Prison Safety

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz, and I welcome the prisons Minister to his new role. This is our first occasion debating opposite each other in Westminster Hall and I hope it is the first of many. I also thank the chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) for bringing this matter before the House today. I will not comment on the speech of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), as much comment has already been made, but there have been very knowledgeable and expert contributions to today’s debate. There is a very large measure of agreement, which I hope bodes well for the future of prison policy implementation and scrutiny.

[Philip Davies]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady is not able to engage in a debate and only wants to deal with people who agree with her. Will she set out for the public’s benefit whether she therefore agrees that people should be automatically released halfway through the sentence, irrespective of whether they are still a danger to the public and of how badly they have behaved in prison? Is that Labour’s official policy—those people should be automatically released halfway through the prison sentence by law?

[Jo Stevens]

People are released from prison when they no longer pose a risk to public safety and when the Parole Board considers that they are fit.

There have been some great speeches today. The Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, spoke of his concern that the less safe prisons are, the harder it is to achieve reform. I think we can all agree on that. He also observed that he does not detect a sense of urgency from the new Secretary of State. I agree with him on that point, and I sincerely hope that he and I are both wrong.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) spoke of the staggering statistics on homicides, violence, self-harm and riots, which illustrate the serious problems in the Prison Service at the moment. I am glad that he also mentioned the unique situation, as did the former prisons Minister, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), of IPP prisoners, which is a legacy that needs to be dealt with urgently. Perhaps the best line from my right hon. Friend’s speech was that autumn leaves are falling and we are still awaiting the autumn plan.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) talked about the lack of zeal and knowledge that became apparent from the new Secretary of State’s appearance before the Justice Committee last week, which is of some concern. He also talked with great knowledge about his local prison Wormwood Scrubs and, most worryingly, the staffing reductions on the horizon in that already very volatile prison.

The hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who has now left her place, talked about the strong leadership and statements on reform from the previous Secretary of State and Prime Minister and the then ministerial team. I echo her view that we need to see that from the new ministerial team. I am sure that we will.

I enjoyed standing across the Dispatch Box from the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire and we had many exchanges. I was pleased to hear his very knowledgeable and measured comments today, on both what is not in the response to the report and what is. I share his concern that, in terms of holding prison governors to account, accommodation outcomes and employment are missing from that response.

The state of our prisons and the growing levels of violence in them shame our nation. Today, there has been a large measure of agreement, despite party allegiances, that the current state of affairs is simply not acceptable. That is why I, along with my former Front-Bench colleagues in the shadow justice team, welcomed the former Prime Minister’s speech and the former Justice Secretary’s commitment to place prison reform at the heart of this year’s Queen’s Speech. We heard a lot about good intentions. Prison staff, prisoners and their families, stakeholders and the public had their expectations raised that finally the need for prison reform was being seen as part of a wider social reform agenda to help people change their lives for the better. It is very unfortunate that they appeared to have been let down last week by the new Justice Secretary in her evidence—but more of that later.

In his last report as chief inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick stated that prisons were

“in their worst state for 10 years.”

In his short tenure, the new chief inspector, Peter Clarke has realised that the situation has got “even worse” since then. As the Government presses ahead with cuts to the Ministry of Justice’s budget, our prisons become even more dangerous places in which to live and work. I make no bones about putting this on the record—it has been said before. On a daily basis, prison staff are being attacked, prisoner-on-prisoner assaults are increasing, time out of cells for offenders is being cut, more offenders are being forced to share cells, rehabilitation and training programmes for offenders are being cut, education provision is being reduced and services are being privatised or delivered through untested payment-by-results programmes. Prison officers have been living with the reality of working within a prison system that is creaking at the seams, due to starvation of the funds it needs to function effectively and safely. Overcrowded prisons where people spend 23 hours a day locked in cells on wings with too few staff inevitably leads to violence, suicide and self-harm. We need to take bold action to reduce the size of the prison population in order to improve safety.

I welcome the Committee’s recommendation that the Ministry and NOMS draw up together an action plan to improve prison safety, but in order for prisons to be safe, secure and the places of rehabilitation that they are supposed to be, we need to employ more prison officers. I cannot stress enough the simplicity and importance of that fact, which has been repeated by many hon. Members in the debate today. There is very little that we can do with high-quality health and education services in our prisons if we do not have enough prison officers to escort prisoners to lessons, to hospital or even—in some cases—just to get their food.

