Privately Financed Prisons

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I think that is something we share across the Benches. Both sides of the House share a common desire: to reduce crime and reoffending, and turn around people’s lives. It is a terrible waste that nearly 40% of our prison population have been in care, that nearly 50% have been excluded from school, and that the literacy level of nearly 50% is lower than that of an 11-year-old. The rates of reoffending have been stubbornly high for 40 or 50 years.

We need to work together to crack these problems. Decent, clean, well run and well managed prisons are part of the key. Another part is getting cross-party consensus on the difficult and brave political choices required to begin to reduce the prison population and protect the public through a reduction in reoffending.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Yesterday, the Minister confirmed that the Carillion contract for facilities had not been managed well by his Department and had resulted in additional costs to Carillion. What guarantees can he give the House that the contract for the new prison will be managed in an effective way? Will he ensure that the contract is published and subject to freedom of information, so that we can scrutinise his decisions?

[Rory Stewart]

The right hon. Gentleman has enormous experience of the issue, having been the prisons Minister responsible for managing private prisons. He is therefore aware that one reason we can stand up in front of the House and say we are confident we can do this is that we have been doing it for 25 years.

Some 14 private sector prisons are operating, with good reports from the inspectors. We have a lot of experience of how this is done. This is not a new area of Government activity; the right hon. Gentleman himself managed exactly these prisons. The key is balancing proper competition, which brings in diversity and innovation, with the right key performance indicators to make sure that we stay on top of that performance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for visiting Pentonville prison. I was lucky enough to be there two weeks ago, and I pay tribute to its excellent governor for the very good work he is doing. It is one of the most testing, busy London local prisons, and it faces a huge number of issues, but protecting prison officers is fundamentally about having a predictable, stable regime, enough prison officers on the landing, the right kind of training and relationships to calm things down, and, ultimately, protection.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Given that the number of assaults on prison officers has risen by 23% in the past 12 months, what assessment has the Minister made of new psychoactive substances causing that problem? When does he expect the roll-out of body-worn cameras to be complete?

[Rory Stewart]

The right hon. Gentleman is a very experienced predecessor in my job. Clearly there is a strong correlation with these new psychoactive substances; it is difficult otherwise to account for the huge rise in violence. The substances seem to drive both self-harming behaviour and extreme violent behaviour. I will give a written answer on exactly when we will fulfil the body-worn camera programme.

Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill (Money)

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Act 2012 out of money so provided.—(Rory Stewart.)

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I was about to put the Question, but Mr Hanson wishes to speak.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I was simply going to ask the Minister how much.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

This is about bringing in new technology. What this is really about is powers that will enable the Secretary of State to spend money, once the new technology is developed, to insert the new material. The approximate cost would be in the low millions per site, but we do not have the exact costs at the moment.

[David Hanson]

Well, I am grateful for that. If that is the low millions per site for every prison in the United Kingdom, perhaps the Minister can tell me, as I asked, how much and when.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

I rise to respond to the excellent speech made by the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) and the question asked by the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson).

[David Hanson]

Again, I am interested to know how much. It is important that there is some context. I support the objectives of the Bill; I just want to get a flavour of the amounts involved.

[Rory Stewart]

This is a sensitive issue. We are clearly trying to prevent organised criminal gangs from using mobile telephones in prisons, for all the reasons mentioned by the hon. Member for Bradford East. We therefore cannot be too specific about exactly where we are going to put these devices or exactly how we are going to interfere with mobile telephones. The answer that I have given is a broad figure in the ballpark of a few million pounds per site. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman would wish me to share with the House the exact number of sites at which we are going to do this and which sites we will target first.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) for all her extraordinary work as a Conservative Back Bencher to introduce the Bill. As the hon. Member for Bradford East pointed out, this is vital. There is a plague of mobile telephones that are being used to deal illicit drugs and to fuel violence. We need to cut down on them with better searching both at the prison gates and in cells, and we can also do much more to block the technology. With many thanks to Members, I commend the money resolution to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I am aware of the case and I was very pleased to discuss it. Police dog Finn did a remarkable thing, and I know that he has been recognised for his work. The Government are looking at the issue.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

But will the Minister support the Bill on Friday?

