Oral Answers to Questions

David Hanson Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lee]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, spot on with regards to the importance of education. We are bringing forward plans on secure schools, and we are going to put health and education at the centre of that. I strongly believe that when people leave the youth justice system, they should be fit in body, fit in mind and fit to play a positive part in society.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Has the Minister had a chance to see this morning’s damning report on G4S’s performance at Oakhill training centre? Has he yet made a decision on whether he plans to allow G4S to flog off the centre to an American buyer?

[Dr Lee]

Yes, I have seen the report. In fact, it confirmed what I encountered myself on a recent visit to Oakhill. We are aware of the difficulties there, and we are also aware that G4S is in the process of trying to sell the youth justice arm of its business. I am keeping a close eye on that process, and rule nothing out when it comes to looking after the children and indeed the broader security of society.

Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks

David Hanson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

The central aspect of the Bill is to make it very clear that the fundamental purpose of prisons is to turn around offenders’ lives. If prisons are focused on that, we will reduce reoffending, and the £15 billion reoffending bill, but also help to make our prisons places of safety and reform.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

To avoid any doubt, will the Minister say today that he will accept the recommendations that the independent pay review body makes?

[Mr Gyimah]

We will obviously look at its recommendations. Let me make this clear: we value prison officers and the hard work they do, and we have already taken a lot of action to recognise that. The right hon. Gentleman cannot ask me to commit at the Dispatch Box to results that I do not know.

Justice

David Hanson Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Questions to the Secretary of State for Justice on 24 January 2017.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Six major incidents in eight weeks is unprecedented in the 25 years I have been in this House. Following on from her reply to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), will the Secretary of State confirm that the figures to September meant a loss in that last year of 417 prison officers? When she says that she has to recruit 2,500 officers, does she not mean that in the next 12 months she will have to recruit 4,000 to make up those 2,500, and does she intend to do that?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We need to recruit 4,000 officers over the next year. I announced initially that we were recruiting officers for 10 of the most challenging prisons. We have already made job offers to almost all those 400 people, so we are making good progress. We have recently launched a graduate scheme, Unlocked. Within 24 hours of announcing that scheme, we had expressions of interest from more than 1,000 candidates, so there are people interested in joining the Prison Service. It is challenging to recruit that number of officers, but we are absolutely determined to do so. It is what we need to do to turn our prisons around and make them places of safety and reform.

[Official Report, 24 January 2017, Vol. 620, c. 143.]

Letter of correction from Elizabeth Truss:

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) during Questions to the Secretary of State for Justice.

The correct response should have been:

Prisons

David Hanson Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

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 for 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 David Hanson (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?

[Elizabeth Truss]

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Hanson (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.

[Stephen Pound]

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 instruments, 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 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.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Hanson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I should be delighted to have a conversation with my hon. Friend about his experience looking at these issues. He is absolutely right that they have been a problem for a number of years, and it will take time to build up the front line and recruit those 2,500 additional officers. We have recently faced new challenges, with psychoactive substances, drones and mobile phones. We are taking action to deal with those, but it is vital that we have the staff on the front line who can both reform offenders and keep our prisons safe.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Six major incidents in eight weeks is unprecedented in the 25 years I have been in this House. Following on from her reply to the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), will the Secretary of State confirm that the figures to September meant a loss in that last year of 417 prison officers? When she says that she has to recruit 2,500 officers, does she not mean that in the next 12 months she will have to recruit 4,000 to make up those 2,500, and does she intend to do that?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We need to recruit 4,000 officers over the next year. I announced initially that we were recruiting officers for 10 of the most challenging prisons. We have already made job offers to almost all those 400 people, so we are making good progress. We have recently launched a graduate scheme, Unlocked. Within 24 hours of announcing that scheme, we had expressions of interest from more than 1,000 candidates, so there are people interested in joining the Prison Service. It is challenging to recruit that number of officers, but we are absolutely determined to do so. It is what we need to do to turn our prisons around and make them places of safety and reform.[Official Report, 26 January 2017, Vol. 620, c. 2MC.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have launched the Unlocked programme, which is like Teach First but for prisons, to encourage the brightest and best graduates. We have had a huge response, with more than 1,000 expressions of interest within 24 hours. I look forward to them joining our fantastic Prison Service.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

It is two years this month since the Government signed the prisoner transfer agreement with Nigeria. Will the Minister tell me how many prisoners have been removed to Nigeria since that agreement?

Restorative Justice

David Hanson Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I am grateful for the opportunity to follow my friend—in this context—the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who as Chair of the Justice Committee has ably steered our report and brought our conclusions to the House. He covered a number of the report’s points and I do not wish to go over the same ground; I just want to focus on a couple of issues and perhaps focus the Minister’s mind on a couple of the report’s key points and recommendations.

