Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
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Accidental Prison Releases
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Lord Timpson (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that important question. I have been visiting prisons and been interested in this area for 25 years, and with the previous Government I saw a lack of investment across the board. There are three specific areas. First, they did not build enough prisons and did not maintain the prisons that they had. Secondly, they reduced the staffing levels as part of austerity, to the extent that lots of very experienced staff left, and that was especially so in probation. Thirdly, and connected with errors on release, there was a lack of investment in digital technology to help our hard-working staff, who spend hours and hours with boxes of paperwork, when it would be far more efficient and accurate if they had digital support to help them.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, the two accidental releases from Wandsworth, together with that of Mr Kebatu, which we discussed recently, demonstrate a continuing and frankly pretty chaotic lack of co-ordination. Will the investigation by Dame Lynne Owens, announced after Mr Kebatu’s accidental release, now be widened to encompass all the release procedures throughout our prisons to prevent recurrence of these mistakes?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
The noble Lord will recognise that Dame Lynne Owens is a superb choice to do this investigation. I have already met with her, last week, to talk about the scope. She will be looking at the whole area of releases in error and is already visiting prisons and speaking to staff. I want to reassure the noble Lord about two things. First, in my book the staff who work in the offender management units are amazing. They have to do an incredibly complex, difficult job, with boxes of paperwork, and to make sure it is accurate when there are multiple opportunities for failure in the system. Secondly, this is not a quick fix. This has been getting worse for a number of years and it will take time to get it right.