Leaving the EU: Justice System

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I welcome the Minister to her role in the Ministry of Justice. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill)—as a member of the Justice Committee, he is my hon. Friend—and his introduction to the work we have undertaken. I want to focus on a couple of the issues we have raised in the Justice Committee report and some of the issues with the Government’s response.

We set out four principal aims in the report that should be central to the Government’s approach to justice post-Brexit: continuing to co-operate as closely as possible on criminal justice; maintaining access to the EU’s valuable regulations on inter-state commercial law; enabling cross-border legal practice rights and opportunities; and retaining efficient mechanisms to resolve family law cases, to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

If I may, I will focus on criminal legislation and criminal law. In our summary to the report, we said:

“Crime is ever more international.”

Self-evidently, crime does not respect borders. The EU mechanisms to combat illegal activities across borders include many EU institutions. For example, through the European arrest warrant, we have facilities to extradite and bring back to this country people who have committed or are suspected of having committed serious offences. We have investigative resources through the European agencies—Europol and Eurojust—that support police, prosecutors and judges. We also have information-sharing tools that give rapid access to suspects’ criminal records and biometric information. All those things are extremely important in ensuring that our constituents have justice and that we have the opportunity to deport people who have committed serious offences in this country to face justice back in their home jurisdictions in Europe.

We put those agenda items on the table, and the Government responded in December, before the Minister came to her post. I want to quote a couple of the Government’s comments and test them with the Minister a little bit more. In the first appendix to the report, they said:

“For criminal matters, we want to continue to cooperate across a range of tools, measures and agencies and continue the facilitation of operational business across borders. We believe that the UK and the EU should work together to design new, dynamic arrangements as part of our future partnership that would allow us to continue and strengthen our close collaboration on criminal justice.”

That is all well and good—it is a great aspiration—but my questions to the Minister are: how, when and what progress? We are 365 days from when we potentially leave.

The Government response went further:

“The UK will therefore be approaching negotiations on the future partnership with the EU as an opportunity to build on what we have already achieved through decades of collaboration, integrated working, and joint systems and procedures…the UK is unconditionally committed to maintaining Europe’s security.”

That is all well and good—nobody would disagree with that—but my questions to the Minister are: how, when and what progress?

The Government response gets more worrying. They said they acknowledge that

“when we leave the EU, the legal framework that currently underpins cooperation between the UK and the EU on security, law enforcement and criminal justice will no longer apply to the UK. As part of a deep and special partnership, it will be in our mutual interest to agree new arrangements that enable us to sustain cooperation across a wide range of these structures and measures, reflecting the importance of preserving the extensive collaboration that currently exists between the UK and the EU.”

I ask the Minister: where are we on agreeing those new arrangements? What discussions have there been? When will they publish their view? Does the EU have a timescale to agree the new arrangements? Will they be agreed before the deal in September or October or November is put to the House? Will they be agreed 367 days from today, after we have left the European Union? Those things matter.

Other members of the Committee will comment on the European arrest warrant in due course, but in 2016, 13,797 requests came to the UK from European partners for arrest warrants. UK police forces made 1,843 arrests in respect to those warrants. Many of those arrest warrants were put out across all countries because the host nation did not know where the criminal suspect was, but UK forces made 1,843 arrests, and we surrendered 1,431 suspects. We requested of our European partners 349 arrest warrants in 2016, of which 185 resulted in arrests, and 156 suspects were surrendered to the United Kingdom.

From 2010 to 2016, which I have figures for, 1,773 warrants were requested and 1,101 arrests were made. I expect that co-operation in the future, and I know that the Minister would seek it, but as of today, I do not know the road map to achieve it, and the Minister has a duty to tell us what it is. In my area in Wales, we surrendered 151 suspects, and 25 people were arrested and sent in the other direction. Such people are warranted because they will potentially be charged with serious crimes such as child sexual abuse, terrorism, or serious organised crime.