It is clear to all members of the Committee—and, in fairness, I think to the Government, too—that restorative justice has a value. It is a useful tool for helping people who have committed crimes to understand the impact on the victims and, through that process, for helping to prevent reoffending. There is general agreement from the Justice Committee, the Opposition—I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) in due course—and the Government that there is a valuable role for restorative justice. Indeed, when I held ministerial roles, I propagated restorative justice both in Northern Ireland and in the United Kingdom as a whole. There is a genuine understanding of it.

[The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)]

The right hon. Gentleman may recall that when he and I served on the Crime and Courts Bill Committee, we both made common cause for the restorative justice condition for deferred sentences, so that it had a stronger footing.

[Mr Hanson]

Indeed. As I say, there is common ground across the House, the various parties, the Justice Committee, this Government and, I believe, the previous Government to ensure that we can facilitate restorative justice. There is evidence—it is anecdotal, so we might not give it too much weight—that every £1 spent on restorative justice can save £8 in further costs down the line. That is important.

The Government’s commitment of £29 million, in their November 2013 plan, to help the development of restorative justice is supportive and indicative of the progress that needs to be made. However, I want to press the Minister on a couple of points, if I may. First, I would welcome some clarity from him on what the £29 million, which we have discussed in the Justice Committee, has been spent on. Has it been spent on restorative justice? I ask because it was not ring-fenced, but was part of a general grant. Has he produced a list of projects that benefit from that £29 million investment? If it is being spent on restorative justice, is it for local decision making? What is the Government’s assessment of what works best for restorative justice? Simply pouring £29 million centrally to police and crime commissioners without a ring fence and hoping that it will develop the seedcorn of good, positive, evaluated, determined restorative justice may not be enough; it may need a little more central direction from Government.

That point leads me to recommendation 66 of the Committee’s report:

“The Ministry of Justice is well placed to take a leadership role in restorative justice and set out a clear overall vision for how it expects restorative justice services to be delivered.”

The Ministry responded to our recommendation—I would be grateful for the Minister’s concentration on this—in paragraph 17 of the Government’s response:

“The Government agrees it is important that all relevant parties have a common understanding of how restorative justice works within the criminal justice system in England and Wales. We will consider the points raised by the Committee before publishing a progress report.”

With due respect, that is civil-service speak for: “We don’t know what we’re doing at the moment and we’d like to come back to it later.”

The test for the Minister is whether he can give some indication today of how he envisages a viable restorative justice scheme that avoids the postcode lottery that our report referred to. That might be through effective use of the £29 million; it might be by picking from operational schemes that the Ministry of Justice thinks are working well, have an output and have proved successful in reducing offending and giving victim satisfaction; or it might be from both those things. It is important that he focuses in his reply on how he envisages ensuring that people in north Wales get the same services and opportunities as people in south Wales, in Hertfordshire, in Bromley and Chislehurst and in every other part of the United Kingdom—perhaps even in Ribble Valley, Mr Evans.

We need a collective understanding of what is available, so that people do not feel left out because they cannot access a service. I recognise that we cannot deliver everything or concentrate on everything. The Minister’s response to paragraph 66 therefore needs to look at the key issues: what works, what is good value for money, what gives best victim satisfaction, what most reduces reoffending and how individuals become aware of the offer in the first place.

Our report refers to the understanding of restorative justice. I have to go back to a point that I know Members will be aware of: someone minding their own business who suddenly becomes a victim of crime may not necessarily know what the courts and the police service do, what restorative justice is, how it is available, what benefit it might bring to them or what it might do to prevent future victims from going through the same experience. Until the day someone is a victim, they are not focused on the criminal justice system. I therefore ask the Minister not only what is available, whether it is a postcode lottery and how the funding is used, but how victims become aware of the facilities and support available in their local area. If the Government’s direction of travel is towards localism, how does someone in north Wales who is minding their own business today, living their life peacefully and not expecting to be a victim of crime, but who wakes up as a victim tomorrow, know that such services are available? How do they know how to access them? How are they helped through at a local level?

Those questions take us back to the postcode lottery. I have no problems with devolving funding to police and crime commissioners or local services through community rehabilitation companies, the voluntary sector or other means, but my test for the Minister on his responsibilities is how he assesses what works, who is doing it and whether it is happening. If he is putting a pot of money in, how does he know that it has been delivered at a local level? I would welcome it if the progress report promised in paragraph 17 of the Government response considered those points.

Finally, I would welcome some information from the Minister on what progress has been made on the victims’ law. As the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst mentioned, it was promised in the Conservative manifesto and there was promise of a Green Paper and of legislation. However, we will have a Gracious Speech in May and there is still no Green Paper on a victims’ law. There may be reasons for that. I understand that this is a five-year Parliament—I believe it is—and if that is the case, it might be helpful to people who are interested in this topic for the Minister to say, without breaching any confidentialities, at what stage in this five-year Parliament he expects to bring forward the Green Paper and at what stage he expects the legislation to be in place, to give some support to the principle of the victims’ law, on which, again, I would expect general cross-party co-operation.

