Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Robert Neill

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The Justice Committee is proposing to hold an inquiry into future prison population and estate capacity, and I look forward to the Minister giving evidence to us about that. He will know that that is prompted in part by concerns that overall overcrowding in the adult male estate is some 23%, and it is much worse in many of the old local prisons. While he is right to draw attention to the Government’s new prison building programme, even if that were all completed on time, there would, according to figures we have seen, be a shortfall in March 2025 of about 2,300 places as against anticipated demand. What is going to be done to deal with that? Should we have a proper conversation with the public about what is a reasonable expectation of what can be done in prisons, what is the best use of prisons and who should be there?

[Damian Hinds]

On my hon. Friend’s last point, of course we must constantly be having an intelligent, constructive public debate about these matters. On the question of capacity, projections change, and there are many complex factors at play. I look forward, as ever, to being scrutinised by his Committee on that point.

It is important to note that crowding—doubling up in cells—has for a very long time been a feature of our prison system. Crowding overall is 2,000 fewer than it was when we came into government in 2010.

His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service

Debate between Damian Hinds and Robert Neill

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, for his opening remarks and, more broadly, for securing this important debate on this estimates day. I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate.

There can be no higher purpose for a Government than protecting the public from the devastating consequences of crime and maintaining a criminal justice system in which people have confidence. We have honoured our manifesto commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers and, through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, we have introduced tougher penalties for the most serious crimes and removed automatic halfway release of the most violent and sexual offenders so that the worst criminals are locked up for longer. We are building new state-of-the-art prisons that will not only give effect to the order of the court to take criminals off our street, but properly rehabilitate them so that they turn their backs on crime for good. That way, we can break the destructive cycle of offending that costs the taxpayer £18 billion a year and has an incalculable personal cost to the victims and communities blighted by it.

The PCSC Act also brought in better monitored and more effective community sentences, which were just mentioned by the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves). They punish offenders, tackle the underlying drivers of offending and support people who want to turn their lives around. Those measures include tougher and more flexible electronically monitored curfews. We aim to almost double the number of defendants and offenders tagged at any one time to reach 25,000 by March 2025.

We have recruited more than 50 new health and justice co-ordinators, who will cover every probation region and work with health partners so that offenders get the right treatment to stay on the straight and narrow. That will be underpinned by regular drug testing to monitor compliance. We are investing up to £93 million in community payback to drive up the hours of unpaid work done by offenders, so that they visibly pay their debt to society for the damage they have done.

We are achieving our vision to cut the youth custodial population, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. Roughly 3,000 children and young people were in custody in 2008-09; as of April this year, the number had fallen to around 600. It is also important to note that, in line with our female offender strategy, between 2018 and 2021, the average female prison population fell by 17%.

Our £100 million security investment programme to reduce crime inside prisons, including stemming the flow of illicit items such as drugs, mobile phones and weapons, was completed in March 2022. Enhanced gate security—including 659 staff, 154 drug dogs and over 200 pieces of equipment—has been deployed to 42 high-risk prison sites that routinely search staff and visitors. We now have 97 X-ray body scanners covering the entire closed male estate and they have recorded more than 28,000 positive indications.

To date, 89 prisons have completed their roll-out of PAVA synthetic pepper spray to stop violent prisoners in their tracks and we have introduced 13,000 new generation body-worn video cameras across the estate, with networked, cloud-based technology. These important investments rightly underpin our focus on the safety of staff and others in prison.

Linked to that, we need prisons to be a place where offenders overcome addiction, which is why we are rolling out abstinence-focused drug recovery wings and increasing the number of dedicated, incentivised substance-free living units across the estate, where prisoners commit to regular drug tests in return for incentives such as more gym time.

Alongside safety and security in prisons, we must invest in education and employment if we are to cut crime sustainably. We know that, if a prisoner can hold down a steady job, it reduces their chance of reoffending by up to nine percentage points, which is why we are driving forward initiatives to help prisoners to secure jobs on release, including through prison employment leads to match prisoners to jobs and employment advisory boards to build links between prisons and local industry, and to ensure that the skills being taught in prisons align with what is demanded and required in the local labour market.

