
areas? I hope he will look at that as part of the excellent
work in the White Paper.
-
Mr Gyimah
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The
Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the
Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), also a doctor, is dealing
with this matter, and we will bring forward proposals
later.
The former prisons Minister, the right hon. Member for
Delyn (Mr Hanson), whom I always enjoy listening to, given
his constructive approach, made several detailed and
constructive points about governor empowerment, local
recruitment and performance management. The Justice Select
Committee has written asking for answers to some of these
questions, and I will ensure that it gets a rapid response.
In addition, I will offer a meeting to sit down with him
and the prisons sub-committee to discuss the details of the
White Paper.
On staffing, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State
talked eloquently about our plans in the White Paper.
-
In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington
(Jenny Chapman), the Minister was unable to accept any
responsibility for what has happened. He is right that
staffing is not the only problem, but it is part of the
problem. We are down 6,000 prison officers. Will he replace
them?
-
Mr Gyimah
If the hon. Gentleman has been following the debate, he
will know that we are down 6,000 prison officers but that
we have also closed 18 prisons. As my hon. Friend the
Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter)
mentioned, in relation to drugs, this is a complex problem.
The Government have committed to increasing the number of
prison officers; today, the Opposition could not even match
that. So I will take no lessons from them on what to do
about staffing levels in our prisons.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey
(Gordon Henderson) talked about attacks on prison officers.
I completely agree with him. Prisoners who assault staff
should feel the full force of the law—independent
adjudicators can already impose additional days on
prisoners. We are working with the Attorney General, the
police and the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that
offenders face swift justice and that we can provide better
evidence to courts, and we are working with the judiciary
to give them powers to impose consecutive, rather than
concurrent, sentences for these crimes. It is in order to
help protect prison officers that we are rolling out
body-worn cameras across the estate.
The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz)
mentioned foreign national offenders. As he will have heard
at the meeting of the Justice Committee yesterday, a record
number of offenders were deported to their own countries
last year, but there is still much work to do. A
ministerial taskforce made up of Ministers from the MOJ,
the Home Office, the Department for International
Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is
looking at the levers in our relationships with these
countries in order to deport people as quickly as possible.
In a debate called for by the Opposition, we have heard no
positive alternative to the plans offered by the
Government. I urge all Members to vote for a clear plan
that the Government have put forward to deal with the
challenging issues in our prisons that would also help us
to turn people’s lives around.
Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original
words stand part of the Question.
Division 132
25 January 2017 4.00 pm
The House divided:
Ayes: 196 Noes: 289 Ayes: 196 Noes: 289
Question accordingly negatived.
Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the
proposed words be there added.
Question agreed to.
The Deputy Speaker declared the main Question, as amended, to be
agreed to (Standing Order No. 31(2)).
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the Government’s comprehensive proposals
for major reform of the prison system set out in the White Paper;
further welcomes plans for an extra 2,500 prison officers, to
professionalise the prison service further and to attract new
talent by recruiting prison officer apprentices, graduates and
former armed service personnel; notes new security measures being
introduced to tackle the illegal use of drones, phones and drugs
which are undermining the stability of the prison system;
welcomes the commitment to give governors in all prisons more
powers and more responsibility to deliver reform whilst holding
them to account for the progress prisoners make; and welcomes the
Government’s proposals to set out for the first time the purpose
of prisons in statute.
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