With those comments, I hope I can encourage the Minister to respond in a positive way to what is a positive report.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Heald]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell is looking at that at the moment. The other concern, however, is that although much is about gathering information—I fully accept that—this is an area with an absence of objective research. We need to grab the information about what is effective, why the spending is what it is, and the national picture showing the differences between areas.

[Mr Hanson]

Does the Minister know what the allocated £29 million was spent on?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Twenty-three million pounds was allocated, and £11 million was spent on restorative justice, so the concern is the gap, which is where we need to gather and work through the information.

[Mr Hanson]

The point I made in my contribution was that if the Minister allocated £23 million, he needs to know what it was spent on and what he allocated it for.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Of course the money is not ring-fenced, so police and crime commissioners who receive it are able to spend it on other victim services. However, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the amount for restorative justice was £23 million, so questions need to be answered. He asked us to say something in our update report on the action plan, which I will mention in a moment, and I will certainly bring that point to the attention of those who are preparing the response.

As we build on those foundations, we will take account of the Justice Committee’s work and the recent review of the Victims’ Commissioner, as well as working closely with police and crime commissioners and their association. It is excellent that the Victims’ Commissioner has been able to be in the Public Gallery for our debate. On a personal note, having attended a Crown Prosecution Service conference at which she spoke a couple of years ago, I was very impressed with the personal commitment she made to this area after experiences in her own life. Her role is very important and the way in which she performs it is admirable.

The priority now is to be satisfied by the evidence that the restorative justice services being funded or delivered meet the needs of victims of crime throughout England and Wales. Victims’ needs must be met. There is good practice in delivery, which it is important to share. My Department will work with a number of police and crime commissioners and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners to identify and share good practice and to obtain the data I mentioned that will not only help us but help areas to assess how well they are doing compared with other areas. In the long term, we want to introduce consistent outcome measures across all victim services, including restorative justice, which will allow us to take a more detailed and systematic approach to identifying and sharing good practice and driving up performance. It will also provide a firm evidence base on which we can make decisions about the future landscape of victim services. I should have said that we are also looking carefully at the range of proposals made by the Victims’ Commissioner and others.

I should perhaps say that if I do not finish dealing with all the points that have been made, we will go through them and write to the Committee.

I was asked about the action plan. The original plan for the period until March 2018 was published in November 2014. Ministers decided to publish a progress report covering that period. However, written evidence to the Committee highlighted the progress so far. We explained, for example, that we had the national conference in 2015, regional workshops to share best practice, and successful awareness-raising campaigns in both years during International Restorative Justice Week. Ministers have decided to continue with the action plan and refresh it. The victims Minister has been engaged in that detailed work since November, and we are not far away from publishing it.

HMP Birmingham

David Hanson Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I am sure he will recognise that with an operational service such as the Prison Service, we can reduce and minimise risk, but we cannot eliminate it completely. That is what the efforts of the daily meeting are about—reducing the level of violence and giving governors what they need to keep our prisons as safe as possible. When the incidents occurred, they were dealt with extremely effectively by the tornado teams. I want to see a more stable prison estate, which means building extra capacity so that we do not have overcrowding, and investing in staff so that our prisons can be staffed at a proper level. I have to tell Members that this will take time. While we are seeking to minimise risk, we cannot of course prevent every incident from happening.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Given that the level of assaults on staff and prisoners and that the level of disorder in prisons generally is higher in the private sector per 100 prisoners than it is in the public sector, will the Secretary of State tell us how many of these extra staff are going to be employed by the private sector, over whose recruitment she has no direct control?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. If he looks at the way we review prisons, he will find that the performance of the private and public sectors is relatively equivalent. There is not a significant difference between performance in the private and public sector. We set the levels of staff that the private sector has to employ. We are moving towards a 1:6 ratio in both the public and private sectors. All our evidence suggests that that will be enough to make sure that we keep prisons safe and, importantly, to reform prisoners to reduce the cost of reoffending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order—

[Mr Hanson]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to seek clarification from the Minister, if I may.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope this is not a continuation of the debate, but the right hon. Gentleman has an honest face and I will give him a chance.

[Mr Hanson]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Lord Chancellor indicated that the Labour Government had privatised HMP Birmingham. Would she acknowledge, however, that the Ministry of Justice announced in March 2011 that G4S was to take over the prison? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman has made his own point in his own way. We must hear the response of the Secretary of State, if she wishes to offer one.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Hanson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that mental health is a real issue in our prisons. I recently had a meeting with the Health Secretary on how we can improve mental health services. We are enabling governors to co-commission those health services. I was recently at HMP Lincoln discussing mental health services with the governor. Such services are available only from Monday to Friday, and he wants them to be available all week round, and we will enable that to happen.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

In part due to increased attacks on prison officers, more than 200,000 days were lost through ill health by prison officers in the past 12 months. Will the Secretary of State update the House on what the figure lost through sick days is as of now, and what steps she will take to reduce that figure?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. There is an issue with sick days. The the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), who is responsible for prisons and probation holds a daily meeting in which he goes through the levels of sickness at each prison and works with the governors on what we can do. One thing we are doing is strengthening the frontline to ensure that we have more officers available for support.