I want to make it clear that I am not criticising those currently working for the Prison Service and I would like to take the opportunity to praise hard-working prison staff across the country. They are vital to ensuring public safety and their work is often overlooked. It is an extremely complex job and the role that they play in rehabilitation is one that we must never underestimate or take for granted. They are a dedicated group of public servants and they do vital work, which is why it is so disappointing that the numbers of front-line staff have been slashed in recent years to meet the budget cuts imposed by the Treasury.

As we have heard, there are 7,000 fewer prison officers than there were in March 2010. The loss of that many uniformed staff from the Prison Service continues to undermine the safety and security of our prisons and puts staff and offenders at even greater risk. We now have the toxic combination of prisons full of inexperienced prison officers and experienced prisoners, which is a recipe for violence.

I share the Select Committee’s concern about the Government’s failed recruitment drive. Given the growing prison population and the rise in staff assaults, it is no wonder that it is a struggle to recruit into the Prison Service and that retention is so poor. We must properly protect the health, safety and wellbeing of those who work in our Prison Service. I also welcome the Select Committee’s call for quarterly progress reports, and I am waiting with interest to hear what plans the Minister has lined up to ensure better and more successful recruitment and retention of prison staff.

I have heard at first hand from countless organisations and individuals about the dangers and implications that the lack of safety in our prisons has for prison staff and prisoners. Each time I raised that issue with the former prisons Minister, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, he agreed that the current safety levels are unacceptable. He said that the new Bill, which we were awaiting, would include measures to tackle those issues.

On 6 September in Justice questions, I raised the issue with the new Justice Secretary, who said:

“I fully acknowledge that we do have issues with violence and safety in our prisons. The levels are unacceptable. I am determined to deal with this issue and I will lay out my plans very shortly.”—[Official Report, 6 September 2016; Vol. 614, c. 202.]

Yet not even 24 hours later, in her evidence session with the Select Committee, she point blank refused to guarantee that the Government would proceed with prison reform legislation to improve prison safety, much to the astonishment of the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst.

The same evidence session also revealed that, despite the fact that the report was published in May, there had been no response to it. We received the response only two days ago. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith said, it is a paltry two and a bit pages. That does not suggest that the Government really are taking the issue of prison safety seriously. If I were a member of the Justice Committee, I would be pretty insulted by it.

In the same evidence session, the new Justice Secretary said she was looking into a number of urgent issues raised by Committee members. In fact, she said that 39 times. My question for the Minister is, is the plan for prison reform shelved or delayed? When are we going to see it? As far as I can see, there is no strategy for improving a decimated, but previously award-winning, probation service, and no idea about the benefits of our Human Rights Act. What exactly has the Justice Secretary been looking into during the summer recess? It certainly does not appear to have been a proper and timely response to the Justice Committee’s report.

The response contains no commitment to meet the Committee’s central recommendation of producing quarterly progress reports on prison safety and staffing numbers. To add insult to injury, the Government said that prison officer staff numbers have risen. That is unacceptable. The numbers are clearly lower than they were 12 months ago, as I pointed out to the Justice Secretary during Justice questions on 6 September. We now have 421 fewer full-time equivalent front-line prison officers working in our public prisons than we did a year ago.

I have some questions for the Minister, in addition to those of my hon. Friends, which I hope he will answer. Where is the promised programme of prison officer recruitment, which was to deliver the real and necessary increases to officer numbers required to provide a safe, decent and secure regime? Where is the national strategy, highlighted by the chief inspector of prisons, to help to make our prisons drug-free? Where is the commitment to the plan and the timetable for increases in prison capacity that will see an end to the institutionalised overcrowding of our prisons?

It has been said that we are going to have five new prisons by 2020. I would like the name of the builders—they are obviously very quick at their job, given that they have not done much of it yet. I am very interested to hear from the Minister more detail about where, when and how that is going to happen.

Finally, time after time and at great cost to the public purse, reports into the dangers, problems and failures faced by the Prison Service have made many, often repeated, recommendations for improvements, but they have not been implemented. Will the Minister, in his new role, change that pattern? I hope he will say yes.

Today another 15 prison officers will have been assaulted at work. The same will happen tomorrow and the next day and the next day. We need to take urgent action to put a stop to that. I welcome the Justice Committee’s report, and I urge the Justice Secretary and her Ministers to implement its recommendations urgently. We cannot afford further delay on this matter. Lives are being lost, serious injuries are being sustained and livelihoods are being ruined. This issue is too big and important to be kicked into the long grass.

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[Mr Gyimah]

It is encouraging to know I am not the only minority here.

