Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I have already pointed out that the Crown court case load is lower today than it was in 2010 under the Labour Government. I have also pointed out that the magistrates courts, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, are disposing of more cases now than they are receiving: the backlog, or the case load, is going down and has been for each and every one of the past five weeks. The hon. Gentleman mentions custody and the time until hearings; in August, 84% of Crown court cases for which the defendant was in custody were listed for trial before February next year. We are working at pace and investing at pace. The recovery of our criminal justice system after this coronavirus epidemic is well and truly under way.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

What comparative assessment he has made of levels of (a) violence and (b) staffing in (i) public and (ii) private prisons.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

Levels of violence in our prisons remain too high, but I am pleased to say that we are on a downward trend in respect of assaults. In January to March this year, assaults on staff decreased by 5% on the three previous quarter, and in the latest quarter the number of assaults on staff decreased by a further 4%. Decreases have been seen across the public and private estate. We have also seen a net rise of almost 4,000 prison officers in bands 3 to 5 since 2016. We do not hold figures for the number of staff at private prisons as we measure performance in a different way.

[Grahame Morris]

I thank the Minister for that response. I had hoped that even this Government would accept the link between prison understaffing and high levels of violence. Why are the Government building a new generation of private prisons that will have no minimum staffing levels and no requirements for private operators to reveal staff numbers as they will not be subject to freedom of information requests? Frankly, this is an appalling policy of “Don’t ask me any questions and I won’t tell you any lies.”

[Lucy Frazer]

As I mentioned, we have increased the number of staff in the public sector. We have also introduced the key worker scheme, which is essential for staff to liaise with the prisoners. Private prisons perform well, as do public prisons. Recent reports from this year for HMP Parc and HMP Rye Hill, which are both managed by G4S, judged both to be good. There is not a mantra that public is good, private is bad; both work well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

A novel point, Mr Speaker. I think the judgments of their lordships and the lords justices in the Court of Appeal speak for themselves and are increasingly written in clearer language, and the recent Supreme Court judgment was an eloquent example, whatever one’s view of it might have been.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

T5. There is growing concern about the explosion in violence in prisons directed against prison officers. Does the Minister understand or even agree with the assessment of the Prison Officers Association that the Government are breaching their responsibilities under health and safety legislation by wilfully exposing hard-pressed prison staff to assaults? The number is running at 10,000 a year, which is over 28 a day on average.

[Lucy Frazer]

We are very concerned about the level of violence in prisons and very pleased that the 10 prisons project showed that we can reduce violence in prisons by reducing drugs in prison. I am very pleased that the Government recently announced the £100 million investment in prison security to make our prisons safer for those who work in them.

Prison Officers: Pension Age

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a member of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group, which includes the Prison Officers Association.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) on securing this important debate. Unusually, given the nature of the debate, I agreed with 95% of what he said, and I was very impressed by the way he delivered it. I did a bit of research and noticed some interesting comments by him on KentOnline about being willing to go to prison for Brexit so, come November, he could bring a unique perspective to debates on this subject. I hope it does not come to that.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s strapline: 68 is too late. We should not expect a prison officer approaching 70 to deal with violent and dangerous criminals in their 20s, 30s and 40s. He mentioned some of the challenges prison officers face. Of course, another challenge is the availability of drugs in prisons and their effect.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Ind)]

As my hon. Friend knows, Holme House Prison near my constituency has recently seen a rise in the abuse of Spice. That has caused dangers in itself, but it has also led the local mental health trust to withdraw services from the prison. Does he agree that that shows how dangerous the situation is for prison officers these days?

[Grahame Morris]

I completely agree. The conditions in many of our prisons are explosive. Holme House Prison is quite close to my constituency too, and I have visited it on a number of occasions. It is not just prison officers who are subjected to assaults; support staff are, too, and they need to be protected.

The debate is really serious. It is about life and death. Assaults against prison officers have almost quadrupled since 2010. As we heard this morning at Justice questions, there are more than 10,000 assaults a year, 1,000 of which are very serious. That works out at more than 28 a day on average—the same as the number of assaults experienced by the whole of our police service, which is a much bigger force. I am not justifying assaults on any emergency workers, but that is the scale of the problem.