Prison Safety and Security

David Hanson Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered prison safety and security.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. This is a very last minute debate; it was only on Monday that we knew it was going to take place. I am grateful to the Deputy Speaker for finding time for the debate and to the Minister for making time for it.

In the introduction to the White Paper on prison safety and reform, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice made a very important statement:

“We will never be able to address the issue of re-offending if we do not address the current level of violence and safety issues in our prisons.”

Today’s debate aims to focus on some issues around that and to try to tease out what the Government’s objectives are on prison safety and prison violence. The Minister has been round the House quite a bit on this matter, not least at the Justice Committee on Tuesday. I know that he will want to do his best to respond to the issues. I know also that those who work in the service, from Michael Spurr through to the prison officers on the wings, will also want to do their best to ensure that we improve prison safety and security. However, I start from the premise that something is not quite right.

All the indicators on key issues of prison safety and security that the Government look at have been going in the wrong direction over the past few years. Let us look at some of the issues in our prisons at the moment.

In 2015-16, nine men absconded from category B prisons, four women and 80 men absconded from open prisons and eight prisoners absconded from male open youth offenders institutions. In the last few weeks—I know these individuals have been recaptured, for which I am grateful—two men, in the early hours of the morning, hid dummies in their beds, sawed through bars with metal drills brought in illegally, avoided CCTV, climbed over a wall and escaped from Pentonville prison; as the Minister confirmed to the Select Committee this week, that was not discovered until 12 noon the following day. These are serious issues.

As of 29 July 2016, just over 60%, or 76, of our prison establishments were officially listed as overcrowded. In total, overcrowded prisons held 9,700 more prisoners than they were originally designed to hold. Cells meant for one person have been accommodating two people, while those meant for two people have been accommodating three, and that has added to the stress in prisons.

I know, accept and understand where the Government are coming from; they have announced large amounts of increased prison capacity and are looking at closing older prisons and opening newer prisons, such as HMP Berwyn, which is shortly to open in north Wales near my constituency. The removal of old capacity is, however, well ahead of the replacement in terms of the building of new capacity. The chief operating officer of the National Offender Management Service, Michael Spurr, said to the Justice Committee this week that it will be a considerable time before the overcrowding is dealt with.

More seriously, and more challenging for the prison system as a whole, there were 324 deaths in prison in the 12 months to September 2016, which is a rate of 3.8 deaths per 1,000 prisoners: an increase of 57, or 21%, on the previous year. Many of those deaths were due to natural causes—that is to be expected because of the growing population of elderly prisoners—but 107 were self-inflicted deaths, an increase of 13% from the previous year’s total of 95. There were five apparent homicides, including one in Pentonville recently. Some 33 deaths are currently awaiting further information before being classified.

I am grateful to the House of Commons Library for these figures. On the issue of self-harm in prison, in the 12 months to June 2016, 36,440 reported incidents of self-harm occurred, an increase of 7,509 or 26% on the previous year—a rate of 426 self-harm incidents per 1,000 prisoners, compared with 338 incidents per 1,000 prisoners the previous year. Some 10,544 prisoners self-harmed last year, up 1,943, or 23%, on the previous year.

The indicators on hospital attendance show that there were 2,500 hospital attendances, an increase of 35% on the previous year. The proportion of self-harm incidents requiring hospital attendance has thankfully remained consistent, but the indicators are showing that there are more deaths in custody, more self-harm incidents and, sadly, a significant number of homicides in prison at the moment.

The indicators on assaults show that in the 12 months to June 2016, there were 23,775 assaults in prison, an increase of 6,078, or 34%, on the same period in the previous year, and a rate of 278 assaults per 1,000 prisoners, up from 207 assaults per 1,000 in the previous year. There were 3,134 serious assaults, an increase of 26% on the previous year. There were 17,782 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, up 32% on the previous year; 2,462 serious prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, up 28% on the previous year; and 5,954 assaults on staff, up 43% on the previous year, from 4,177. That is a ratio of 70 incidents of assault on staff per 1,000 prisoners, up from 49 per 1,000 in the previous year. Of those assaults, 697 were classified as serious assaults on staff, up 20% on the previous year.

Those indicators are not going in the right direction. All those indicators have seen a significant increase—not one of 1% or 2%—in a 12-month period. I will be fair to the Minister; I know that in the recently published document, recognition of that fact is paramount. I will return shortly to further figures.

