Lord Dholakia (LD)
My Lords, let me add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for this debate. Prisons have four major purposes: retribution; incapacitation; deterrence, although over 60% of offenders reoffend within two years; and rehabilitation, on which we do not even meet the requirements of the Trade Descriptions Act.
The past two months have seen a series of reports from the Prisons Inspectorate that highlight truly dreadful conditions in a number of our major prisons. On 13 July, the inspectorate published a report into Wandsworth prison which stated that it was one of the country’s most overcrowded prisons, filled with many men with drug and mental health problems, many of whom were locked in their cells during the working day. On 20 August, we learned that the public sector was taking immediate direct control of Birmingham prison from G4S after the inspectorate had found the prison in an appalling state with high levels of violence, widespread bullying, squalid living conditions and poor control by staff. Then, on 4 September, the inspectorate published a report on High Down prison which found increasing levels of violence and a very low level of purposeful activity, with 47% of prisoners being locked in their cells during the working day.
These reports followed the publication on 11 July of the inspectorate’s annual report for 2017-18 in which the Chief Inspector said that his inspections during the year had documented some of the most disturbing jail conditions the inspectorate had ever seen, with violence, drugs, suicide, self-harm, squalor and poor access to education being prominent themes. Incidents of self-harm in prisons are at the highest level ever recorded. Serious assaults in prison are at the highest level ever. Assaults on staff have risen by 158% in the past four years. Sexual assaults in prisons have more than tripled since 2012. It is impossible to ignore the fact that the deterioration in conditions in so many prisons has followed a swingeing cut in the budget of HM Prison and Probation Service of nearly a quarter between 2011 and 2015. That led to a cut in the number of front-line staff of 25% between 2010 and 2017. I welcome the recent increase in spending and recruitment of prison officers, but the fact remains that our prisons are struggling to cope, with far too many prisoners with too few resources to provide them with safe, decent and rehabilitative regimes.
There are two main reasons why so many of our prisons are severely overcrowded. The first is that we use prison too much for minor offences. In 2017, nearly half of the 65,000 sentenced prisoners entering prison were given sentences of six months or less. Research shows that community sentences are more effective than prison in reducing reoffending, yet the number of community sentences has halved in the last decade. The second reason for overcrowding is that sentence lengths are getting longer. For indictable-only offences, the average sentence length is now 57 months, compared with 32 months a decade ago. The result is that we have 141 prisoners for every 100,000 people in our general population, compared with 78 in Germany. We are not twice as criminal as the German people, so why do we need to imprison twice as many people as they do?
I would be grateful if the Minister could answer a number of questions. What plans do the Government have to reduce the unnecessary use of prison? Will they consider legislation to introduce a statutory presumption against the imposition of short prison sentences? Will they consider legislation to require sentencing guidelines to take account of the capacity of the prison system? Will they consider removing prison as an option for low-level, non-violent crimes? Will they consider prohibiting courts from using prison, except for dangerous offenders, unless they have first tried an intensive community supervision sentence? Finally, will they legislate to convert the sentences of existing IPP prisoners into determinate sentences once they have served a period equivalent to double their tariff? If not, what other plans do the Government have to eliminate prison conditions that have no place in any civilised society, let alone a developed country in the 21st century?
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, this is a popular debate taking place within a challenging timeframe and there is a noble Lord who wishes to speak in the gap. If the Minister is to have adequate time to respond to the many important points that are raised we need to keep well within the four-minute time limit.