I read through some newspaper headlines, which are really quite disturbing. I will mention a selection of them. One paper reported that a court was told how an inmate used a

“sock filled with pool balls to smash windows”

and injure prison officers. Another reported that a prison officer was stabbed in the head by an inmate in a “savage UK jail attack”. One story read:

“Teenage thugs injure 20 prison officers in riot at young offenders’ institute…One officer suffered a broken nose and another was concussed after being repeatedly punched.”

Other headlines included “Prison officer seriously hurt after being ambushed in cell” and “Prison officer has ‘throat cut’ by inmate at HMP Nottingham”. Conditions are difficult for new prison officers in our violent and dangerous prisons.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Prison officers need to be fit enough to protect not just themselves but prisoners from violence. Someone elderly, who does not have the same reflexes or strength as a younger person, cannot protect themselves or the people they are there to guard.

[Grahame Morris]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s analysis. We heard the Minister talking this morning about the recruitment of an additional 4,500 prison officers, but from the information provided by the POA it seems that substantial numbers of newly trained prison officers—at least 72 trainee prison officers—are leaving the service each month. That must be due, at least in part, to the terrible conditions they face. Again, that is placing great strain on older officers who are expected to take up the slack.

[Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case, as did the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson). Is it not the case that beyond a certain point some jobs are difficult to do? In the past, that could have included construction workers, working on cold, tough building sites in the dead of winter. This is another example of people reaching a point in life when it is no longer tenable for them to be expected to carry out these duties.

[Grahame Morris]

It is no longer tenable, Mr Hanson. We have reached tipping point, if I might quote a couple of quiz shows. The fact that prison officers are expected to work until the age of 68 disregards basic health and safety; in the opinion of many, it is a complete failure by the Ministry of Justice in its duty of care, under legislation, to prison officers.

I and many Members of the House believe that our uniformed emergency services deserve pension protection. Police officers and firefighters are able to retire at 60,

“to reflect the unique nature of their work”,

to quote Lord Hutton. A prison officer’s unique nature of work has been recognised as being the same as that of a police officer. Section 8 of the Prison Act 1952 gives prison officers

“all the powers, authority, protection and privileges”

of police officers. So the Hutton pension test—

“to reflect the unique nature of their work”—

applies equally to prison officers, police officers and firefighters. Sixty-eight is too late. How many Members of this House would be able to serve on prison landings at 68? There are few who would be able to serve for a week, or even a day, in such violent and dangerous prisons.

[Jo Stevens]

My hon. Friend is being generous with his time. He has talked about staff morale being at rock bottom, the soaring violence and the cuts to prison officer numbers. Does he agree that the prospect of having to work as a prison officer until the age of 68 is fuelling the record number of resignations from the Prison Service? We are in a cycle that we cannot get out of unless the pension age is changed and lowered.

[Grahame Morris]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There are many pressures and causes, but the pension age is a significant one. There are a number of remedies that need to be applied, as outlined by the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey.

If it is not presumptuous, I wonder whether the Minister might consider inviting the right hon. Lord Hutton of Furness, who I understand is aged 64, to work in a prison and be part of a team being confronted by inmates with socks filled with pool balls, with razor blades and improvised knives, or surrounded by a group of youths, many of whom seem to have access to Spice and illegal substances, who are only too willing to attack prison officers. Setting prison officers’ pension age at 68 must have been an oversight. If the Government seriously and knowingly took that decision, it is a cruel and callous one, and risks the lives of prison officers working in physically demanding and often violent workplaces.

I urge the Minister to take two actions. First, to acknowledge that 68 is too late to expect a prison officer to work in an unsafe workplace. Secondly, to commit to bringing forward in the next Parliament—next week—the legislation and regulations required to align the pension age of prison officers with their colleagues in other uniformed emergency services.

Prison officers have heard the excuses in parliamentary responses; we heard some of them this morning in Justice questions. The offer that the Government previously made, to reduce the retirement age to 65, is simply a bad deal. Prison officers want pension age parity with their uniformed colleagues. The previous offer was attached to a derisory three-year pay deal and excluded many uniformed staff, who would still have to continue to work until they were 68.

I ask the Minister and everyone listening to the debate to watch the latest videos published by the POA and look at the horrific injuries suffered by prison officers. We should feel ashamed that they are doing a public service, protecting the public, while Parliament stands idle, forcing them to work in terrible conditions that are neither healthy nor safe. We should feel ashamed that we outsource our prison service and system, and that the safety and security of prison officers is left in the hands of companies such as Serco and G4S, whose first and foremost interest is shareholders and profits. We should feel ashamed that we want to put prison officers approaching the age of 70 into such terrible and dangerous situations.