I am old enough to remember the Costa del Crime in Spain. People scarpered to Spain when they committed offences in this country and lived a life of luxury, because we did not have those arrangements. That does not happen now. I have seen police in Spain knock on doors in villas in Marbella and bring people back to this country. I ask the Minister: what will happen on that, when, how, where, and when will this House know? The London bombers, for example—I know you will be interested in this, Ms Buck—were brought back under an arrest warrant to this country, and are now in prison in the United Kingdom serving a very long sentence because of that European co-operation. Let us have some information about how we are going to progress that.

I take a great interest in Europol. We cannot get away from the fact that, as it says on Europol’s website today, Europol

“is democratically managed on the basis of a system of controls, checks and supervision of governance”

but is governed by

“EU justice and interior ministers, MEPs”

and “other EU bodies”. I ask the Minister: when we wake up, 366 days from today, on 1 or 2 April 2019, what will our relationship be with Eurojust under the new regime in the transition period? How will Ministers influence Eurojust and Europol?

Those are key issues, because we are part of 44 crime workstreams in Europol: economic crime, excise fraud, money laundering, trafficking in human beings, facilitation of illegal immigration, drug trafficking, synthetic drugs, cannabis, cocaine and heroin, other drugs, terrorism, organised property crime, illicit firearms trafficking, intellectual property crime, counterfeiting and product privacy, cybercrime, high-tech crimes, social engineering, child sexual exploitation, online sexual coercion, forgery of money, payment fraud, euro counterfeiting, money mulling, corruption, sports corruption, environmental crime, illicit trafficking in endangered animal species, illicit trafficking in endangered plant species, maritime piracy, stolen vehicles, illicit tobacco trade, outlaw motorcycle gangs, mobile organised crime groups, mafia-structured crime, forgery, illicit trafficking in cultural goods including antiquities, illicit trafficking in hormonal substances, and crime connected with nuclear and radioactive substances. Those are just some of the 44 workstreams we are part of, and over which we have governance. We have access, we share information, and operate with European partners.

This time next year, we will not be part of the European Union—we will be in transition, but we will not be part of the European community. I therefore ask the Minister again: what progress will be made, and how, where and when? I expect co-operation and a willingness to co-operate, because that is in everybody’s interests, but I am not yet clear on the road map or the final decisions.

I am not clear on that because the head of Europol is not clear on it. Rob Wainwright, who is British, is currently the head of Europol—he will no longer be, very shortly, for self-evident reasons. He spoke to the House of Lords Committee the other week, and I will put a couple of his quotes on the record in this place. He said that:

“The UK will face ‘impediments’ to receiving high-quality information from the EU’s law enforcement agency after Brexit”.

That is what Rob Wainwright said only the other week. He said

“it was not realistic for there to be no change to the UK’s relationship with the organisation after Brexit, given that only full members of the EU currently have unrestricted access to its databases…One can assume that the [European Commission] will somehow insist on some change”.

I ask the Minister again: what change will the European Union insist on? What will happen with regard to the high-quality information we currently receive? Again, I quote for your benefit, Ms Buck, and for the benefit of Hansard:

“Mr Wainwright said the UK was not likely to have direct access to Europol databases.”

That is what the head of Europol said: the UK is not likely to have direct access to Europol databases on the 44 areas I skipped through, each of which has a serious crime cohort underneath. I ask the Minister: what will happen? What is happening now? What will happen before next year? Will we have access? If not, what access relationship will we have? What will our access cost us? Will that access slow down criminal activity contact between various organisations fighting crime in this country?

Finally, Mr Wainwright

“added that Britain’s waning influence”—

just let it sink in for a moment that the head of Europol used the phrase “Britain’s waning influence”—

“over European policing could affect the country’s efforts in other areas, including modern slavery”,

which was a personal priority of the Prime Minister when she was the Home Secretary.