What is lost in the figures on assaults are the significant increases in certain types of assault. Let me point the House to three particular issues. The use of dangerous liquids as an assault mechanism on prisoners and staff has gone from zero incidents in 2010 to 193 in 2015. The use of blunt instruments in assaults on prisoners and staff has gone from 246 incidents in 2010 to 666 in 2015: a 170% increase. The number of spitting incidents—an issue, given some of the conditions that many people will have in prison—has risen from 12 recorded in 2010 to 394 in 2015: an increase of 3,000%. Knife and blade incidents—prisons are not supposed to be places where knives and blades are available in the first place—have risen from 212 to 491 last year over a five-year period: an increase of 131%. I am grateful to the Prison Officers Association for some of those figures. Again, those are serious issues, and the trend is in the wrong direction.

There is an argument that some of those issues are related to drug abuse and new psychoactive substances. In 2010, there were 16 recorded incidents involving new psychoactive substances in prisons, but in 2014, the last year for which I have figures—the Minister may have more up-to-date ones—the figure was 436: a 2,625% increase. Spice has gone from 15 to 430 cases; mephedrone has gone from zero to two cases; and ketamine—kat—has gone from one to four cases. Again, that is the wrong direction of travel.

I held the Minister’s job for two years and one month some time ago, so I know how difficult it can be and about the challenges, but the level of disturbance in prisons has increased in the past few months and is causing noticeable pressure. It is greater than it was in the past. There have always been prison disturbances, and there probably always will be, but in the past couple of months alone there has been, for example, the incident in Lewes prison. The chairman of the Prison Officers Association said that at the time of the incident there

“were only four staff on that wing and all four had to retreat to safety”

because they were concerned about their safety.

In November, 200 inmates in Bedford prison went on what was described in the press as a rampage or a riot —we will determine what it really was when the investigation is completed. It took six hours to bring the disturbance under control. That happened only days after the Justice Secretary said that she was going to introduce a range of measures to tackle violence in our prisons. The question for the House is: what can we do about those issues?

The Justice Committee, of which I am pleased to be a member—my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) are also members—has looked at this issue in detail. In their White Paper, the Government accepted this premise: in the past six years, they have presided over a reduction in prison officers of some 7,000 at a time when attacks on the workforce have increased by 41%. The prison workforce in March 2010 was 49,230, but as of March 2016 it was 43,530.

The Prison Officers Association and the assessments we heard in the Justice Committee suggest that the benchmarking figure is now 800 officers below its required level, and that the service is losing 1,600 officers every year. The level of prison officer resignations increased by 128% over that six-year period, and officer retention remains challenging, as we discussed with the Minister in the Justice Committee on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the chief operating officer of NOMS, Michael Spurr, told the Committee that, although the Government are going to increase the number of prison officers by 3,500—although I am a Labour MP, I acknowledge that that is thanks to welcome investment for the Ministry of Justice in the autumn statement—he is going to have to recruit, with the Minister’s support, 8,000 people to get a net figure of about 3,500.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that this is about not just the number of prison officers lost and the need to recruit replacements, but their level of experience? It will inevitably take time for new recruits to learn the skills they need to do what is now an extremely complex, dangerous and demanding job.

[Mr Hanson]

That is a serious point. I do not want to be too flippant, but we will have a cohort of inexperienced prison officers and a cohort of experienced prisoners, which will lead to a mismatch in expectation. Those officers will lack experience when dealing with some of the initial problems. Officers need face-to-face engagement with prisoners to build the relationships that can prevent the kind of activities that I have been talking about.

Many people have expressed concerns about where we are. The Howard League for Penal Reform said that we have seen “the highest death toll” in prison

“in a calendar year since recording practices began in 1978.”

It said:

“The number of people dying by suicide in prison has reached epidemic proportions.”

The organisations that have a statutory duty to look at the Prison Service also expressed concern. Nick Hardwick, former chief inspector of prisons, said on 14 July 2015:

“You were more likely to die in prison than five years ago. More prisoners were murdered, killed themselves, self-harmed and were victims of assaults than five years ago.”

The current prisons inspector said in his annual report for this year that

“there is a simple and unpalatable truth about far too many of our prisons. They have become unacceptably violent and dangerous places.”

Nigel Newcomen CBE, the prison and probation ombudsman, who is in the process of leaving or has just left, said in his 2015 annual report:

“Unfortunately…I have identified a fundamental lack of care, but, more often, I have found caring and compassionate efforts by staff to support the suicidal. What is clear, however, is that more can and should be done to improve suicide and self-harm prevention in prison.”

He went on to say that

“what is already clear is that there is an unacceptable level of violence in prison.”