Our prisons are unsafe and understaffed. Prison officers are unappreciated and underpaid. The Minister should set out a comprehensive package to recruit and retain prison officers through improved pay, pensions and conditions. I ask the Minister to do more than give empty platitudes and hollow promises to prison officers. Please accept that 68 is too late and lower prison officers’ pension age to 60. No ifs, no buts; stand up today, make the promise and bring forward the necessary legislation next week—and I guarantee the Minister will get my vote for that legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Wendy Morton)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I understand that your chairing the debate is quite fitting, given that you still have a special interest in prisons and all things justice-related.

I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson)—the beautiful Isle of Sheppey, as he referred to it—for securing the debate on this important subject. He clearly demonstrated an ongoing commitment to raising awareness of the issues around the three prisons in his constituency, the prison officers and their families. I thank other hon. Members for their contributions. In the time I have, I will endeavour to answer as many as possible of the questions that were put to me.

Let me begin by providing a little of the history of prison officer pensions, for those who may not be aware of the retirement ages for prison officers and how they have changed since 2007. Pensions are, by their very nature, complex, but I will try to be brief. Prison officers are members of the civil service pension scheme, the policy and rules of which are owned by the Cabinet Office. Prior to 2007, the retirement age for those covered by that scheme was 60. Following an annual review by the Government Actuary’s Department, a new career average pension was brought in, with a pension age of 65 for new entrants from July 2007.

The demands of the prison officer role were considered at that time, and it was decided that when compared with other civil servants in the scheme who had demanding roles, such as seamen on Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships, a special exception could not be made. The Prison Officers Association signed up to the 2007 scheme, which introduced a pension age of 65. In 2015, a new scheme was introduced that regularised the position for most staff and changed the pension age to 65, or to a staff member’s state pension age, which for many is 68.

It is important to be clear that the Government are alive to the issue and the views of staff and trade unions on retirement age. Efforts have been made twice—in 2013 and again in 2017—to provide a route to lowering the retirement age. The 2013 package offered prison officers the ability to purchase a lower pension age of 65 through the payment of heavily subsidised additional contributions into the scheme, with the additional option to pay further contributions to purchase a pension age of 60. A similar offer was made to prison officers in 2017, but there was no cost to the individual member of staff to purchase a lower pension age of 65. Both offers were rejected by the POA membership.

A comparison has been made today with firefighter and police pensions. Staff in those schemes have a retirement age of 60. Although it is true that work in those roles has some similarities to the work of prison officers, as was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, because of the higher physical demands consistently placed on firefighters and the higher potential for serious injury and fatality in both roles, the Government felt that the role of a prison officer was not analogous to those in the emergency services.

Putting that assessment to one side, it is crucial to understand that that lower retirement age is supported by pension contributions by staff of up to 14%—almost 10% higher than the average 5.45% contribution rate in the civil service. It is not, therefore, a like-for-like comparison. Should a change in retirement age be contemplated again in the future, it would involve a significant increase to the staff contribution to the scheme.

[Grahame Morris]

Will the Minister give way?

[Wendy Morton]

I am going to make some progress. I am really trying to get through these points in the time that I have.

The role of prison officer is a diverse, interesting and critical one, parts of which can be physically demanding. All prison officers who joined the service after April 2001 must pass an annual fitness test in order to remain prison officers. We do not discriminate on the basis of someone’s age; many factors determine a person’s ability to pass a fitness test. Staff who do not meet the annual fitness test standard are provided with advice and support by a fitness assessor on achieving and maintaining the required fitness level.

The Prison Service recruits staff to work up to the normal pension age of 65, and it has employed new prison officers in their 60s who have passed the fitness test and are performing their roles effectively. In addition, many staff who have the right to retire at 60 choose to work beyond their retirement age. It is therefore not true to say that it is inappropriate or unsafe for prison officers to work over a certain age.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey is right when he says that we must recognise the commitment, bravery and hard work of our prison officers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I think I have already addressed his point in my speech, but it is clearly a point that he is interested in.

