HMP Long Lartin
Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Spicer
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
My Lords, I reject the term “powder keg”—that is simply not the case. But violent incidents occur and I am very grateful that we have the Tornado teams. I do not have the stats in front of me but I shall write to the noble Lord with exact figures on how many times they have been deployed. However, I think we can all agree that they are a necessary feature of our security.
Lord Spicer (Con)
My Lords, I was the Member of Parliament representing Long Lartin for 25 years, and I am very surprised by the intervention of the noble Lord from the Liberal Democrat party. I should have thought that the problem was the reverse of what he said about people being confined to their cells. It is a very sophisticated prison with a very sophisticated outer defence security system, with a great deal of freedom—I think too much—in its central part. I think it is the opposite of what the noble Lord said; it has been terribly lax in the centre, and in some ways it was an accident waiting to happen.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
I respectfully disagree with my noble friend. In the Ministry of Justice we are making sure that our governors have more powers than they had before. Long Lartin is running a full regime, it will be under the control of the governing governor and, as my noble friend says, it is a very sophisticated prison. Going back to the estate transformation programme, the point is that we need to build more of these sophisticated prisons, because they enable us to look after our more violent and dangerous criminals while giving them some sort of—I will not say quality of life—time outside their cells.