Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I absolutely undertake to look again at the traffic assessment and to sit down with my right hon. Friend to examine it in more detail together.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Previous cost cutting in the Prison Service such as reducing staff has proved to be a false economy. In Nottingham Prison, the prisons Minister has needed a surge of staff to try to stabilise what had become a very violent and dangerous prison. Can I have an assurance from him that, once things improve at Nottingham, those staff will not be withdrawn again?

[Rory Stewart]

Some of the staff at Nottingham, to which the hon. Gentleman is referring, have come from other establishments in other parts of the country, but when they return they will be replaced because we must ensure that Nottingham is fully staffed. That is essential particularly in order to continue with delivery of the key worker programmes so that each prison officer can be paired with six prisoners. That will be vital to getting violence under control in Nottingham.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend, who campaigns tirelessly on these issues, will be aware that we ran a call for evidence on corporate criminal liability to determine whether the current law is adequate. This is a complex part of the law and consultation responses offered a broad range of views. We are currently analysing those with Departments across Government and we will publish our response in 2019.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. On Friday, I visited Nottingham Prison; I am grateful for the support of the prisons Minister in securing that meeting. Drugs continue to be a significant problem in our prison, as in many others, and body scanners are a really important way of tackling that. What is the Government’s current position on the use of body scanners and when will we get them in Nottingham?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

First, I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the work he does in supporting the work of Nottingham Prison, which is one of the 10 priority prisons. We are therefore bringing scanners into those prisons. We are currently shipping those scanners over, but a range of different types of scanning will be taking place: X-ray scanners used on an intelligence-led basis, which can penetrate through the skin; metal detectors on a more regular basis as people go through; and additional dogs.

Bedford Prison

Alex Norris Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

Drugs can get into prison only by being flown, thrown, dragged or carried there. A secure environment with the right standards, the right checks on mail and the right bars and grilles should therefore be able to reduce significantly the number of drugs that get into a prison.

On protecting and supporting prison officers, we owe them the trials around pepper spray, the body cameras and the CCTV cameras, but above all, the staffing numbers to get the key worker schemes in place so that they can develop the relationships with individual prisoners. Prison officers also need support from their managers, particularly band 4 and band 5 managers, day in, day out, to ensure that if they are assaulted, we respond calmly and professionally and bring back order and control.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is the fourth prison in the urgent notification process. In the past, the response has tended to involve three things: change the leaders, put more staff in, reduce the number of prisoners. All those are sensible, but they have an impact on the rest of the estate: there are only so many leaders, new staff and places to which to move prisoners. How many more times can the Minister respond in that way before it has an impact on the whole Prison Service?

[Rory Stewart]

That is a very good question and challenge. This is about prioritisation. As I said, many local prisons suffer from significant problems and we currently have more than a dozen in special measures. It is no coincidence that the prisons that we put in special measures are likely to be those that go on to receive an urgent notification from the inspectors. We and the inspectors absolutely agree on where those problems are—we can see them. The issue is to which of those prisons we prioritise resources. Those moves—reducing the number of prisoners, bringing in extra staff and getting extra support—are absolutely necessary, but we need to target them at the places where the need is greatest.

Victims Strategy

Alex Norris Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

It is always a pleasure to meet the hon. Lady, and I will be happy to do so again on this occasion.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

We know that the people who are most vulnerable to crime are those furthest from mainstream services. It is the woman suffering at the hands of her partner, the trafficked person who does not speak English or the child groomed in their community who the consultations detailed today must reach. Who do the Government intend to engage with to ensure that the voice of those who are heard the least is properly involved in this process?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. The aim of the strategy is to ensure that all those who are victims of crime, irrespective of background or any other factor, can access the support they need. We have worked extremely closely with not only individual victims of crime and experts in the field, but a wide variety of groups, covering individuals from all backgrounds and all ethnicities, on what they want to see in the strategy. I will continue to work extremely closely with them as we implement it. I am, of course, always happy receive suggestions from the hon. Gentleman.

HMP Birmingham

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has made seven visits to Chelmsford Prison and has worked closely with the acting governor there on the steps that are being taken to turn it around. [Interruption.] I hasten to add that she made those visits as a visitor. The key point that she raises is the one on mentoring, particularly the role that more experienced prison officers at band 4 can play in providing the day-to-day model for and partnership with the staff on the ground, to teach them the jail craft that is essential for everybody’s safety, and ultimately for turning around lives.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is clear that drugs have played a significant role in the problems in Birmingham; similarly, drugs have played a significant role in the challenges in Nottingham Prison, and I suspect across the prison estate. What is the Minister’s latest assessment of the use of body scanners, and what is the latest legal advice he has been given about how widely they can be used?