The first new prison will be built on land adjacent to the existing well-performing maximum security prison at Full Sutton. Along with further building works, it will be subject to Government working through the best value-for-money options. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey for suggesting the existing cluster of three prisons on the Isle of Sheppey as a location for a further site. [Interruption.] I believe he is indicating that he would be happy with a fourth, but I am sure that he will understand that decisions on the location of further sites have not yet been made.

It is again too early to say whether the new prisons will be privately or publicly run, but the Government are committed to maintaining mixed market provision in the custodial sector, with prisons run by both the public and the private sectors. Any decisions on the future management of the new build prisons will be announced in due course.

[Grahame Morris]

The Minister is setting out the case for financial prudence, but may I point out that private prisons account for 15% of the prison population but almost 25% of the budget? If we are being prudent with the public finances and looking to secure a decent settlement for prison officers, surely we should not be privatising our prison service.

[Wendy Morton]

As I said, it is too early to say whether the new prisons will be privately or publicly run, but no doubt we will be debating that question for some time to come.

On recruitment and retention, we know that retention of staff will take more than a one-size-fits-all approach, so specific action is being taken where attrition is most acute. Improvements to the recruitment process are ongoing and are aimed at reducing the time and cost of hiring, increasing the diversity of new recruits and ensuring that we attract the right people with the right skills.

Ministry of Justice Spending

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

As always, it is a pleasure to follow my good and hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous). This is an important debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for us to discuss these issues. I must declare an interest, in that I am a member of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group and I am proud to represent the interests of prison officers campaigning for a basic right: the right to a safe working environment. I also want to pay tribute to the dedicated and hard-working staff throughout the justice system—in the prisons, in probation and in every aspect of the Department’s work—whose work is often overlooked.

Time is short, so I shall touch on just three issues: other Members have covered the financial cuts to the Ministry of Justice, so I will refer to them only briefly; I want to talk briefly about the loss of experience in the Prison Service because of budget cuts; and I will address the consequences of cuts for prison staff who are trying to maintain a safe working environment.

I read a most disturbing article in my local newspaper, the Evening Chronicle, entitled “Seven staff stabbed at North East jail as prisoners leave officers ‘black and blue’”. That is from 13 July. The article quoted the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, who said in response:

“The Government is taking unprecedented action to improve safety in prisons.”

In the light of those comments it is important that, as part of our responsibility to hold the Government to account, we consider their record on law and order.

The Department has suffered cuts of more than 40% since 2010 and, according to some work that I have read by the New Economics Foundation, the indications are that that proportion will rise to more than 50% by 2023. My concern is that the cuts are a false economy. Several Members, including the Chair of the Select Committee, mentioned that the Ministry of Justice budget was around £8 billion and the estimated annual cost of reoffending is now more than £18 billion.

Ron Hogg, the police and crime commissioner in Durham, is a wonderful man who is currently struggling with a most debilitating illness. He pioneered the Checkpoint scheme in an attempt to address the issue of reoffending. Ron joined me on a delegation—in fact, he led the delegation; I joined him—to see the Secretary of State for Justice and put forward a powerful case for taking a new approach to tackling reoffending.

Private prisons are inefficient and are wasting resources. Although private prisons accommodate approximately 15% of the prison population, the Government spend nearly a quarter of the total prison budget on them. The main aim of a private prison is clearly to make profit for shareholders. Public service and staff safeguarding are secondary. Private companies aim for a profit margin of around 8% to 10%, so for every pound paid to a private prison operator, 10p is immediately top-sliced, to be given to shareholders rather than being spent on making our prisons safer.

The other method that the private sector has used to improve prisons’ profitability is to reduce wages, cut staffing levels and accommodate more prisoners. A report by The Guardian newspaper, based on parliamentary questions, found that private prisons are up to 47% more violent than public prisons, as a consequence of understaffing and overcrowding. Put simply, private prisons cost more and deliver less.

The House will remember that the Secretary of State said:

“The Government is taking unprecedented action to improve safety in prisons”,

so let us look at the evidence in the little time I have left. The Tory-Liberal coalition cut 7,000 prison officers, leading to the loss of more than 80,000 years-worth of prison staffs’ accumulated experience. The recruitment of new prison officers, to which I understand the Minister will refer, even if to the same level the Government inherited from the previous Labour Government, will not replace the lost years of experience for many decades to come. The Government’s unprecedented actions over the past decade have damaged prison safety and increased violence, through the loss of prison officers and the valuable experience that they have in running our prisons.