The comments made by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) were music to my ears—I am referring not to his comments about early release and so on, but to his recognition that the new ministerial team is in transition. It is worth stating up front that it is eight and a half weeks since the new ministerial team came to post, and in two or three months’ time we will be having a very different debate. We are committed to coming forward with a new plan, and I am confident that its contents will be as strong, if not stronger, than the Select Committee expects on the issues that have been outlined.

I would go as far as to say that the Secretary of State should be commended for not doing what is very easy to do in a new job: seek a couple of headline-grabbing announcements that are not based on evidence. The Secretary of State is determined to look at the evidence and come up with a plan that addresses the need for safety in our prisons and also focuses on reform.

[Jo Stevens]

As all this was set out in the Queen’s Speech many months ago, can the Minister explain why work now needs to be done so that he can announce his plans in two to three months’ time?

[Mr Gyimah]

The Queen’s Speech was seminal, as has been mentioned, in that it made reform of prisons part of social reform. That reform would give governors freedom in rehabilitation but, as the statistics that have been referred to ad nauseam show, safety and security in our prisons is also a challenge. We need a strategy that deals with both those aspects of the programme. Safety and security were not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is bringing forward a plan that brings those two things together.

On the issue of reform, let me be clear that the Secretary of State and I are absolutely committed to reforming our prison system, as set out in the Queen’s Speech. I am determined to ensure that our prisons are places of safety and reform, where offenders can get off drugs, improve their education and get the skills they need so they are less likely to offend. Our prison system needs to be fit for today’s demands. The improved physical environment, which will be safer, will have better rehabilitative services and will empower governors to focus on delivering better outcomes within their prisons.

Today, a number of comments have been made about the urgency of the task ahead. I assure the House that we do not underestimate the severity of the challenge, and the Ministers tasked with such a huge responsibility feel its fierce urgency. As hon. Members know, we are investing £1.3 billion to reform and modernise the prison estate to make it more efficient, safer and focused on supporting prisoner rehabilitation. Given our commitment to swap old Victorian prisons for new ones, therefore, the great thing is that the money is available. When the Secretary of State comes out with her plan—I will come on to some of the detail in my speech—we will see how that is to be achieved.

We want to see prisons run by governors capable of providing outstanding leadership. It has been mentioned that many governors do not feel that they have the freedom to deal with challenges on the ground, and I want to see governors who have the freedom, ability, time and resources to manage safety and security risks, while rehabilitating offenders.

Our goal is to see frontline staff working in decent, ordered and well organised prisons that treat prisoners with humanity and ensure that those staff are able to spend time helping offenders to develop their potential. We want a system that is better able to identify the emerging factors and threats that will impact on prisons, a system that can address them proactively. This is a particularly important point. We have referred to drugs and to drones, and such threats, including mobile phones, will continue to evolve. In the plan that we will present, we want to address not only the challenges of today, but the emerging threats on the horizon.

Improving outcomes for prisoners is better for us all, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) so eloquently put it. Reducing offenders’ reoffending means fewer victims and less crime. The Secretary of State has already assured the House that we will be setting out the Government’s plans for prison safety and reform this autumn. Since becoming Justice Secretary, she has been clear that she wants to continue prison reform at pace.

Safety, too, is crucial in our prisons. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), in a forensic speech, highlighted the safety statistics and how terrible they are. Safe, decent and secure prisons are a fundamental part of our reform ambitions, and I am of course acutely aware of our existing problems.

Anyone who has been prisons Minister knows that we get daily incident reports and, no matter what the time of day, we are woken up if a serious incident that Ministers need to be aware of happens. Prisons Ministers and Secretaries of State live with what is happening in our prisons day in, day out—we cannot ignore it. I am sure that hon. Members agree that the rising levels of violence against prisoners and staff, and self-harm and self-inflicted deaths, are not acceptable and require our immediate and urgent attention.

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[Mr Gyimah]

I will come on to the incentive structure in a moment, but I will deal first with the point about staffing.

Any discussion of staffing should acknowledge the brave and invaluable work that prison officers, staff, volunteers and governors do every day. I am determined to see that they, just as much as those in their care, are safe and properly supported. The recruitment and retention of staff in prisons is a high priority and, as I have said, part of the necessary response to the problems. For example, at prisons in the south-east that have presented persistent challenges, we have launched targeted recruitment campaigns to attract and retain the right people. We are ensuring that prison officers have the skills necessary to deal with such issues, which is why training for our prison officers has been increased from six to 10 weeks. We are also examining additional ways to retain high-quality and experienced staff.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire made an important point about the task required of prison officers today—it is about not just numbers or training but what the job is. That is an important point, because we do not want prison officers simply to be turnkeys, locking people up and letting them out. We want them to have a key worker role, building closer and more professional relationships with prisoners. As my hon. Friend knows, that is very much part of the offender management model that we are looking to roll out across the prison estate.

