Local Government: Provisional Finance Settlement
Debate between Lord Dholakia and Lord Laming
Lord Dholakia
My Lords, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches wish to associate ourselves with the tributes paid to staff. This is one of the few occasions on which we all come together and speak with one voice. Visitors marvel at the courtesy, help and often humour they receive from the time they enter Peers’ Entrance to the time they leave. We thank our staff for the service that they provide throughout the year.
Many will continue in their role for years to come. Others may retire after a long service and, in some cases, sadness prevails for those who die unexpectedly while in service. I pick out two individuals among many. We remember Latifa Zounagui, our Senior Housekeeper in the Department of Facilities. Latifa joined the House of Lords as a housekeeper in February 1986. She was promoted to Senior Housekeeper and given the area of the Principal Floor that included the offices of Black Rod, the Chairman of Committees and the Director of Facilities. This high profile area demanded keen attention to detail and the team led by Latifa proved itself to be up to the job and highly professional.
Latifa worked at many State Openings providing assistance in the Peeresses Retiring Room with many and varied requests. Latterly, at her request, she became the team leader at Fielden House where she continued to lead a highly motivated team providing excellent services to Members and staff alike. She retired from the House of Lords in March 2012 after 26 years of service. We wish her a very happy retirement.
The other person, who unexpectedly died earlier this year, is Steve Chamberlain. Mr Chamberlain was the Reprographic Officer in the Parliamentary Archives Department. He joined the staff of this House in 1985. He died suddenly in service in July. He had been a digital imaging technician in the Parliamentary Archives since 1984. His job was to create copies of historic records for use by the public, staff and Members—an essential part of any research service.
Cheery and modest, Steve took great pride in his work and moved from paper and microfilm to digital photography during the course of his career as technology changed. He was always willing to help other colleagues or advise the public on their record-copying needs in the archives search room and his genial presence and contribution to the office life are very much missed by his colleagues in the archives. We join his family and friends in this sad loss.
We say to all our staff that we appreciate what you do to enhance the reputation of your Lordships' House. Thank you and we wish you all a very happy Christmas.
Lord Laming
My Lords, on behalf of colleagues in the Cross-Bench Group, I am very pleased to be associated with all that has been said in the well-deserved tributes to the staff of this House. There are many customs in the House of Lords, but surely none is more worthwhile than occasions such as this when we have the opportunity to thank the staff for the part they play week in, week out in the service of this House.
The staff constantly demonstrate a commitment to the success of this House. Their hard work is matched by their thoughtfulness, professionalism and great courtesy; and, whether we meet them day by day or they work behind the scenes, they should know that their help and support is always of immense value to us all. Put simply, we are most fortunate in the quality and dedication of our staff and it is right that we should take every opportunity to acknowledge this and to thank them for what they do.
I am pleased to have the honour of making special mention of three former members of staff who served this House over many years—each with a job of great importance, but which may not have brought them into contact very often with your Lordships. The first one is, I fear, a source of great sadness. Desmond Asiedu, who very sadly passed away only last week, was an enormously popular kitchen porter. He was very highly thought of by everyone in catering and retail services. Throughout his years in the House he was known for his impeccable manners and good nature, as well as his excellent standard of work. He was very conscientious in all his duties and was always willing to carry out any task asked of him. In 2009, in recognition of his contribution to the catering department, Desmond was rightly voted employee of the Session, which was testament to his dedication and the very high regard in which he was held by all his colleagues. He will be greatly missed and we pass sincere condolences to his wife and daughters for their sad loss.
Next I refer to George Newton. He started working for the House in July 1990 as a senior general assistant and was promoted to head storekeeper in 2001. He was a very popular and hard-working member of the catering staff. He also thoroughly enjoyed his free time—I am told that he lived life to the full—and he has now retired to Yorkshire to be with his family and friends. We thank him and wish him a long and happy retirement.
Then there is Mohammed Zounagui who started in June 1992 and worked as an assistant chef for many years before being promoted. He worked in the main kitchen and latterly in the River Restaurant, where he started work each morning at 6.30 to prepare and cook the breakfasts that are most popular with pass-holders from all over the Parliamentary Estate—I see them often but at a much later hour. He retired in October to be with his family and friends. As with others, we wish him a long and happy retirement.
All that remains for me is to add my own personal thanks to the staff as a whole and to Members of this House for the courtesy that they show towards me and the help they give me throughout the year. I wish you, and them, a very happy Christmas.
Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill
Debate between Lord Dholakia and Lord Laming
Lord Laming
My Lords, the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill is a small Bill, but I hope the House will agree that its importance far outweighs its size. First, I congratulate Sir Paul Beresford MP, on introducing the Bill in the other place and for so skilfully piloting it to this House. I am most grateful to have this opportunity to take forward his hard work.
In short, the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill seeks to take a crucial step towards tackling an issue that is blighting prisons in England and Wales, Scotland and the Crown dependencies. I refer, of course, to mobile phones. I will not delay the House in repeating the detailed Explanatory Notes, which are easily available, but I hope it will help if I briefly touch on the operations of prisons and why mobile phones are now such a problem.