At Holme House near Stockton, which is the prison nearest to my constituency, seven staff were stabbed. Meanwhile, 11 staff at HMP Northumberland suffered fractures and another 22 needed stitches. Across the north-east, there were 46 incidents of prisoners spitting at staff, and 29 other serious incidents that resulted in injuries to staff were recorded. Indeed, the annual report of HM inspectorate of prisons for England and Wales found that among category B and C prisons staff shortages have

“been so acute that risks to both prisoners and staff were often severe, and levels of all types of violence had soared.”

The Government are failing in their duty of care to prison staff: their workplace is unsafe; prison officers’ wages have been cut in real terms for a decade now; and their retirement age has been increased from 60 to 68.

This Government, facilitated by the Liberal Democrats in coalition, are to blame for our prisons being unsafe and for failing in their primary duty of reducing re-offending and rehabilitating prisoners. Unless prisons are safe, secure and decent, rehabilitation is simply impossible. Our prisons have become, in many cases, universities of crime, with career criminals in control of prison landings.

In my opinion, the Secretary of State, or his Minister, should start by apologising to prison staff for a decade of failure. He should apologise for devaluing their jobs through real-terms pay cuts, and apologise for creating an unsafe working environment by cutting the number of officers, losing valuable experience, increasing the retirement age and expecting prison officers approaching 70 to tackle and deal with violent inmates who are in their 20s, 30s and 40s. He should apologise for allowing private prisons to profit at the expense of staff safety, for undermining our criminal justice system, for imposing a decade of cuts at every level—to policing, to legal aid, to our courts and to our Prison Service. I was frankly aghast to hear Conservative Back-Bench Members at the start of this debate wringing their hands about cuts to legal aid. I must have dreamt that Tory Members trooped into the Division Lobby in 2012 to vote for cuts to legal aid. I do hope that the Government will acknowledge their role and start immediately to repair the damage they have caused over the past decade.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Philp)]

It is a great pleasure to conclude this debate. I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), the Chairman of the Justice Committee, as well as the other Committee members here, for securing this afternoon’s very important debate. When I attended the opening of the legal year on Tuesday, it became clear to me just how many of the senior judiciary in this country the Committee Chairman knows. I will certainly endeavour to listen to him, and to other members of the Committee from both sides of the House, as I embark on my new role.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) and the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) indicated, justice is of fundamental, vital importance to the functioning of our society. Justice is the foundation of any civilised society. Without justice, there is no freedom, and without the rule of law, there can be no prosperity, so the state discharges few functions that are more important than ensuring that justice is done. I join Members on both sides of the House in paying tribute to judges, lawyers, the police, Crown Prosecution Service officials, court officials, prison officers, probation officials, and of course Ministry of Justice civil servants for their work in making sure that our justice system functions.

As this debate is on funding, I should like to comment on the overall funding figures. A number of Members have referred to a reduction in spending of 40% since 2010. It is important to mention that that figure is based on figures for the 2015 spending review. Since then, there has been additional resource spending on Ministry of Justice matters from a variety of sources, and when that spending is added back in, the real-terms reduction is 21%. That is still a reduction, but of a great deal less than 40%. To put that in context, the British crime survey, which produces the most reliable crime statistics—in fact, the only ones recognised by the Office for National Statistics—finds a 33% reduction in crime over the same period; that is significant, and we should bear it in mind.

That said, there are clearly issues with the way that various parts of our criminal justice system operate that need addressing—issues that Members on both sides of the House have powerfully and eloquently referred to. That is why it is welcome, as some Members have acknowledged, that in the spending review statement made just a few weeks ago in this House, it was announced that the Ministry of Justice’s resource budget will increase from £7.631 billion this financial year to £8.142 billion in the next financial year. That is an increase of £511 million, which is over half a billion pounds, 6.7% in cash terms, or 4.9% in real terms. I am glad that Members across the House welcome that increase. On the capital side, the capital DEL budget has increased from £417 million in the current year to £620 million next year—a 48% increase.

The Department is going through the allocations process to work out where the extra £511 million will go. I heard powerful representations about the probation service from the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) and the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), and I think pretty much every Member who spoke in the debate mentioned the prison system. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst spoke about the courts system, and many Members discussed the legal aid budget, including the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), who spoke powerfully. What has been said in this debate will be carefully looked at as the allocations are made. However, we should remember that the reason why these savings had to be made was the catastrophic state of the public finances 10 years ago, so as we look forward to next year, as the economy continues to prosper and as public finances come under control, I hope that the 2020 spending review can do a lot more for the Ministry of Justice and the various areas that it looks after.