I turn to some of the key threats that have been highlighted in the debate. The House is aware that the dynamic within prisons has changed, contributing to the rises we have seen in levels of violence, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths. In fact, what we see in prisons is a magnification of what we see in society more broadly—in particular, the proliferation of psychoactive substances, and the evolution of technology such as metal-free phones and drones, which enables drugs to be brought within our prison walls.

The Chairman of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, mentioned the £10 million investment to deal with prison safety issues secured under the previous Secretary of State. That has been distributed to the prisons that are experiencing the worst levels of violence. Over the coming weeks and months, we will provide more information on how that is working for our prison system.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury put very well the point that psychoactive substances are having a serious and significant impact on the safe running of our prisons. That view is commonly held, and many in the Chamber are aware of it, as is the chief inspector, Peter Clarke. For the communities inside prisons, however, such substances have dramatically changed the dynamic. There is the impact on an individual’s behaviour as a result of taking the drugs, and the impact on driving an illicit prison economy. The power of drugs such as spice and mamba cannot be overestimated. They are dangerous, mind-altering drugs that fuel unpredictable and violent behaviour.

What have we done? The varying ways in which substances can be smuggled into prisons—as tobacco, or even sprayed in liquid form on to paper—contribute to the challenge our professional staff face in keeping such harmful and damaging drugs out. We are, however, taking decisive action to tackle that ever growing threat, and we have introduced new legislation to combat the use of drugs and psychoactive substances in prisons.

The Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 has made these drugs illegal, and we have introduced new criminal offences for the supply and possession of psychoactive substances. In addition, the Serious Crime Act 2015 introduced a new offence of throwing anything into a prison. As a result, those who smuggle packages over prison walls, including of psychoactive substances, can face sentences of up to two years.

[Jo Stevens]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous. Does he think that if there were more staff in our prisons, some of the problems that he has just talked about, such as the smuggling of drugs—of any type, not necessarily just psychoactive substances—mobile phones and other contraband into prisons would be reduced?

[Mr Gyimah]

I have acknowledged that staffing is part of the response that is needed, but let me take one of the hon. Lady’s examples: mobile phones. The best way to deal with mobile phones is to ensure that they cannot work in prisons. I have with me a prop. This book—“Gavin & Stacey”—was sent to a prisoner. I did not realise that there was such a book.

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[Mr Gyimah]

The Chairman of the Justice Committee is once again spot on. I am particularly concerned about the rate of repairs in our prisons. Carillion is one company that has a contract and receives public funds to perform such work, and I have not been impressed by what I have heard about its response speed. I will meet its management to ensure that it delivers what we expect.

We are taking several other operational measures. They are not glamorous or exciting—not all of them will grab headlines—but they show how gritty we have to be to address the problem of safety in our prisons. We are making operational improvements, such as rolling out body-worn cameras. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire is right that we should be driven by the evidence, which suggests that having cameras does not on its own necessarily solve the problem. Some prisoners say that cameras, on their own, could actually escalate situations, so they should be used with the five-minute intervention system. We are piloting a new case management programme for violent prisoners; updating assessment, care in custody and teamwork—the care planning process for prisoners at risk of suicide or self-harm, which the right hon. Member for Delyn was particularly concerned about—and creating a violence reduction taskforce to support and advise establishments with high rates of violence. We are also trialling a body scanner in Wandsworth prison, as has been mentioned.

Work and education in our prisons are also key; they are valuable in addressing reoffending, and I am committed to that. Today, we announced the transfer from the Department for Education to the Ministry of Justice of responsibility for education and training provision for those subject to adult detention in England. For anyone who was in any doubt that we are committed to reform, that is one piece of proof that we are committed and determined to proceed at pace. That so-called business of government transfer will enable us to give prison governors more power for delivering education in prisons.

[Jo Stevens]

Does the Minister agree that for someone who is locked up in their cell for 23 hours a day because of staff shortages, getting out to do education is difficult, if not impossible?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady makes absolutely the right point. We want prisoners to have time out of their cells to engage in work, education and training. I want us to have a mature debate, so let us not try to say that staffing is the only response to the challenges in our prisons. I have acknowledged that it must be part of our response, but we need a comprehensive response.