I believe that these matters will be solved, but it is incumbent on the Minister to give some road map on the solving of these problems. This is not a game. It is about protecting children, protecting people from modern slavery, catching criminals, stopping terrorism, ensuring that drugs do not enter this country, and helping our European partners to fight crime in their countries as well. That is in all of our interests. I know that the police and intelligence services will want to do it, but ultimately the Minister needs to tell us how.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald]

As I said, I am very relaxed about European Court of Justice jurisdiction generally, but the hon. Lady and the Committee report make a case, specifically with regard to matters of procedure or even jurisdiction, for there being no reason for the Government to be overly concerned with the role of the Court at all.

The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, also rightly flagged up the issue of clause 6 of the exit Bill. I agree that it is unhelpful and needs to be strengthened; instead of guiding or directing judges, it seems to be buck passing. We need to protect judges from accusations of making political decisions, as the hon. Member for Cheltenham rightly explained.

The right hon. Member for Delyn flagged up the question of whether all this can be managed in less than two years. I stand to be corrected, but with justice and home affairs being areas of shared competence, I understand that agreements on participation in some of these schemes may well need approval both from the EU institutions and from individual member states. Conceivably, in some of those member states, that could mean parliamentary ratification or even a referendum. Will the Government give some clarity on whether that is their understanding, and on what contingency plans exist for that possibility?

[David Hanson]

It would also be helpful to have clarity on whether there is a cost for the UK to access these services in the event of any co-operation in due course and, if so, what estimate the Government have made of that cost.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

That is a very fair point, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in that regard. What are the contingency plans if it becomes apparent very soon that we will not be able to secure all these arrangements within the current proposed timeframe?

Finally, although justice is a devolved matter and Scotland has its own distinct legal system, it will be UK Ministers doing the negotiating. As ever, I take the opportunity to exhort the Minister and her colleagues to work as closely as possible with counterparts in Edinburgh, to make sure that the implications for the Scottish justice system are properly taken into account and reflected.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend should not assume that those points have not yet been considered. We are moving from an EU perspective to discuss these issues, and they will be considered.

[David Hanson]

I am concerned and interested in whether the matters we have debated will form part of the agreement to be put to Parliament in October or November, if we have a final vote then.

Worboys Case and the Parole Board

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

First, let me put on record my tribute to my hon. Friend for his tireless work on this case, as he has been a very strong advocate for the victims. On transparency, as I said, I hope that we can make progress in the course of the next few weeks. It is not for me to determine when the Parole Board will next look at John Worboys’ case, but I would be astonished if it were before we had new rules on transparency in place.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Let me place on record, if I may, that Nick Hardwick is a decent man whom I have known for a long time professionally and personally. He has taken his resignation seriously today. With regard to the Secretary of State’s abolition of rule 25, he used the words “in its current form”. What areas of transparency does he expect still to be exempt?

[Mr Gauke]

The challenge in this—having seen in this case the decision notice by the Parole Board—is that there might be, for example, information provided by the prisoner to a psychologist, as part of the risk assessment, that is deeply personal. In order to have openness between, say, a prisoner and a psychologist, it must be possible for some of that information to remain confidential, so we cannot put everything out there. Indeed, there may be information relevant to victims that they would not want to be put into the public domain. As I say, a summary of the conclusions that the Parole Board has reached should be made available. The points made by Members on both sides of the House in saying that greater transparency is needed are absolutely right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and others for the very active campaign that they are leading. I would of course be delighted to meet them to discuss that law.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Given that Canada, America, Australia and many European Union states have a law similar to that being introduced by the right hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire—I am a sponsor of his Bill—why did the Minister order the Government to block the Bill last Friday?

[Rory Stewart]

As we have discussed, very significant sentences of up to 10 years can already be imposed for this kind of action, but I would be delighted to discuss the issue in more detail with the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friends.