I will now respond to some of the specific points raised in the debate. On prison places, I am delighted that two prisons are now under construction, with 3,360 new places. Construction started just last week at the new prison in Wellingborough, and the Secretary of State turned the first sod of earth with his very own hands. That £2.5 billion programme will, as Members have said, add 10,000 places by the middle of the 2020s.

Members also made reference to the need to maintain and improve conditions in prisons themselves, with the right hon. Member for Delyn and the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) both referred specifically to the conditions within prisons. The Government fully recognise that issue, and I can confirm today that, in addition to the spending review 2019 figures that the House heard a few weeks ago, an extra £156 million will be spent next year expressly on prison maintenance and conditions. That is a 75% increase across the capital and resource budgets on the amount planned in the spending review, so I am sure that everybody in the House who raised the important matter of prison maintenance will be pleased to hear that.

Several Members mentioned the number of serving prison officers, including the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) a few moments ago. Members will therefore be pleased to hear that, as of June this year, there were 22,321 serving prison officers, which is an increase of 4,366 since 2016. The shadow Justice Secretary said a moment ago that 2,500 extra officers were announced in 2016, so I am pleased that we have delivered almost double that.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith talked about an important trial that took place in 10 of the most challenging prisons to try to improve prison safety and address, for example, assaults on prison officers. The trial published its results in August this year, and assaults fell by 16% and positive drug tests by 50% across those 10 prisons. Those are important results, and I hope that the pilots can be expanded. I will certainly be passing that point on to the Minister of State for Prisons and Probation.

We heard a bit less about our courts than about prisons, but they are also extremely important, with my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst drawing particular attention to them. The digitisation process is not, as he said, a panacea. It is part of the solution, not the whole solution, but it is welcome that uncontested divorce proceedings, probate proceedings, the issuance and response to civil money claims and minor pleas can now all be done online, saving both participants in the criminal justice system and the court system itself a great deal of time and money. The common platform designed to make criminal cases run more effectively and efficiently between the police, the CPS and the courts will start to be rolled out in the first half of next year. That will do more to make the courts run more efficiently.

My hon. Friend the Select Committee Chairman mentioned issues with sitting days and maintenance in the court system, which I recognise. As the Minister with responsibility for courts rather than prisons, I will of course make the case for sitting days and for the maintenance programme in the court system as we go through the allocation process in the coming two or three months to divide up that half a billion pounds of extra money.

On court closures, which the shadow Secretary of State raised a few moments ago, the courts that were closed—those that were consulted on in 2015—were running at about one-third utilisation, partly because of the one-third reduction in BCS crime since 2010. Clearly, having courts running at only one-third utilisation does not make a lot of sense, but before there are any further closures, there will be a consultation process and extremely careful thought, for the access to justice reasons that he and other Members mentioned.

Legal aid was mentioned by a number of Members, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Cheltenham and for Bromley and Chislehurst, and the hon. Members for Lewisham West and Penge and for Hammersmith. I am pleased to remind the House that last year the rates for criminal barristers were increased by around 10%—that was a £23 million commitment—and, as Members said, the criminal legal aid review is under way. In fact, some parts of that review, because they are so urgent, will report early: the parts related to unused material, cracked trials, paper hearing cases, pre-charge advice and payments for sending cases to the Crown court will report next month. The rest of the review will report in the summer of next year, and I hope it will address some of the concerns hon. Members raised about the legal aid system.

The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge mentioned victims. They are very important—particularly victims of sexual assault. The victims and witnesses budget is £92 million, and I am sure she will join me in welcoming last week’s announcement of an extra £5 million specifically to help victims of sexual violence.

Let me conclude with sentencing, which the Lord Chancellor and I have responsibility for. I support the change in the automatic release point for standard determinate sentences from half to two thirds, because I think the public expect someone who is sentenced to serve the majority of their sentence. Releasing them at the halfway point undermines public confidence in the sentence that is handed down. The change aligns the release point with the discretionary release point for extended determinate sentences, at two thirds. That will, of course, apply only to the more serious cases; it will not apply to all cases where a standard determinate sentence is handed down.

[Grahame Morris]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Philp]

I would love to, but I only have a few seconds left. I would love to take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman on a future occasion.

