Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) My Lords, with the leave of
the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer
to an Urgent Question asked in another place on HMP Long Lartin.
The Statement is as follows. “I can confirm that there was
an incident at HMP Long Lartin last night and that it has now been
resolved without injury to staff or prisoners. The incident is of
course a cause for concern and we will need to properly investigate
what...Request free trial
(Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the
form of a Statement the Answer to an Urgent Question asked in
another place on HMP Long Lartin. The Statement is as follows.
“I can confirm that there was an incident at HMP Long Lartin last
night and that it has now been resolved without injury to staff
or prisoners. The incident is of course a cause for concern and
we will need to properly investigate what drove the actions of a
relatively small number of individuals. This will take a number
of weeks to ensure that all intelligence is properly examined and
that we then learn lessons and apply them to prevent any
recurrence.
We cannot speculate on the cause of this incident but we know
that the prison was running a full regime and that this was not
linked to any shortfalls in prison officer staffing levels. Its
last inspection report found it to be to be ‘calm and controlled’
and although there were improvements to be made, the inspectors
felt that the prison was ‘both competent and effective’.
The incident itself remained contained on a single wing of the
prison and involved 81 prisoners. I commend the actions of the
staff, who acted swiftly in response to the incident, locked down
the wing, ensured that the rest of the prison remained settled
and prevented any public protection issues or escalation.
Our specialist staff were deployed to the prison from across the
country. They swiftly resolved the incident in just over an hour,
securing all prisoners without injury. Once again, they
demonstrated their bravery and professionalism, for which we
should all be very grateful.
We do not tolerate violence in our prisons and are clear that
those responsible will be referred to the police and could spend
longer behind bars”.
11.40 am
-
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her Statement, in
particular for her support for prison staff, which is echoed
on this side of your Lordships’ House. I also understand the
desire not to speculate prematurely on what happened in the
disturbance last night. However, we saw statistics in March
of this year suggesting a 6.9% shortfall in prison staffing
levels nationally and an 8% shortfall in Long Lartin in
particular. Can she tell us the shortfall as of today?
-
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Staffing has
been discussed in your Lordships’ House many times recently.
We are investing £100 million in new staff. There will be an
additional 2,500 prison officers by the end of next year. We
have already recruited nearly 900 of those and are on target
to fulfil what we promised. We are also making sure that we
retain our most experienced staff; it is essential to have
that experience on the wings. As for Long Lartin in
particular, as she will know, it was and is running a full
regime. That means it has sufficient staff to do so and does
not have an urgent need for additional staff. However, I
assure her that additional staff are being recruited; indeed,
five additional prison officers will be there before
December.
-
(LD)
My Lords, from these Benches, we join the Minister in
commending the Prison Service and its staff for the effective
way in which they dealt with this dangerous incident without
injury to staff or prisoners. Nevertheless, the underlying
crisis in our prisons remains serious. Long Lartin is a
category A prison, where most of the prisoners are serving
very long sentences. Notwithstanding the generally favourable
report in 2014, in the past month, two prisoners were
convicted of murdering a third at Long Lartin. That is the
fourth homicide in that prison in four years, and there is a
history of serious incidents of violence. When investigating
this incident, will the Government ensure that the Prison
Service concentrates on the particular problems faced by
long-term prisoners arising from overcrowding, low staffing
levels, excessive time spent by prisoners in their cells—and
the frustration that goes with it—and the lack of
opportunity?
-
Of course, none of the issues that the noble Lord just raised
was a factor in this case, because they did not exist in Long
Lartin: there is no overcrowding and the staffing level is
sufficient. However, Long Lartin houses our category A
prisoners. They are the most challenging prisoners on the
estate. Violence is, thankfully, a rare occurrence, but it is
the nature of the business of prisons, particularly category
A prisons, that they can become very volatile. In a volatile
situation, I think noble Lords would agree that we are
fortunate to have the specialist trained staff, the Tornado
teams, available to come in. In the case of Long Lartin, they
put a stop to the incident within an hour. I think that
should be commended.
-
(Con)
Could my noble friend comment on the state of the morale of
prison staff in this particular jail, and tell us whether
there is a serious drug problem within it?
