Prison Officers’ Association: Protest Action

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Baroness Watkins of Tavistock

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I quite understand the concern that we might be perceived to be twice as wicked as the French. Nevertheless, I would point out that all of these statistics are relative across the world and, if we compare ourselves with other jurisdictions, we find that our prison population is much lower per head of population than it is in many other western societies. At the present time, it is not considered that the resolution of this issue lies in sentencing policy; it lies in reform of the prison estate and those who have to work so hard to maintain it.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell me how any review will look at the need for registered nurses and medics to get more involved in our prisons in order to help prison officers cope with people with long-term mental health problems, many of whom should not be in prison anyway? I stand here in my 60s, having worked in Brixton prison in my 30s from the Maudsley hospital doing just what I said, and then doing the same work in both Dartmoor and Exeter prisons. However, these kinds of in-reach programmes are actually being reduced, due to shortages in the NHS and academia, rather than increased.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to the noble Baroness. Of course mental health issues are a major problem within our prison estate. There is no question but that a very large proportion of those in our prisons suffer in one form or another from mental health issues, some of them induced by the use of illegal drugs, in particular psychoactive substances. That breeds difficulty, despair and indeed violence. We are attempting to address this at the present time, and again I would point to the issues raised in the context of the White Paper. We are determined to make progress in this matter.