On less significant offences, I recognise the extremely high reoffending rate—60%—that Members referred to. As the Minister responsible for sentencing, I will look very carefully at expanding trials in which treatment, in particular for drug addiction, alcohol addiction and mental ill health, is put at the heart of sentencing and rehabilitation. There is much more we can do to learn from those trials and from countries around the world where more effective treatment is the key to reducing reoffending rates. That is my personal commitment to the House this afternoon.

It has been a great pleasure to participate in the debate. I look forward to hearing the Select Committee Chairman conclude it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

In relation to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) just chuntered from a sedentary position, “Yes, but he’s a nice guy.” Well, I think we can all agree about that.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

3. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of health and safety for prison staff.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Robert Buckland)]

Keeping our prisons safe, both for the dedicated staff working in them and for the men and women in our custody, is our top priority. Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service continually assesses the risks to staff in our prisons, putting in suitable measures and controls. The effectiveness of those controls is monitored locally and nationally, and through joint audit work with prison unions.

[Grahame Morris]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but it must be of concern to the whole House when the Ministry of Justice’s own figures show that violence against prison staff is at a record high. There were almost twice as many assaults in 2018 as there were in 2010. Does the Minister agree that everyone working in our prison system, whether as a prison officer, an educator, a nurse or anything else, should have an absolute right to a safe workplace, safe from violent assaults? Will he support the joint trade union “Safer Inside” campaign to secure that objective?

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point and he is right to alert us to the day-to-day bravery of prison staff in whatever part of the prison estate they work. A lot of work is going on to improve how prison staff interact with prisoners, and the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 allows the courts to impose greater sentences to deal with assault. I will look very carefully at the proposals that are being set out tomorrow and work with Members across the House to ensure that we rise to the challenge of prison violence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

7. If he will make it his policy to pay the staff in his Department the living wage.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

10. If he will make it his policy to pay the staff in his Department the living wage.

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

We pay, both directly as the Ministry of Justice and indirectly through our suppliers, the national living wage in line with legislation.

[Rory Stewart]

The point, which is an important one, is that we have to ensure that our subcontractors follow exactly the same rules as Ministry of Justice direct employees. We insist that the national living wage should be paid both to Ministry of Justice employees and to our subcontractors.

[Grahame Morris]

Cleaners and security staff at court buildings up and down the country are currently in dispute with outsourcers Mitie and G4S over poverty pay and draconian terms and conditions. The Minister can try to wash his hands of this mess and blame his predecessor’s appalling contracts—he is now wreaking havoc with the Brexit ferries—but when is he himself going to intervene to demand that, under new planned contracts, the hard-working staff who clean and protect his Department’s buildings are paid the real living wage and not exploited by their unscrupulous employers?

[Rory Stewart]

I take this opportunity to pay tribute to those staff—the people who maintain the courts and the people who provide the security—who do a very important job. We are absolutely clear that this is a Government policy across the board and that everybody, regardless of whether they are in the private sector or the public sector, is obliged to pay the national living wage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gauke]

Where an offender is assessed as presenting a risk of serious harm, they will receive a standard recall and may only be released into the community if they can be safely managed there. If there is not that risk, a proportionate response is sensible. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of probation has found that probation services, in the vast majority of cases, are making the right decisions.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

T6. What discussions is the Minister having with her colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions about the appalling tribunal backlog they are creating with poor assessment and decision making, particularly on personal independence payments, universal credit and employment and support allowance?

[Lucy Frazer]

I have had a number of meetings with my counterpart in the DWP, and my officials discuss this issue with the DWP regularly. I and my counterpart in the DWP will undertake a joint meeting at an assessment centre to further consider these important issues and ensure that we get decisions right first time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

2. If he will make it his policy to return the probation service to the public sector.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

18. If he will make it his policy to return the probation service to the public sector.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Gauke)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I will answer Questions 2 and 19 together.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think that the Secretary of State’s intended grouping of Question 2 is with Question 18, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), who was looking mildly perturbed, but whom I hope will now be greatly reassured.

[Grahame Morris]

indicated assent.

[Mr Speaker]

It is good to see the hon. Gentleman reassured.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gauke]

I, too, pay tribute to the work of that not-for-profit CRC and its focus on rehabilitating offenders. The expertise and commitment of not-for-profit organisations are vital in helping offenders to turn their lives around, and the changes on which we are working will ensure that the probation system benefits from having a diverse range of providers, while also doing more to deliver operational stability.

