Philip Hollobone
Main Page: Philip Hollobone (Conservative - Kettering)Department Debates - View all Philip Hollobone's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Rory Stewart
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting question. Connected to the question of crowding in prisons is the question of how many people are sentenced. The two are clearly related. The Scottish Government have led on the question that the hon. Gentleman now raises: what is the point of sending someone to prison with a three-month sentence? What does that achieve? In effect, it means that somebody is in prison for less than six weeks. Is that really a length of time that allows them to take any kind of punishment and that will deter anybody? Above all, is it enough time to rehabilitate someone—to really turn their life around so that they do not reoffend? The evidence suggests that very short sentences are in fact likely to lead to more reoffending than a community sentence. It is an issue that we need to look at very carefully.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
In May 2016, the inspectorate of prisons rated Bedford as “not sufficiently good” on the four healthy prison tests. Since then, there has been a prison improvement plan, the prison has been put into special measures, and there has been a comprehensive action plan, yet when the inspectorate went back this September, Bedford’s rating on three of those healthy prison tests fell to 1, or “poor”, while its rating for resettlement remained at “not sufficiently good”. Am I wrong to say that that seems to suggest that the people running Bedford prison are simply not up to the job?
Rory Stewart
The question is absolutely right. In 2016, when the previous inspection report was published, Bedford prison was already in trouble. It then got significantly worse. There was a riot at the end of 2016, and it is extremely difficult to recover from a riot. When a riot happens in a prison, it takes a long time for that prison to stabilise again. We put the prison into special measures, and that is a long, hard road. I have talked about some of the improvements that we have made to mental health provision and some of the support around key workers. We have now increased staffing numbers dramatically compared with where we were in 2016, and we are bringing in a new management team, but it takes time to turn around deep-rooted problems of this sort. I believe that the green shoots are there, but sadly we are not going to see them overnight. That is why I am determined that we put in more investment now.