Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Richard Holden

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I do not want to foreshadow what the Foreign Secretary may or may not say in her statement, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that with regard to the protocol, the Government’s overriding priority has been and continues to be preserving peace and stability in Northern Ireland.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend the Chancellor confirm that a worker working full time, or 40 hours a week, on the living wage is now £1,700 a year better off in real terms than they were in 2010 and that, after July, that will rise to almost £2,000, with everybody earning less than £36,000 a year better off under this Conservative Government this year?

Prisons (Substance Testing) Bill

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Richard Holden

Committee stage & Committee Debate 2 December 2020: House of Commons
Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Lucy Frazer]

[Mr Holden]

Prisons (Substance Testing) Bill

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Richard Holden

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Lucy Frazer]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised that point. As he repeated, we do have a multifaceted approach, including limiting the supply—the measures he identified are to do that—limiting demand and providing treatment. He is right that we did a pilot programme in 10 prisons, and as a result of that and other work, we have put forward a £100 million security package, which includes the airport scanners to detect drugs that have been ingested before being brought into prisons. We also have enhanced gate security for visitors and staff, we have mobile phone blockers and we have beefed up investment in the investigation of crimes, so that we can bring people to justice if do the things the hon. Member for West Ham talked about so passionately. We need to stop the crime of supply within our prisons.

The hon. Member for West Ham rightly focused on how we limit demand and actually treat people in our prisons. We have a number of initiatives on that. She will know about Holme House—our first drug recovery prison. It is a £9 million project jointly funded by the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health and Social Care. I am pleased to say that that programme will be evaluated early next year; the early signs are good, but the formal evaluation will take place next year. We also have that on a small scale in a number of prisons. We have enhanced drug-free wings. The hon. Lady rightly says that we should not be punishing and that we should be encouraging, and these drug-free units encourage and incentivise people to live a drug-free life. That is something we are very committed to increasing.

Treatment is very important, as the hon. Member for West Ham mentioned, and we need to help people get on treatment programmes. She rightly said that 90% of people coming into prison, where they are on those programmes, do have access to treatments within three weeks. In fact, 53,193 adults accessed drug and alcohol treatment services within prisons and secure settings between 2018 and 2019. I am pleased to say that 27% of those who were discharged after completing their treatment were free of dependence. The programmes that we are putting in place, having detected people who have problems, are therefore working, and I am pleased to say that that figure is an increase from the 24% who were successfully free of drugs two years earlier.

The hon. Member is right to point out that people sometimes turn to drugs in prison, when they have no hope and not much else to do. That is why we are committed to ensuring that we increase purposeful activity that will get people jobs when they come out. As evidence of that, she will know about our £2.5 billion spending programme for prison builds. We are absolutely committed to providing spaces where people can do good work and have good education in prisons.

Of course, we need to help those who unfortunately become addicted in prison. I do not shy away from the fact that that happens, but the measures in the Bill and all the other measures that I have identified will help us do that.

The hon. Member rightly talked about rough sleepers, and the link between them and prison. Around 60% of rough sleepers have been in prison in the last year, so there is a clear correlation between offending and homelessness. I have spoken previously about the close work that my Department is doing with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that we take people out of rough sleeping and into homes. That will have an impact on turning around the lives of those people who would otherwise come into our institutions.

In the spending review, the hon. Member will have seen the commitment to £237 million that the Prime Minister announced for accommodation for up to 6,000 rough sleepers. She will also have seen a further £144 million for associated support services and £262 million for substance misuse treatment services, which, when fully deployed, are expected to help more than 11,000 people a year. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, through our joint work, is not only taking people off the street, but giving them the treatment they need for their addiction. That spending is a 60% increase on the 2019 SR.

The hon. Member talked about other transitions into the community and between prisons. She is right to identify those points. We are already doing a significant amount of work on transitions into the community. She mentioned the important work that is being done in Wandsworth. That is not one of our RECONNECT programmes, but she will know that we have a RECONNECT service that the NHS is rolling out across the country. That is doing exactly what she identifies: ensuring that those who leave prison engage with community health services and supporting them to make that transition easier. Having spoken to the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care regularly, I know they are committed to rolling that out in the coming years, in full, everywhere and to every prison in the country.

I agree that there is more work to do on transferring between prisons. That relates to healthcare, NHS records and the work that we need do in prisons, but we are committed across the board to joining up the prisoner journey, not only in healthcare, but in other areas such as education.

The hon. Member mentioned naloxone. That point rightly comes up often, because it is important that, when we release prisoners who are addicted, there are no drastic consequences. Public Health England monitors the number of eligible prisoners who are given naloxone. Currently, 17% of those who have an opiate dependency get naloxone, which is up on previous years. I recognise that it could be more and I know that PHE is doing a piece of work at the moment to monitor performance in relation to take-home naloxone across all prison establishments and to identify best practice. I have spoken to them and they have an ambition that everybody will get it.

I hope I have addressed the hon. Member’s points. The Government are pleased to support the Bill that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham promoted and that my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham introduced today, and I commend it to the Committee.

[Mr Holden]

I thank hon. Members who have taken part today, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, who tried to introduce the measure in a previous Session as a ten-minute rule Bill. It did not quite reach Committee stage, but we are rocking on. I hope we can keep it going today. I thank the hon. Members for West Ham and for Enfield, Southgate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Richard Holden

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Helen’s law will help to ensure that failure to identify victims or their locations will count against those convicted of murder or child pornography who are seeking parole. Will the Government consider extending this to cover victims of rape, such as those at Medomsley Detention Centre? Some of those victims have taken their own lives and their families are now asking questions.

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend has consistently raised this important issue since he was elected to this place. I have a huge amount of sympathy for the victims affected by the abuse at Medomsley Detention Centre. He will know that Helen’s law places a statutory duty on the Parole Board to consider the non-disclosure of information in two very discrete circumstances—that is, failure to disclose information about a victim’s remains, or information on the identity of victims in indecent images—which are both within the knowledge of the perpetrator, but no one else. Rape and buggery are outside the scope of the Bill, but my hon. Friend should be comforted that the Parole Board already takes into account non-disclosure of information in any assessment prior to release.