Prisons

Debate between Baroness Berridge and Lord Lee of Trafford

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to replace Victorian-era prisons with more modern facilities.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, since 2010, 20 prisons have closed, the majority of which were built prior to 1900, and four prisons and 11 house blocks were opened. Due to predicted changes in the prison population, no further closures are currently planned, save for those that have already been announced. The Prime Minister has committed £2.5 billion to build 10,000 new additional places. I hope the noble Lord is pleased to learn that it is the Government’s ambition to close old, inefficient prisons, but we cannot yet commit to closures of specific sites.

[Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister is personally ashamed of the size of the prison population, the violence, the self-harm, the drugs, the overcrowding and the £900 million maintenance backlog. Appearing before the Select Committee last week, the Prisons Minister, Lucy Frazer, acknowledged that even more prisoners were expected. She said:

“That will mean we need to keep our Victorian prisons in operation”.


Clearly the bang ’em up brigade is back in charge. When asked about the number of prisoners who suffer from a mental health problem, she replied:

“We have that number … I do not know whether I can share the number with you; it is way too high”.


Parliament is entitled to know that number. What is it?

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving me advance notice. The statistic that I have been provided with from a 2015 Ministry of Justice survey is that 40% of male remand prisoners have a common mental health problem. I agree with the noble Lord that that figure is too high, but I assure him that mental health training and specific self-harm and suicide prevention have been introduced into the basic prison officer training. Over 25,000 new and existing staff have completed at least one module of that latter training and 14,000 have completed the specific mental health module. I am also pleased to tell the noble Lord that the Samaritans were given £500,000 last year, and there is a commitment to give that amount every year for three years to help vulnerable prisoners.