Prison Safety

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

The noble Lord will know, because his party was in government for five of the last six years, that what happens in prisons represents a real challenge for any Government. However, I can tell him that prison officers have increased in number by 440 this year. Further to that increase, we are continuing our drive for more prison officers; the training is improving—going from six to 10 weeks; we are cracking down on psychoactive substances and their importation into prison; and we are acting through a number of different initiatives to identify particular risk points for violence. We are doing everything we can to tackle these very real problems.

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, given the shocking revelations about the use of synthetic cannabis by prisoners, which the Chief Inspector of Prisons described as having a “devastating impact” on prisons, including 19 deaths between 2012 and 2014, when will the Government recognise the need to reduce the prison population substantially and to increase prison staffing substantially?

[Lord Faulks]

The prison population is of course a feature of the sentences passed by judges. We are as anxious as anyone else to reduce that prison population in a way that is consistent with the safety of the population and that respects the sentences that have been passed. I have already answered the question about increasing prison staff. As to psychoactive substances, we are world leaders in what we are doing to track the ingestion of these substances. We are trying a test to detect them in 34 different prisons. We hope, when that is proved successful, to roll it out through the prison estate, so that we have an offence and a test which should get this under control.