I agree that we need to go further on education. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) spoke about the Shannon Trust and I pay tribute to its work. I confirm that we are extending what we do with the literacy innovation fund across 15 prisons. There is also a much sharper understanding of neurodiversity in our prison population, and I am pleased that we will have neurodiversity support managers across the estate by January 2024. I am also excited about the prospect of the first secure school, which we will be doing in partnership with the Oasis Trust. It is a different approach from those in youth custody, further elevating the role of education.

Ensuring proper support is on offer beyond the prison gates is also crucial if we are to help offenders stay on the straight and narrow, so we are improving pre-release planning and continuity of care. We want to ensure that no one supervised by probation is released from prison homeless. Our new transitional accommodation scheme—community accommodation service tier 3, so below the level of bail hostels—helps us to deliver on that commitment. It was initially delivered in five probation regions in 2021, but our investment is expanding to operate across all of England and Wales by April 2024.

We are also investing in pre-release teams, which have been embedded in 67 prisons and provide an important interface for commissioned rehabilitative services that help ex-prisoners with accommodation, personal wellbeing, employment, training and education. To improve continuity of care for prison leavers with substance misuse or wider health issues, we are recruiting more than 50 health and justice co-ordinators with responsibility for ensuring more joined-up support between prison, probation and healthcare treatment services. Where appropriate, alcohol monitoring on licence is available.

Small things that the rest of us can take for granted can make all the difference, for good or ill. That is why we have introduced resettlement passports, set up ahead of release, to bring together the essentials that offenders need in one place: bank accounts, CVs and the identification people need to prove the right to work and to rent a flat. We have also supported the Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Act 2023, which recently received Royal Assent, having started out as a private Member’s Bill. It will enable offenders at risk of reoffending to be released up to two days earlier, to avoid what can be the hectic rush of trying to get round different services on a Friday.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst asked specifically about magistrates’ sentencing powers. Given the time, I should not talk about that in great detail now. We have had a chance to talk about it in the Select Committee. On his specific question about working with the judiciary, we are working with the Judicial Office as part of the review we are undertaking on the changes and plan to engage magistrates on it. We should have completed that review by the autumn.

My hon. Friend and others rightly asked about capacity, the role of Operation Safeguard and other shorter-term capacity measures, as well as the longer-term capital programme. Since October 2022, we have seen an acute and exceptional rise in the prison population. Operation Safeguard is a temporary measure to provide a short-term solution to that acute rise in demand. He asked how much of that capacity has been used. The answer is that it goes up and down; it is a facility to be drawn on as needed. The average over the period is really quite low, but there are days when its usage is greater. Standing it up has provided us with vital extra short-term resilience as we develop further that longer-term capital programme.

As of April, we had invested £1.3 billion in capital towards the delivery of the 20,000 additional, modern prison places to which my hon. Friend referred. By the end of June, about 5,400 of those places had been added to the estate. That includes the two new 1,700-place prisons, HMPs Five Wells and Fosse Way, with the latter having accepted its first prisoners at the end of May.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am grateful to the Minister for that update. Those who have been to Five Wells and Fosse Way recognise what an advance they are in design and facilities. Will he give us a specific update on where we are in the stalled planning process on the other three prisons, which are still stuck in the system? When are we likely to get those moving forward?

[Damian Hinds]

As my hon. Friend well knows—he was previously a leading light in ministerial office, dealing with local government—we do not control the planning process. I am therefore not in a position to give him a bang-up-to-date update, except to say that those three projects remain part of our plan. Overall, this is a complex capital programme and we need to deal with external factors, including working through the planning process.

[Sir Robert Neill]

Perhaps the Minister could write to me and the Select Committee to set out where we are with those projects. Have they gone to appeal yet? If so, has any indication been given as to when the hearings will take place?

[Damian Hinds]

Of course, I will be delighted to correspond in that way with my hon. Friend.

We are also rolling out 1,000 rapid deployment cells across the estate. The first three sites, HMPs Norwich, Wymott and Hollesley Bay, are now accepting prisoners, and the majority of the 1,000 additional places will be delivered this year. We are undertaking major refurbishments at sites including HMPs Birmingham, Liverpool and Norwich, delivering about 800 cells between them. The wing-by-wing refurbishment at HMP Liverpool will see every cell renovated. Construction has also started on new house blocks at HMPs Stocken, Hatfield, Sudbury and Rye Hill, which will add around 850 places between them. HMP Millsike, the new prison of some 1,500 places by HMP Full Sutton, will open in 2025. Our new prisons have a laser-sharp focus on rehabilitation, with workshops and cutting-edge technology that puts education, training and jobs front and centre, so every prisoner gets the right opportunity to turn over a new leaf.