Prisoners: Outdoors Endurance Activities

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Westminster Hall

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) on securing this debate, which gives us an opportunity to air issues about purposeful activity in prison. I welcome what he said about the Airborne Initiative and the fact that he has brought it to a wider audience. I welcome his comments in promoting the scheme. He is absolutely right about purposeful activity and investment, and about giving young people and more established prisoners the opportunity to receive education, feel self-worth, contribute in a positive way to a task, develop new skills, work as a team, show respect for peer groups, and show and learn respect for prison officers. I join him in praising the work of the Prison Service and the very difficult work that prison officers do.

Any investment in building skills, confidence and trust; showing people that there is a life outside prison; and encouraging people to learn new skills is extremely positive. The scheme—a public sector partnership with the voluntary sector—is a very positive model, and the hon. Gentleman has made a very strong case for it to be looked at.

I came to the debate because I wanted to hear what the hon. Gentleman said. Having done so, I think there are two challenges: one for him and perhaps more than one for the Minister. I want to talk about those challenges and how we can build on the laudable objectives that the hon. Gentleman set out. In making the case for the expansion of such initiatives, it would help if he clarified, now or later, some of the key issues that he touched on, which need fleshing out. First, it is important to look at the value and the reoffending rates. He was absolutely right about the figures. Reoffending rates of between 60% and 65%—perhaps averaging 65%—are simply unacceptable.

The purpose of prisons and young offender institutions must be punishment—that means deprivation of liberty, being away from family and not being able to do the things that we wish to do in society—but there also has to be reform. Reform is about employment, housing, training, the removal of drugs and alcohol and the problems associated with them, tackling mental health issues, promoting self-worth and dealing with all the issues the hon. Gentleman mentioned. It would help his case if he could establish in detail from the Airborne Initiative what the reoffending rates were. He touched on them, but the details would establish whether we could attribute the reoffending rates to the initiatives that were taken.

Also, we need to know the costs per place in the scheme. The hon. Gentleman mentioned two prison officers having to accompany prisoners, which represents a cost. Are there additional costs that the Prison Service has to cover, and does the Airborne Initiative require public sector support in addition to its voluntary activity? Did the hon. Gentleman look at completion rates? I did not get a sense of how many people started and completed the courses. We need to know about not only reoffending rates, but the impact one or two years down the line. I know from my own school life, private life and business life, that I can point to certain things in my life and say, “That two weeks, six weeks or four days made a real difference to my life” when I look back on them two years later. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will undertake such an evaluation.

[Richard Drax]

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s excellent speech, and he is raising perfectly fair points. A point I would add—this is for the Minister, too—is that, as I said in my speech, the effect of the scheme began to be monitored carefully only quite recently. The charity now needs the Government’s help to monitor the effect even more carefully, and to do all the things the right hon. Gentleman suggests. There is work afoot to do that, but we need help from the Government if we are finally to get all the statistics, costs and figures that he has mentioned.

[David Hanson]

I think that would be valuable, because we are, like it or not, in a time of tight resources, particularly in the Prison Service. There are many strains on the whole prison system. If it can be proven that the scheme has the value that the hon. Gentleman evidently believes it has, it would be a useful addition, for the reasons I have mentioned.

My argument now moves to the Minister. The hon. Member for South Dorset made some valid points about the challenges of operating a voluntary sector-funded scheme that aims to build self-confidence, education and self-worth at a time of challenge in the Prison Service. Perhaps I might outline the challenge for the Minister, who is new. I welcome him to his position and wish him well in a difficult and challenging job. He will have constructive support from the Opposition and from the Justice Committee, on which I sit. We wish him well, but in the past seven years we have lost 7,500 prison officers. I know that there is a move to bring back 2,000-ish, but we will still be 5,000 short of the number that we had before.

The hon. Member for South Dorset said that one of the challenges was releasing prison officers for the activity. Self-harm incidents, drug abuse, deaths from self-harm, and assaults—both on prison officers, and prisoner on prisoner—are at record levels. The Minister knows from last week’s report from Liverpool about the difficulties and challenges of broken window syndrome in the prison system. To make possible schemes such as the one that the hon. Member for South Dorset wants to make progress with, those issues need to be realistically addressed; I hope that that is constructive. We shall welcome the Minister’s remarks today, but his challenge, as long as he is in his present job, is to make an impact on the situation.