-
My Lords, I am not able to comment on morale in this prison
as I have not had the opportunity to visit it, but I hope to
soon. With regard to drugs, again, I cannot comment on this
prison but drugs are an increasingly serious problem in our
prisons, principally because of the different drugs now being
smuggled in—the psychoactive substances. We are doing what we
can to stop the supply of drugs, and the demand. To tackle
the flow of drugs, we are doing a pilot on scanners. Two
types are being used: the millimetre-wave body scanners for
the top levels of individuals as they come in, but also X-ray
scanners that can look inside to see if there are any
concealed drugs. We are also trying to stop the demand for
drugs by working very closely with the NHS to make sure that
we get the treatment services we need in our prisons.
-
(Lab)
Does the Minister agree that, while everyone must accept that
the nature of the challenges in a place such as Long Lartin
are immense and the staff are to be commended for their work
on our behalf, whatever the size of the challenge, the
ultimate objective must remain rehabilitation? That is
sometimes terribly difficult when you are dealing with
prisoners of this kind, who are in for a long time, but it
makes it all the more important. Can the Minister reassure us
that, in the approach to the aftermath of this incident, that
objective will remain paramount?
-
I thank the noble Lord, . Rehabilitation is a
very complex and difficult subject. I refer noble Lords to
the review by my noble friend , which was debated in
your Lordships’ House yesterday. The conclusion of that
review was that rehabilitation and successful reduction in
reoffending is a three-legged stool. I think all noble Lords
agree that we are looking at improving education, and that we
need to make sure that there are opportunities for
employment. The strand identified by the noble Lord,
, however, is making
sure that prisoners can maintain family ties outside prison
to ensure that there is no reoffending and stop
intergenerational crime.
-
(Con)
Many of us were here yesterday for the excellent debate on
the review from my noble friend , so we are not blind
to the issues of overcrowding and understaffing. We welcome
the Government’s announcement of 2,500 extra staff being put
into the prison estate. Would my noble friend the Minister
confirm that the prison transformation programme itself,
including the new building and design of prisons such as HMP
Berwyn in north Wales, will result in a prison estate far
more suited to current needs?
-
I thank my noble friend for that. I have been down to the
other place and I can confirm that, because I was listening
to the Prisons Minister when he said that we are still on
course to build 10,000 modern and well-designed prison
places, which we need to replace the old Victorian places
that are, frankly, not fit for purpose any more. It is a
long-term project and necessarily so, and we have committed
£1.3 billion to make that transformation over the course of
the Parliament.
-
(LD)
My Lords, our prisons are a powder keg at present. Yesterday
it was Long Lartin—where will it be next week? The Government
do not seem to grasp the urgency of the situation. Could the
Minister tell the House how many times the Tornado squads
have been used this year?
-
My Lords, I reject the term “powder keg”—that is simply not
the case. But violent incidents occur and I am very grateful
that we have the Tornado teams. I do not have the stats in
front of me but I shall write to the noble Lord with exact
figures on how many times they have been deployed. However, I
think we can all agree that they are a necessary feature of
our security.
-
(Con)
My Lords, I was the Member of Parliament representing Long
Lartin for 25 years, and I am very surprised by the
intervention of the noble Lord from the Liberal Democrat
party. I should have thought that the problem was the reverse
of what he said about people being confined to their cells.
It is a very sophisticated prison with a very sophisticated
outer defence security system, with a great deal of freedom—I
think too much—in its central part. I think it is the
opposite of what the noble Lord said; it has been terribly
lax in the centre, and in some ways it was an accident
waiting to happen.
-
I respectfully disagree with my noble friend. In the Ministry
of Justice we are making sure that our governors have more
powers than they had before. Long Lartin is running a full
regime, it will be under the control of the governing
governor and, as my noble friend says, it is a very
sophisticated prison. Going back to the estate transformation
programme, the point is that we need to build more of these
sophisticated prisons, because they enable us to look after
our more violent and dangerous criminals while giving them
some sort of—I will not say quality of life—time outside
their cells.
-
(CB)
Can the Minister kindly confirm that the 2,500 additional
staff now being recruited are in addition to however many
staff it is necessary to replace in the interim?
-
I will have to write to the noble and learned Lord on that
precise point. However, one strand I think I mentioned
earlier is that we are focusing on retention, which is
absolutely critical. Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation
Service is a professional service. We want it to provide to
its staff with very attractive and varied careers, so we are
looking at financial incentives to retain staff,
opportunities for promotion and, as importantly, key areas of
development and training to allow members of staff to develop
their skills and extend a long-term career in the Prison
Service.
|