[Rory Stewart]

There have been historical challenges with the use of body scanners. We have now gone through the legal advice very carefully, and I am clear that they can be and ought to be used much more frequently, so we have invested almost £6 million in additional scanning. That will allow us to detect, as we already do at Belmarsh, drugs carried by people inside their body, as well as drugs carried on their person. That will go along with the new scanners that we are bringing in to detect mail infused with Spice and all the work that we are doing to combat drones and other ways of getting drugs into prison. Protective security measures must work alongside demand reduction and therapy, but without protective security we cannot get on top of the drugs epidemic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

If memory serves, it is something like 41,000 over the past 10 years, but I will write to my hon. Friend to confirm the numbers.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Earlier this year, HMP Nottingham was issued with an urgent notification as it is fundamentally unsafe. Will Ministers tell me how many assaults on staff there have been at the prison since this notification was triggered?

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

As the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) pointed out, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs leads on this matter. The Government continue to look at this issue.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. Another week, another inquest into the death of a prisoner at HMP Nottingham. Three months on from the prison being declared fundamentally unsafe, what update can Ministers give us on the progress of the recovery plan and on the prison’s ongoing safety?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, there has been an urgent notification process. We have put a plan in place. I have now visited HMP Nottingham, and I pay tribute to Tom Wheatley, the governor, for the work he is doing. He has a much better care process in place, and he has highly trained staff. We expect to see improvements soon at HMP Nottingham.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

On clause 6 and this question more widely, let us be clear: we are leaving the EU, so the jurisdiction of the ECJ will end, but EU law and the decisions of the ECJ will continue to affect us. For a start, the ECJ determines whether agreements the EU has struck are legal under the EU’s own law. If, as part of our future partnership, Parliament passes an identical law to an EU law, it makes sense for our courts to look at the appropriate ECJ judgments, so that we interpret those laws consistently. We have to remember, however, that our Parliament will remain ultimately sovereign. It could decide not to accept such rules, but there would be consequences for our membership of the relevant agencies and linked market access rights.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of the performance of private sector probation companies.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

There have been a number of challenges with the community rehabilitation companies—CRCs—particularly in transition. It is not all bad news: in fact, the number of people reoffending has come down by 2% and certain CRCs, such as Cumbria and my own county, are performing well. But we need to focus particularly on the questions of assessment, planning and meeting, and that is what we have focused on in the report on London that is due on Thursday.

[Alex Norris]

Her Majesty’s inspectorate of probation recently warned that private sector probation companies’ focus on contract compliance rather the true quality of supervision was inevitably having an impact on culture and was undermining the established values of probation professionals. Does the Minister agree that it is time to put proper probation ahead of private profit?

[Rory Stewart]

The hon. Gentleman is a Nottingham Member, and I had a very interesting meeting with the CRC last week on my visit to Nottingham Prison, where the CRC is providing very good Through The Gate services—in fact, services for prisoners in prison that did not exist before the transformation reforms. Before, they were outside the prisons. I do not believe this is a question whether it is done by the private sector, the public sector or the voluntary sector, but it is a question of getting the basic standards right. As I say, that is exactly what we will be assessing the London CRC on on Thursday.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rory Stewart]

That is an interesting example of a community rehabilitation company in Devon and Cornwall. The particular strengths of the Torbay approach seem to us to be in the partnership working with the police and children’s services and in the work done with Catch22 on accommodation.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

T7. In December, the previous Prisons Minister wrote to me saying that the spate of deaths at HMP Nottingham was a random occurrence, blaming a phenomenon called “suicide cluster”. In January, an inspection of the prison deemed it fundamentally unsafe. Last month there was another death, reported to be a suicide. Will Ministers now accept that there is nothing random going on at this jail and that it is not a safe environment?

[Rory Stewart]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, I had a serious visit to HMP Nottingham last week. I pay tribute to the prison officers and the governor for their work, but there are a number of serious challenges in the prison. We are particularly focused on safety. We have a new manager in place and a new violence reduction strategy, and the ACCT process will be central to solving these problems.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lee]

Thank you for the opportunity, Mr Speaker.

I agree with the hon. Lady that it is not exclusively sport that can make an impact on the lives of young offenders in particular. I remember visiting Cookham Wood Prison and being overwhelmed by the quality of the artwork that was being undertaken there.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Prisoner wellbeing and rehabilitation at HMP Nottingham continues to be of major concern after five people died there in four weeks. When I raised the issue at the last justice questions, the Prisons Minister, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), echoed my concern and undertook to write to me. May I ask whether Ministers are still concerned about HMP Nottingham, and when I will receive that letter?

[Dr Lee]

If the hon. Gentleman would like to write to me about the matter, it would be very helpful.

[Alex Norris]

Write another letter?

[Dr Lee]

The matter is not specifically in my brief, because HMP Nottingham is not a young offender institution.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Farmer review references prisoner wellbeing. At HMP Nottingham in the past two months alone, four prisoners have killed themselves and one has died of an overdose. Will Ministers say why they think this is happening, and what do they plan to do about it?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Certainly, for a lot of prisoners—whether for their mental wellbeing and issues to do with self-harm, but also violence—family contact can make a difference. There are specific issues relating to HMP Nottingham, and I am willing to write to him about those.