Like many, or most, workforces, the Prison Service has experienced recruitment and retention challenges at a time of very low unemployment. Ensuring our services are sufficiently resourced and that we retain levels of experience are fundamental for delivering quality outcomes. That is why we are targeting the drivers of staff attrition and taking steps to improve recruitment, alongside a wider agenda of development in the workforce.

We welcome the Justice Committee’s important inquiry into the prison operational workforce and we have worked closely with the Committee to provide evidence. We are now closely considering the survey of prison staff, and I reaffirm that we take the issues of the morale and safety of staff with the greatest gravity. Prison staff do incredible work and, so often, are the hidden heroes of our justice system and society. In every prison I have visited, their dedication and drive are clear to see.

We fund a range of services to support staff wellbeing, which include care teams in public sector prisons that are trained to provide support to any member of staff involved in an incident at work. We are committed to making sure our prison staff feel safe, supported and valued, and we look forward to receiving the Committee’s full report and recommendations in due course.

The 2022-23 prison staff pay award was announced in July 2022. It represented a significant investment in the workforce. Alongside an increase in base pay of at least 4% for all staff between bands 2 and 11, we targeted further pay rises for our lowest-paid staff of up to £3,000.

The probation service is in its second year of a multi-year pay deal for staff. Salary values of all pay bands will increase each year, targeted at key operational grades to improve what has been a challenging recruitment and retention position. The pay increases differ for different job roles, but to provide an example, probation officers will see their starting salary rise from around £30,200 in 2021-22 to a little over £35,000 by 2024-25.

Let me respond briefly to some of the individual points made by colleagues during the debate. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) asked about crowding in prisons. The most recent statistics show crowding at 20.6% in the estate; by way of comparison, in 2009, that figure was 25.3%.

My near neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), raised the horrific crime of overkill. I have heard what she says and I will pass on those points within the Department.

I commend the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for his close association and work with the Prison Officers Association. I confirm that I will continue to look forward to speaking with the Prison Officers Association and other staff bodies throughout the Prison and Probation Service. He was right to identify the centrality of safety and security in people’s experience of work. I reassure him that we measure those things centrally through the key performance indicators that we have in prisons.

Multiple Members rightly talked about rehabilitation. Specifically on the question about education providers asked by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, it is true that there are four education providers contracted to provide education services through the prison system. However, there is also a flexible fund that enables individual governors to draw down funds to make supplementary provision in certain ways. It is important that we get a blend—that we are able to respond to local conditions and the specifics of a prison population, and have some commonality in the provision and in the qualification studies.

Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentences

Debate between Damian Hinds and Robert Neill

Thursday 27th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Robert Neill]

Will the Minister set out, either here or in the Library, what evidence he has that suggests the risk is significantly greater at five years as opposed to 10? What statistics lead to that decision?

[Damian Hinds]

We will continue to engage with my hon. Friend’s Committee in the normal way. It is perfectly reasonable of him to challenge us. I was coming on to say something about the licence periods.

Although we will not be reducing the eligibility period for licence termination at this time, we have committed in the action plan to review the current policy and practice for suspending the supervisory elements of IPP licences to ensure that all cases are considered at the point when they are eligible, which, for the supervisory element, is after five continuous successful years on licence in the community. My hon. Friend will be aware of the changes that we made in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 in regard to making sure that eligible cases are brought forward.

Colleagues have expressed legitimate concern about the high number of IPP offenders recalled to custody, and asked about the proportionality of that. I assure colleagues that in 2020 His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation did a thematic report on recall in terms of its proportionality, and it found that decisions to recall were proportionate. As part of our action plan, we will be internally reviewing our recall processes. We are also asking His Majesty’s inspector of probation—the chief inspector—to undertake a thematic inspection of recalls specifically for IPP and for that to happen in this calendar year. He will also look at the weeks leading up to recall—I know that this is a significant point that matters to colleagues, and rightly so— and consider whether, had the support on offer been different, recall could have been avoided. I thank the chief inspector for stepping up to undertake that piece of work.