This is not scaremongering by Members of Parliament. It is a shared concern, which the Ministry itself recognises and has been expressed by the prisons ombudsman, the prisons inspectorate, external agencies, the Prison Officers Association and, indeed, the Justice Committee, three members of which are here today. We recently produced a cross-party report that was supported by the Scottish National party, Labour and Conservative Members, including the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who often has a different view to those of the members here today, and the Chair. Our conclusion was clear:

“This is a matter of great concern, and improvement is urgently needed.”

We said that

“it is imperative that further attention is paid to bringing prisons back under firmer control, reversing the recent trends of escalating violence, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths…It is a matter of particular concern that despite a sustained recruitment exercise…the net increase in public sector prison officers was only 440 last year.”

I will return shortly to how we are going to manage that recruitment exercise in the future. We want, among many other things, a regular report on safety in custody statistics to look at indicators of disorder, staffing levels, NOMS performance ratings and the activity of prisoners.

The Government have—let me be churlish—belatedly responded to the pressure. In my view, they caused the pressure themselves by reducing prisoner officer numbers and putting pressure on prisons, but they have belatedly looked at the issue. In the autumn statement, and on the back of the “Prison Safety and Reform” White Paper, they allocated additional resources to address prison safety issues. The programme of governor devolution is ongoing, which may or may not help—the jury is out on that. There will be operational improvements, which may include body-worn video cameras, staff training, a multi-disciplinary approach to violent prisoners and improvements during the early days and weeks of custody. We have looked at the recruitment issues. The Minister will no doubt talk about the 3,100 new officers, but we need to recruit 8,000 to make sure we reach the net figure. We have looked at the issue of mobile operators and illicit phones in prisons.

Ultimately, there are still challenges that we need to face. I want to look at what the White Paper means in practice. The Government have said, for example, that they will improve legislation on psychoactive substances. What does that mean? They have said that they will “strengthen search capability”. Well, that will take boots on the ground. What does that mean?

The Government have said that they will:

“fundamentally reassess our wider approach to tackling the supply and demand for drugs in prisons”;

and

“reduce supply and demand for illicit mobile devices; and…work with industry…to detect and block drones”.

What does that mean in practice? It is up to the Minister to spell out clearly and effectively what is in the White Paper.

The Minister has said that the Government will “enhance our intelligence capability”. Fine, but let us see what that means, what the progress is and what the timescale is. He will:

“devise and implement a strategy to address staff corruption in 2017”.

What does that mean? What is the investment? What are the intended outcomes?

We need to look at a range of measures, which we certainly can do, although the situation is complicated and challenging. I therefore want to test the Government with some discussion of at least four or five key areas, and I will start with staffing. Perhaps the Minister will reflect on my questions and, if he does not answer them directly, look at Hansard to bring something back to us later today or in the future.

Will the Minister undertake a review of benchmarking in prisons to see whether staffing rotas are right? He has picked the 10 prisons with the highest levels of violence, but will he look at other prisons or prisons as a whole? What measures will he introduce to retain staff who are in post? That means looking not just at salaries or, potentially, enhanced payments, but at valuing people’s work, or discussing with members of staff the retirement profile of those who are leaving, to see whether we can keep experienced staff.

What pay challenges are there? On Tuesday, the Minister indicated to the Select Committee that he was considering allowing governors to enhance pay and to use such things as positive inducements, but various people are sceptical about whether that can be done within the Government’s public sector pay policy and the pay cap, so will he reassure me about how Government pay policy comes into play on staffing? What autonomy will governors have on pay and retention measures designed to keep staff in the 10 or so prisons that are to have governor autonomy? After all, in future, there may be more such prisons.

In the White Paper, the Minister indicated—he repeated this clearly on Tuesday—that he expects ratios of six prisoners per prison officer. When does he expect to reach that target? How far away from it is he now? Will it apply only in the 10 prisons, or will it apply in all prisons? What will happen with the fluctuation of numbers in prisons, and how will he plan for that in future?

One of the key issues for prison security has been mobile phones, which have been a challenge for years—since the day the mobile phone was invented. When I was the Minister, we had BOSS—body orifice security scanner—chairs and lots of other measures. Prisoners, by their nature, want to have a mobile phone, but the Minister can do things about that, which he alluded to in the prison reform White Paper. I want some more clarification. For example, what steps is the Minister taking to trial phone blocking? That has been looked at by some prisons—public and private sector.

In the White Paper, the Minister suggested no-fly zones for drones over prisons. Let us examine that for a moment: what does it mean in practice? How will he operate a no-fly zone? What does it mean? How will it work? What about additional measures on entry and security? He alluded to them with a nice easy sentence on page 48 of the paper, saying that he would:

“reduce the opportunity and attractiveness for visitors to smuggle drugs”,

and mobile phones, into prisons. What does that mean exactly? What measures back up that statement?

To look at drugs generally, the Minister stated in the White Paper that the Government would:

“ensure that the perimeters of prisons are secure and maintained in a state that can help deter items from being thrown into the prison”.

