Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they plan to ensure women prison leavers supported by the Ministry of Justice’s temporary accommodation service are supported into permanent accommodation.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar
We are investing more than £20m in supporting prison leavers at risk of homelessness into temporary accommodation. Individuals released from prison will be provided up to 12 weeks of temporary accommodation and will be supported into long-term settled accommodation before the end of that 12-week period. Initially launching in five national probation regions, the service will support around 3,000 offenders in its first year and will be commencing this Summer. It will be in operation during the financial year 2021-22, with a view to scaling up and rolling out nationally.
The service will take account of the needs of women, including those with complex needs and accommodation provision will be dedicated to single gender usage as required. Community Probation Practitioners, working together with local partners, will be responsible for ensuring that vulnerable female prison leavers receive appropriate support and are provided with housing beyond the 12 weeks’ emergency accommodation.
In 2020, Hestia Battersea was changed from a male to female Approved Premises to give better geographic spread of AP provision for women, becoming the first AP for women in London since 2008.
In addition, Eden House, the first new AP in over thirty years, will open in this month supporting female offenders.
HMPPS will work in conjunction with MHCLG’s announced funding to support both male and female prison leavers at risk of homelessness into private rental tenancies. Funded schemes to support women will be developed to recognise their specific needs and will be part of plans to secure settled accommodation by the end of the 12 weeks’ temporary accommodation provided by HMPPS.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the report by Independent Monitoring Board, Annual Report of the Independent Monitoring Board at HMP Berwyn, published on 17 September 2020, what assessment they have made of complaints that prisoners have been threatened with sanctions for speaking Welsh; and what steps are they taking following those complaints.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar
No sanctions or warnings have been issued at HMP Berwyn for use of the Welsh Language since the prison opened in 2017. There has been one instance where a prisoner was improperly challenged for speaking Welsh in 2019; the matter was investigated, and the member of staff corrected before they issued a behaviour warning to the prisoner. No further complaints of this nature have been reported.
HMP Berwyn is committed to supporting its prisoners, which includes meeting the expectations of the Welsh Language Commissioner and helping encourage the speaking of Welsh at the prison.
Every prison in Wales, including HMP Berwyn, has a Welsh Language Action plan. HMP Berwyn has a dedicated Welsh Language Lead who provides updates to the Diversity & Inclusion Committee, chaired by the Governor.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many prisoners have been released on bail in each month since 1 March because they have reached the maximum permissible period of remand.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Department does not currently collect this data centrally.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Keen of Elie on 29 June (HL Deb, col 464), when they expect to publish their White Paper on community justice and sentencing.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
We intend to publish a Sentencing White Paper this year ahead of legislating next year.
Asked by: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many ‘use of force incidents’ have occurred on the prison estate in each month of the last 12-month period for which data are available.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The below table is the total number of use of force incidents from April 2019 to March 2020. This data is collated from management information and due to how the data is validated it may not tally with official statistics.
Period | Total |
Apr 2019 | 5415 |
May 2019 | 5746 |
Jun 2019 | 5489 |
Jul 2019 | 5422 |
Aug 2019 | 5264 |
Sep 2019 | 5172 |
Oct 2019 | 5888 |
Nov 2019 | 5202 |
Dec 2019 | 4858 |
Jan 2020 | 5591 |
Feb 2020 | 5487 |
Mar 2020 | 5577 |
We have been introducing PAVA to the adult male estate to help protect staff and prisoners from incidents where there is serious violence, or an imminent or perceived risk of serious violence.
Since the roll out of PAVA began in April 2019, it has been used on 81 prisoners. It has been drawn (but not used) on 36 individuals, totalling 117 prisoners.
The table below shows the number of times PAVA has been drawn or used, broken down by ethnicity. Revised guidance on PAVA guidance was issued in April and the first prison outside the pilot began using PAVA in August. Therefore, data between April and July will only reflect usage at the pilot sites (HMPs Risley, Hull, Preston and Wealstun)
Ethnicity | Deployed | Drawn | Total |
Asian/Asian British | 5 | ~ | ~ |
Black/Black British | 10 | 7 | 17 |
Mixed | 3 | 3 | 6 |
White | 52 | 24 | 76 |
Not recorded | 11 | ~ | ~ |
Total | 81 | 36 | 117 |
The ‘not recorded’ category includes those prisoners who do not disclose their ethnicity on reception into custody.
Prisoners from BAME backgrounds made up 27% of all prisoners. In March 2019, prisoners who declared themselves in the White ethnic group made up almost three quarters (59,911 or 73%) of the prison population in England and Wales. Prisoners who declared their ethnicity as Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) represented 22,227 (or 27%) of all prisoners.
PAVA is just one of many tools we give to prison officers to help them do their job more safely, alongside body worn video cameras training, and rigid bar handcuffs. Above all, we know that one of the most effective tools in managing people safely is the interpersonal skills of our staff.
HMPPS is committed and duty bound to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not and to foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
In response to the Lammy Review, we are updating the training we give to officers to raise awareness among all staff of how biases can affect decision making, and strategies to combat these.
PAVA, as with any use of force, must always only be used if necessary and proportionate to the seriousness of the circumstances. The application of physical techniques, or the use of PAVA, is to be used only when other methods not involving force have been repeatedly tried and failed, or are judged unlikely to succeed, and action needs to be taken to prevent serious injury or harm to prisoners or staff.
Quality assurance and scrutiny of incidents is vital to ensuring that force is used legally and appropriately. Governors will be expected to ensure that scrutiny takes place after any drawing and/or use of PAVA. We have developed a toolkit of resources to assist prisons in maintaining effective scrutiny.