[Grahame Morris]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answer, and for drawing attention to the statistics that we have seen in Durham. However, probation failures cause reoffending and place strains on already overburdened police resources. Will the Secretary of State consider meeting police and crime commissioners such as Ron Hogg, Durham’s police, crime and victims commissioner, who happens to head the only outstanding police force in the country, to discuss the devolution of probation services so that they can be tailor-made to meet the needs of local communities?

[Mr Gauke]

I have already met a number of police and crime commissioners to talk about this very issue, but I should be happy to meet Mr Hogg, as well as other PCCs, to discuss these matters again. We want to ensure that PCCs can play a full and active role in this process, and I am heartened by the determination and willingness of many of them to do all that they can to help to develop it and to ensure that we have a strong probation system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Gentleman will know that 99% of people who claim legal aid in the Crown courts are granted it. He will also know that in the report he identified, although there are some unrepresented defendants, most people surveyed said that did not make a difference to outcomes.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

3. What steps his Department is taking to help offenders access (a) housing and (b) benefits on release from prison.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Gauke)]

A home provides a released offender with a stable platform and increases their chances of finding a job, accessing health services and tuning their lives around. The Government aim to eliminate rough sleeping by 2027. As part of this commitment, my Department will work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to pilot initiatives, helping those with a history of offending to access and sustain suitable accommodation. We are also working closely with the Department for Work and Pensions to explore ways of enhancing the current benefit claim system.

[Grahame Morris]

I thank the Minister for his response, but I recently supported a constituent who, after six months in prison, had successfully kicked his drugs habit. After being released from prison with no housing or benefits in place, he had to rely on former associates for support. He has now returned to drugs and his chaotic lifestyle—the one he wanted to escape. Does the Minister believe that lack of supervision and support for offenders leaving prison is likely to increase or decrease reoffending?

[Mr Gauke]

We must work across government to ensure that those circumstances do not happen. It is right that we engage with local authorities, the MHCLG and the DWP to ensure that the support is there, and we also need to make sure that the probation service is working as it should to provide support for those offenders.

Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

12. What progress he has made on his plans for changes to the probation service.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

15. What progress he has made on his plans for changes to the probation service.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

We are making good progress with our transforming rehabilitation reforms, which will realign current probation structures to address the gap that sees 50,000 short-sentenced prisoners released on to the streets each year with little support. The new structures will come into effect on 1 June. The process of reallocating staff to those new structures is now complete.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

We have a strong slate of potential bidders in every part of the country, with a good mix of private and voluntary sector expertise and some attractive partnerships that can deliver real results for us. We will see later in the summer who emerges successfully from the bidding process, but I am completely confident that we have a strong candidate in every part of the country.

[Grahame M. Morris]

The Minister accuses us of looking backwards, but his transforming of rehabilitation services programme is controversial and fraught with difficulties. Does he agree with his permanent secretary, Ursula Brennan, who told the Public Accounts Committee last week that if the Ministry of Justice was not ready to take the next steps, it would not do so—or would he press on regardless?

[Chris Grayling]

It is precisely because we are confident in the process that we are moving to the next stage. We will take it a step at a time, and we will always take steps to address issues of public safety. The Opposition, having identified the problem of offenders going without supervision, and having legislated to deal with it while in government and then done nothing about it, are now attacking us for wanting to do something about it. They have no ideas themselves.

Probation Service

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Let me address the issue of the risk register. The previous Government produced risk registers, but they never published them. A risk register is an internal working document designed to tell the team working on a project the steps that they need to take to ensure that untoward things do not happen. One of the things that we are doing in planning this project is, of course, aiming to deliver a transition that is as seamless as possible and protect the public. The difference this will make is to provide supervision for those people who are walking the streets and committing crimes, leading to more victims of crime today. That is what these reforms are all about.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

If the Minister is interested in providing a quality service, why have probation trusts been forbidden to bid to run the new community rehabilitation companies? The trusts have the expertise.

[Chris Grayling]

Our probation staff are not prohibited from bidding. We have teams of staff who are preparing mutual bids, some of which will, I hope, be successful. They are receiving help from the Cabinet Office to do so, and we are hoping to see members of our current team take this opportunity, win contracts, and go on to make a real difference.