What does that mean? What policy change next year will that mean? Ensuring that the perimeters of prisons are “secure and maintained” is a nice phrase, but what does it mean in terms of resources, focus and activity?

Also, on page 46 of the same document, the Government state that they will:

“continue to pursue and evaluate technology that can detect drugs including body scanners and drug trace detectors.”

What does that mean next year? What does that mean in practical terms for the Minister at the moment?

The Minister said on page 48 that he would look at telecommunications restriction orders to disconnect mobile phones or SIM cards permanently. That is fine and good, and according to the Minister the first disconnections will take place before the end of this year, but what steps is he taking to achieve that? How many disconnections does he expect? In how many prisons will telecoms restriction orders be available? How many phones does he expect to decommission?

Over the summer the new Secretary of State produced that nice, blank statement in the White Paper, and the aspiration is great, but I am interested in the beef behind it. I share Ministers’ aspiration to block mobile phones, but what does that mean and, if I went a year ahead through the magic of a “Doctor Who” TARDIS, how many prisons would have those restriction orders? How many phones would be disconnected? The White Paper is sending out signals about aspirations, without necessarily having any beef behind them.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I hope that my intervention allows him to get in a sip of water. I am listening to his powerful speech, but he has criticised the Government for being long on aspiration. I will tackle the point he makes in detail in my speech, but I want to say up front that a team that is long on aspiration but not focused on delivery would not have got the biggest—and only—increase for six years that the Ministry of Justice has had in its budget: £100 million for staffing and £550 million overall. That underscores our commitment to deal with the challenges in the prison system.

[Mr Hanson]

The Minister heard me say that I welcomed the additional resource, but if the Government cut 7,000 prison officers over six years and only decide to put something in urgently once the estate starts to creak —all the indicators that I mentioned are now heading in the wrong direction—in a sense, that is backtracking on a problem of the Government’s own making. However, I am saying to the Minister, “Let’s put that to one side.” He has some aspirations, and I am trying to tease out from him what the beef is so that he can build on them.

Some things are costly and cost-effective. Simple things can be done in the prison estate to help support the aspiration of the Secretary of State. We cannot address the issue of reoffending if we do not address the levels of violence or the safety issues that exist in our prisons. For example, what assessment will the Minister make of the lock-up regime, in particular in those prisons with serious levels of violence? If prisoners are locked up for 23 or 24 hours a day, of course they will face frustrations. What if no elements of support are in place for training, employment or drug rehabilitation, or if prisoners are not out of their cells doing things that might punish them, because they are in prison, but help with their reform so that when they leave prison they are in a better place? If such things are not in place, the Minister will again have a kettle that is boiling furiously. That shows the difficulties we face.

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a characteristically powerful speech. Does this not cut to the heart of the issue? If a substantial proportion of the prison population is locked up for 22 or 23 hours a day, prisoners’ frustration and the decimation of the relationship with the officers will be causing the tension. The officers are powerless to stop that, and it is directly triggering the increase in violent disorders.

[Mr Hanson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman—or my hon. Friend as I will call him—for his support of that particular assertion of mine, but it is one factor in a range of factors. Fewer officers are dealing with frustrated prisoners who have more and more challenging needs because of drug abuse and mental health problems and cannot participate in any important training, support or even recreation. That is part of the pressure cooker that is the Prison Service.

What strategy does the Minister have for looking at safer custody issues, the risk assessment changes or the prisoners coming in? When I was Minister, I regularly chaired a safer custody group. I do not know whether the Minister does that. Will he tell us whether he does, and if he does not, why? He should focus on what we can do to make custody safer. What assessment has he made of the pressures created by gangs in prisons? Such gangs cause difficulties, which prison officers, given their smaller number, are finding it more difficult to deal with. What innovations will he introduce to tackle prisoners’ mental health problems? We have an ageing prisoner population because of historical sex offences. What impact is that having on the care given by prison officers? Are they unable to deal with other types of prisoner because they have to invest more in that cohort of older prisoners? What assessment has he made of prisoners with sentences of imprisonment for public protection, whom we have talked about? Everyone agrees that those prisoners need to be released if they are over tariff and able to be released into society, but the assessment of support for them is not being carried out to the extent that we want it to be, so there is an element of frustration there as well.

All those things are in a difficult and challenging pot. Prison is never an easy place for the people who are in it, the people who work in it or the people who have policy responsibilities for it, but I want the Minister to put some more meat on the White Paper. I want more discussion—a discourse—with him and I want him to explain where he is heading. The Harris review made wide-ranging and simple recommendations, but the Government have accepted only 29 of those. Will the Minister revisit some of those recommendations to see whether they would help reduce the pressure on prison populations?