I will move on to the IPP action plan, but first may I ask what time I must finish by, Mr Twigg?

Probation Service: Chief Inspector’s Reviews into Serious Further Offences

Debate between Damian Hinds and Robert Neill

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

May I thank the Minister for his statement, for his courtesy in letting me know about it, for the tone he has adopted and for his swift action in relation to these dreadful and appalling cases? Perhaps the House will permit me to say that this is particularly frustrating for me, because in the Justice Committee’s April 2021 report on the future of probation we listed a number of risks, including failures of information sharing, over-reliance on inexperienced and overworked officers, risks around transition with the policy of reuniting the service—that policy is absolutely correct, but those risks were there—and concerns about the quality of reports made available to the courts and of information available to sentencers and for monitoring. All those risks were being set out then, and sadly the service did not act on them.

In light of that, as well as the steps that the Minister has taken, will he consider these things? Will he strengthen the abilities and resources of His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation to enable it to follow up on its recommendations in the same way as the resources of His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons were increased to have dedicated follow-up teams to ensure that recommendations are swiftly acted on? Secondly, will the Minister make a special point of looking at a comprehensive workforce strategy for probation to ensure not only that we retain experienced officers, but that those who are recruited into this worthwhile and rewarding role are given support and training? Finally, will he also look to move away from the practice of having meetings between probation officers and clients by video? That was understandable during the pandemic, but it cannot be acceptable now, and it is one of the failings highlighted in this case.

[Damian Hinds]

I take seriously everything that the Chair of the Select Committee says, and we welcome the scrutiny of the Committee and the expertise that its members bring. I will look carefully at everything he has just said. Let me just make a couple of comments, if I may. First, the follow-up of recommendations obviously is important. Internally, HM Prison and Probation Service auditors will review the delivery of quality improvement plans, particularly in those areas. That goes beyond these two appalling cases to more generally where we know there have been problems that need to be addressed. I accept what he says about recommendations made in the past, but I reassure him that many of the things I have mentioned today are not things we are just committing to today, things that we say we will do in the future; these are things that are already happening and have been happening between these cases and today, or have been happening in the past few months.

Prison Capacity

Debate between Damian Hinds and Robert Neill

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

The Minister is right, of course, to take this urgent action, and to say that this is not the first time it has had to be done. Does he recognise that two factors are at play here? One is the underlying upward trend in prisoner numbers over the past couple of decades. Those numbers have risen exponentially, and perhaps there is a case for us to look again at whether it is appropriate to be holding non-violent offenders in custody, as opposed to the dangerous people who we do need to lock up. Secondly, the Minister refers to the levels of investment in maintenance, but as he will know, the Justice Committee has more than once pointed out that even with increased spending on maintenance, there is still a significant backlog and shortfall in the maintenance budget. Many prison cells are therefore out of commission and not usable, when they ought to be brought back into use. What is being done to accelerate the maintenance programme to get more cells back into use?

[Damian Hinds]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for those important questions and points. He is right that the prison population has been growing of late, although it is not at its highest level ever. Part of that is because of tougher sentences for the worst offences, which I think is right and what the public expect and want. For other types of crime, it is important that we utilise alternatives to custodial sentences—for instance, drug desistance and advanced tagging, which is much improved—which can, on occasion, be better for getting certain individuals back on the straight and narrow.

My hon. Friend also rightly asked about maintenance, and accelerated maintenance. In fact, that is precisely what we have done. Two and a half times as many cells are currently undergoing capital works than would ordinarily be the case, precisely because we have brought forward some capital work to improve the estate. We are indeed planning for the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Robert Neill

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

In 2018, HM Inspectorate of Prisons issued an urgent notification document setting out serious failings at HM Prison Exeter. Last week, the inspectorate, for the first time ever, issued a second consecutive notification about the same prison. I am grateful to the Minister of State for his courtesy in giving me advance notice of it, but will he look urgently at why the failings were not picked up in the four years in between?

[Damian Hinds]

I will indeed. I take this extremely seriously, as my hon. Friend knows. This is the first time that we have had two consecutive urgent notifications about the same prison. The Department will come forward with a full action plan within 28 days. As he rightly says, this is a very serious matter.