Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill

Lord Laming Excerpts

Friday 9th November 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Laming]

That the Bill be read a second time.

[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 Laming]

I am sorry, did the noble Lord ask whether it will cost more?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister and the Government for their great support for the Bill—as I am to the noble Baroness for the support of Her Majesty’s Opposition. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham who has been a source of great encouragement throughout, as the House will understand.

The Minister referred to the issue of costs, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. Perhaps I may add one point, although I should say that the House will know that I am singularly unqualified to talk about technology. All those who know me understand that it is a great struggle for me to live in this modern world. However, what I have learnt through this process is that this technology is remarkably versatile. It can simply be placed in one wing of a prison, or even in front of one cell, or it can take in the whole building. Although the Minister dealt with the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord West, let me reassure him that all the trials have indicated that it is possible to have this equipment facing into the prison, not outside it, and it therefore does not affect members of the public.

I hope that I have picked up correctly the feeling of the House when I say that I am grateful to it for its support.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.