Prisoners have always needed, and will always need, to communicate with people in the outside world. They may do so for very good, honest and healthy reasons such as maintaining relationships with family and loved ones, and in preparation for their release. So they should, because such communication plays a vital role in their rehabilitation and in ensuring that they do not reoffend. It is to their credit that prisons facilitate that healthy communication. Prisoners can send and receive mail; they have access to landline telephones; they are entitled to visitors; and communication that is legally privileged is protected.
However prisons, quite rightly, impose controls on prisoner communications. For example, telephone calls can be made only to approved numbers and can be recorded and listened to; mail can be opened and read; and visits have to be supervised. These controls are needed because it is inevitable that some prisoners will seek to communicate with those outside prisons for nefarious purposes. These can include seeking to maintain involvement in, or even the running of, criminal enterprises in the community such as organised crime or extremist networks. It may also be to intimidate witnesses or to arrange the supply of drugs into prisons.
Clearly, prisoners communicating for nefarious purposes will seek to circumvent the controls imposed by prison staff. Where the activities are illegal, prisoners can be very inventive in their determination to secure a mobile phone. This is because mobile telephones offer an immediate form of communication to anywhere in the world, which prison staff cannot monitor. They can send text messages and modern day smartphones enable them to access the internet and social networking sites, and send and receive e-mails. Therefore, once a prisoner has an undetected mobile phone, the prison has effectively lost control of the nature, content, destination or frequency of the communication. That poses significant risks to the safety of our prisons and their ability to protect the public and the prisoners they are holding.
I feel sure that we are all concerned about how so many mobile phones get into prisons. Sadly, it is a common misconception that the high walls, razor wire, locks, bars, doors and keys must mean that a prison is impenetrable. While these factors are successful in preventing prisoners escaping, prisons are not the hermetically sealed institutions that their physical appearance may suggest. To give a sense of the scale of the operation, I am advised that in a single day a prison holding 1,000 prisoners might receive 50 new prisoners, 300 visitors, 3,000 items of post, more than 40 vehicles and that its prisoners can make 5,000 minutes of telephone calls. Each one of these movements and communications is an opportunity to engage in the smuggling of contraband, including mobile phones and, because they are so much smaller and easy to smuggle, an even larger number of SIM cards.
Given the scale of the operation, prison staff cannot fully search absolutely everything that enters or leaves a prison, nor can they listen to or read every communication, not least because this would divert them from their other important functions. Of course, prisons are doing their very best to prevent prisoners having access to mobile phones. It is important to emphasise that it is an offence under the Prison Act 1952 to possess and convey into use an unauthorised mobile phone in prison. Yet in 2011 there were 7,422 seizures of illicit phones and SIM cards in prisons in England and Wales, and 1,335 in Scotland. This is an indication of the scale of the problem and of the increasing number of prisoners who seek to get access to these items.
Therefore, the current activities are not a complete solution. In an age when mobile phones are becoming ever smaller and more versatile, which means they are easier to smuggle into prisons and more useful to the criminal, the number of phones which escape detection will inevitably increase. Further action is, therefore, needed, and that is what the Bill is about. It will authorise prisons to interfere with wireless telegraphy to render useless any mobile phones that cannot be found. The Bill will also authorise prisons to interfere with wireless telegraphy and to gather information about the use of mobile phones in prisons, such as details about where a particular phone is located in the prison, and the person who has attempted to use it, and where the message has been directed. However, it is important to note that this does not include the content of the communication but simply the direction of the communication.
In England trials of the technologies which prevent mobile phones working have been remarkably successful. The trials have proceeded with excellent, but—this is a key point—non-statutory co-operation between prisons, Ofcom and the mobile phone network operators. The Bill puts the current voluntary arrangement on to a clear and transparent legal footing and creates a framework for future co-operation with all the key stakeholders. The trials have shown that other wireless equipment within the prison is not disrupted. Officers can still use their radios and prisoners can still use the landline telephone service which is available to them. The equipment covered in the Bill has been configured so that it focuses only on mobile phones that are within the prison while ensuring that outside the prison members of the public can continue to enjoy their mobile phones, television, wi-fi and so on—technology that the vast majority of us rely on in our daily lives. The technology covered in the Bill is also safe for prisoners, prison staff and members of the public alike. The only difference is that mobile phones in prisons will be inoperable. Building on the success of the trials, the Bill reassuringly writes into the statute book explicit safeguards to ensure that prisons continue to operate the equipment in this way so that they can deal with the blight of mobile phones in a manner that is both effective and proportionate.
In summary, the presence of mobile phones in prisons today poses a serious and significant risk to the public, prisons, prisoners and their future rehabilitation. Fortunately, we now have at hand technology that can deal with this problem. However, it is right that the use of this technology should be conducted on a firm legal basis. The Bill achieves all of that. It is considered by the Prison Service and others to be a win-win situation because it protects the public and prisoners and ensures that mobile phones will not be used for nefarious reasons in our prisons. I beg to move.
Lord Dholakia
My Lords, I have every sympathy with what the noble Lord has proposed but what are the costs involved in introducing this arrangement in prison establishments in this country?
Lord Dholakia
I am asking whether the noble Lord has done any work in relation to the cost that will be involved in providing this facility in our prison establishments.