This is not just a matter of prisoner officer numbers; it is about attitude. I met Russ Trent last week at HMP Berwyn—which the hon. Member for South Dorset pronounced perfectly. Russ was at HMP Portland, which I visited perhaps nine years ago when I had the privilege of doing the job that the Minister now does. I know that there is good work to do, and it is partly about leadership, understanding, and giving governors and prison staff the time to invest in education, self-worth, respect, positive attitudes and teamwork. Unless the Minister addresses some of the structural issues, there will be less opportunity to support valuable schemes.

I have two final points, the first of which is about governor autonomy. The plea of the hon. Member for South Dorset was to roll the scheme out more widely and organise it. I am still not clear what that means with respect to the Minister’s central Department and governor autonomy. Perhaps that can be answered today, or perhaps it is for another day. Does the Minister have confidence in governors to make local decisions about deploying prisoners and prison officers to support such schemes? Where does accountability lie? The Minister can help today by taking on that question.

That leads to my other central point, on which I am pleased the hon. Member for South Dorset touched—release on temporary licence. If there is governor accountability and autonomy, if risk is managed locally, if governors have the resources to determine that x, y or z prisoner can benefit from the course and if the governor determines that the risk can be taken to release on temporary licence, I hope that the Minister will give the decision his backing. If governor autonomy means anything, it is allowing those decisions to be made at the local level. If the Minister does not know now, he will learn in the next few weeks about the restricted nature of ROTL, which the hon. Member for South Dorset pointed out. The risk is transferred to the Ministry of Justice, and governors’ ability to make judgments at a local level is restricted, so there is a lack of participation in the type of scheme so ably promoted by the hon. Gentleman.

My challenge to the hon. Member for South Dorset is to get clarity about the worth of the scheme. I wish him well in doing that, because if it works, it will work well. My challenge to the Minister is to tell him that the scheme will not work, and will not be supported, unless he gets the basics right. I know that he is focused on that, but a series of prisons Ministers has presided over a reduction in staff and increases in incidents, self-harm, attacks and prisoner-on-prisoner violence. Those problems have not allowed good work to thrive. It is impossible to undertake such good work while dealing with drugs, attacks, self-harm and the problems that the hon. Member for South Dorset raised. I wish the Minister well, in the context of the need to do better overall.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lee]

My hon. Friend is spot on. These vulnerable children require the very best care, particularly for their mental health. In negotiations with the main contractor, I rule out absolutely nothing if the contract obligations are not being met.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman needs to focus his supplementary question exclusively on the Oakhill secure training centre in Milton Keynes.

[David Hanson]

Absolutely, Mr Speaker. Has the Minister taken any view on reducing the financial arrangements with G4S for running Oakhill or imposed any sanctions? What does it take to lose a contract?

[Dr Lee]

The right hon. Gentleman, as a previous Minister responsible for the institution, will acknowledge that the contract is subject to a series of obligations. It was signed in 2004 and lasts for 25 years. I am fully aware of the need to improve standards at Oakhill. I rule absolutely nothing out, and I have already met senior people at G4S to point that out.

Parole Board and Victim Support

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I gently point out, in respect of this extremely serious matter, that the statement has now been running for over half an hour, but we have had only 10 Back-Bench questions. To be candid, we need shorter questions—not people’s observations, comments, tributes and commendations—and then brief replies from the Secretary of State.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

There is a third aspect to this, which is post-release supervision. Given that Dame Glenys Stacey, the chief inspector of probation, says that there is a fractured system, will the Secretary of State, as one of his first tasks, consider strengthening that post-release supervision system?

[Mr Gauke]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I would certainly hope and expect that in this case the conditions will be stringent and rigorously enforced.