Finally—I have had a good run at the time available—as the Minister knows, there are measures that could be taken to help address the problems in prisons but that would be difficult to manage politically. If overcrowding is part of the problem of violence and stress in prisons, there are groups of people that we could look at removing from prison or sentencing to less time in prison. This is not an attack on the Government, who have indicated that they want to look at reducing the number of prison sentences of less than 12 months. There is no point sending someone to prison for 14 days or 30 days when they will come out and find their whole life in a skip in the centre of London, Birmingham or Newcastle; they will reoffend. There is no point giving many of the women my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston is particularly concerned about short prison sentences for not paying their television licences, or for offences linked to their lifestyle, perhaps involving drugs or prostitution, which could be tackled with a firm community sentence. The Lord Chief Justice told the Justice Committee as much last week.

There is a whole cohort of foreign national prisoners, which we talked about on Tuesday. In my experience, ministerial drive is needed to secure the removal of certain foreign national prisoners from the UK to their home nations, so which countries is the Minister focusing on? What efforts is he making to secure the transfer of such prisoners? Every prisoner who goes out to a foreign country leaves a space and allows pressure to be taken off the UK system.

I hope I have not rambled too much. The Minister’s role is difficult and challenging, but every indicator is going in the wrong direction. The Government have responded in part—they have set a series of aspirations. My purpose in securing this debate was to give the Minister a chance to flesh out those aspirations and allow other hon. Members to hold the Minister to account and ask him what he is going to do in the next 12 to 15 months, so that we can see whether there is going to be a change. I say to him in a non-threatening way that if, despite the actions he takes, the indicators continue to go in the wrong direction, the House will hold him and the Secretary of State to account for the actions that they could, should and must take to alleviate those pressures.

Prisoners and people who work in prisons have a right to safety, and the public whom we all represent have a right to see the people who leave prison after their sentences—I remind hon. Members that that is ultimately most prisoners—return to society in a way that does not lead to further reoffending and prison sentences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

Four thousand is the net number that we need to recruit to meet our targets. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asks what the gross figure is. A lot of people are leaking through in different areas of the prison estate and I cannot give the overall gross figure.

[Mr Hanson]

I think the Minister means that the 4,000 each year is a gross figure and, at the end of that, there will be a net figure of the 2,500 to 3,000 he has mentioned. Otherwise, he is committing to 8,000 new prison officers in the next two years. I would welcome that, but I would not want him to commit to it because he might have to increase his expenditure significantly.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that helpful clarification as I leaf through my notes.

[Mr Hanson]

I am here to help. [Laughter.]

[Mr Gyimah]

Yes. The Treasury would not welcome a commitment to new expenditure in this debate.

There are other challenges. We mentioned the challenges of mobile phones, and the right hon. Gentleman asked about the telecommunications restriction orders blocking mobile phones and other technologies. The legislation allows a prison, where mobile phone usage is suspected, to get a court order to block that specific mobile phone. It is a tool in a prison’s armoury, but we need to deal with the problem on the industrial scale that it is happening on in our prisons. The work that we are doing with mobile phone companies to block signals is the most effective way to ensure that we deal with the problem not on an incremental basis, but on an industrial scale.

[Mr Hanson]

I agree. This matter has been discussed for many years. Will the Minister commit to piloting mobile phone blocking in one or two prisons to see how it works in practice?

[Mr Gyimah]

We already have mobile phone blocking in some of our prisons. One challenge with mobile phone blocking is that in some prisons in urban areas we could end up blocking the mobile phones of people who are not in the prison. That is why we are developing a bespoke solution, working with the operators, and we have signed an agreement with them to go ahead with three jails early next year and then on that basis roll it out across the estate.

As for psychoactive substances, much has been said about drugs and our approach to them. We have trained more than 300 dogs to detect psychoactive substances. The point of mandatory testing, other than deterrence, is to help, because if someone is on those drugs, they need treatment, and the only way we can know that they are on the drugs is by testing and finding that they need help to come off them, or punishment where that is necessary.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Hanson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have acknowledged that we have a serious issue. I think we have to recognise that there have been a number of causes. The prison and probation ombudsman said that the emergence of dangerous psychoactive substances was a game changer for prison security. We are taking measures to put in place proper testing for that, which we announced in September. I acknowledge that there is an issue with staffing, which is why I have already taken steps in 10 of the most challenging prisons to increase staffing levels, and why we are due to do more in the White Paper.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

In addition to the staffing cuts mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), there is the problem of prison officer retention. The 400 by which the right hon. Lady has said she is going to increase staff numbers are being lost because of the number of people who are leaving. Experienced staff are leaving, and experienced prisoners are now running prisons.

[Elizabeth Truss]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that we need to make sure that, as well as recruiting prison officers, we are also retaining our fantastic prison officers. At every prison I visit, I meet fantastic people who have come into the service to turn people’s lives around. I want to encourage more people to become prison officers, which is why we launched a programme to bring former armed service personnel into the service. We will announce more about recruitment shortly.