Prisons and Probation

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Jo Stevens

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions to the debate. The tone of the debate has been one of consensus. Hon. Members from both sides of the House want improvements, perhaps with the exception of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). He appears to want to take us back to the penal system of the 18th century. Fortunately, penal policy has moved on since then, and I often think it would be nice if he did so too. There have been many notable speeches, and I apologise in advance that the constraints of time mean I cannot mention everybody.

We heard from the former Lord Chancellor, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). He said he was disappointed by the progress made on rehabilitation and criticised our ridiculously excessive prison population. He referred to the last vestiges of indeterminate sentences, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister about any plans he has about such sentences. My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) made a wide-ranging speech, and gave examples of the terrible things going on at HMP Northumberland.

The Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), spoke about the excellent report by Lord Harris, which has not been fully implemented. He referred to the protocol we would like for the chief inspector of prisons. It would ensure that his independence does not become compromised, as was suggested in a recent Justice Committee hearing.

I particularly want to mention the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), who is very experienced in these areas. She talked about the tragic case of Lorraine Barwell, and made two requests of the Minister—about naming prison officers killed on duty at the start of Prime Minister’s questions, and about the Harris report recommendation for a personal telephone call to be made to the family of prisoners who take their own lives and to the officers who find them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) asked whether a retirement age of 68 is too high for prison officers and whether it is safe for them to continue working up to that age. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer) spoke from personal experience as the chair of a secure unit for children in her borough, and did so with great passion. Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) rightly highlighted the problems in probation since privatisation.

The public and victims of crime need to have confidence that justice is being done, that offenders are being punished appropriately and rehabilitated, and that communities are being protected. Making prisons work is not only the right thing to do; it will save us money and make us all safer. What we have heard in this debate is deeply concerning. We have a prison service that is at breaking point, with nearly 85,000 people in our prisons. We have the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe, with an average annual cost per place of over £36,000. There is projected to be an increase in the prison population at a time when the Ministry of Justice is required, under the Chancellor’s spending review, to reduce its running costs by £600 million by 2019-20. That is what it costs to run 30 medium-to-large prisons annually.

It does no one any favours—not the Government, the Ministry of Justice, those working in the prisons sector, taxpayers or prisoners themselves—to ignore the fact that we have, despite what the Justice Secretary said earlier, a crisis on our hands. That crisis was eloquently summed up by the current chief inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick, whom the Justice Secretary rightly praised yesterday and again today in this House. His annual report stated:

“You were more likely to die in prison than five years ago. More prisoners were murdered, killed themselves, self-harmed and were victims of assaults than five years ago. There were more serious assaults and the number of assaults and serious assaults against staff also rose.”

Here is just one example of what that looks like. At Cardiff prison in my constituency, Darren Thomas, who was jailed for breaching an antisocial behaviour order for street begging in the city centre, was stabbed to death with a ballpoint pen in his cell by his cellmate. The perpetrator was convicted of Darren’s murder last year.

We need to look wider than Medway. According to press reports that feature in Private Eye this week, the failure of the operators of a G4S-run prison to allow medical assistance to be given to a 37-year-old prisoner meant that he died in his cell because his epilepsy had not been diagnosed. That prison was HMP Parc in Bridgend, which the Justice Secretary singled out for praise this afternoon, so I repeat the Opposition’s call for him to instigate a review of all G4S-run prisons.

Prison staff are not safe either. Serious assaults on staff are up by 42%. The prison watchdog has warned that the increasing use of psychoactive drugs is the most serious threat to the safety and security of jails. The use of those drugs increased by 615% between 2014 and 2015, and the use of the drug Spice has increased by 4,813% over the past four years. I know that the Justice Secretary has said that the legislation on psychoactive substances is making possession within prison a specific offence, but does he really think that that alone will solve the problem in our prisons? As my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) has pointed out, the issue is the smuggling of the drugs into prisons.

The combination of a growing prison population, prisons awash with drugs and alcohol, cuts to staffing and prison budget cuts is a very dangerous mix. The former chief inspector of prisons predicted the danger in a report published as long ago as 2010:

“The hidden and incremental pressures this produces should not be underestimated, even though they are at present being contained. As I said…there are two risks: of increased instability in inherently fragile environments, and of reducing prisons’ capacity to rehabilitate those they hold.”

What was predicted has now happened. All of these problems have costs. They cost lives, they cost livelihoods and they cost taxpayers’ money.

We all agree that we need to reduce our prison population. We can solve the problem only through effective prevention. Prisons try to teach offenders to be good prisoners and to be compliant, but it is more important that we teach them to be good citizens and to be able to show initiative and independence to prepare them for reintegration into our communities. That is why the reckless privatisation of the probation service by the coalition Government was such a mistake, artificially splitting responsibility for offenders between two separate organisations based on different levels of risk, while taking no account of how risk levels fluctuate.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jo Stevens]

I am sorry, I do not have time.

What was predicted by probation professionals, outside experts, Napo and service users has happened: chaos; huge numbers of redundancies—up to 40% of staff in some community rehabilitation companies—and IT systems not fit for purpose; cases falling through the cracks; and service in South Yorkshire, which the Government gave to a French catering company to run, under threat of renationalisation. Will the Minister tell the House whether the rumours of renationalisation of the South Yorkshire CRC are correct? Decisions on the supervision of dangerous offenders should be determined by public safety rather than profit.

I believe the Justice Secretary is trying his best, and I almost have some sympathy for him. It cannot be easy having to take up his role equipped with a shovel to clear up what I will politely call the residue that his predecessor, now Leader of the House, left him. Perhaps when he has finished shovelling that up—which will obviously take some time—we will see more than just an acknowledgement of the problems or references to prison reform strategy, and instead see concrete steps taken to address the scale of the crisis. This is the third time the Conservatives have promised a rehabilitation revolution. I look forward to hearing soon the Justice Secretary’s explanation of what went wrong last time and what will be different this time round on his watch.