Lord German
Main Page: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord German's debates with the Scotland Office
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Keen of Elie
The noble Lord is quite right: rehabilitation is one of the central pillars of our policy with regard to prisons. That has been made extremely difficult by reason of the Covid pandemic. It has been necessary to limit the movement of prisoners within prisons in order to contain the Covid threat. It has been necessary to curtail rehabilitation schemes and education schemes. That is extremely unfortunate, but we hope that, as soon we are beyond the Covid issue, we will be able to return to the schemes we have in place for rehabilitation.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, given the continued spread of coronavirus among prison staff and prisoners, the lock-in of prisoners for months ahead preventing training for rehabilitation, the number of prisons which, like Wrexham, are designed for two to a cell, and the increase of prisoners held on remand while jury trials are stopped, can the Minister explain why the Government’s early release scheme has ground to a trickle of just 57 out of the 4,000 announced by the Secretary of State in the other place, as overcrowding is seeding this pandemic?
Lord Keen of Elie
As I indicated, in all our prisons we have introduced a cohorting strategy that ensures separation and isolation between prisoners displaying Covid-19 symptoms and other prisoners; a shielding unit for those who are vulnerable to contact with the virus; and a reverse cohorting unit to ensure that new prisoners are isolated for a suitable period until they are found not to be exhibiting symptoms. That continues. With regard to the number of cases within prisons, I think I indicated before that the present position as of 12 May is that we have 401 prisoners who have tested positive for Covid-19 across 74 prisons, and 501 prison staff who have tested positive across 70 prisons. The noble Lord will notice that there is a greater number of prison staff than prisoners who have tested positive. We continue to maintain a system of social separation and hand washing and, where necessary, PPE is available to staff.