HMP Long Lartin

Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Staffing has been discussed in your Lordships’ House many times recently. We are investing £100 million in new staff. There will be an additional 2,500 prison officers by the end of next year. We have already recruited nearly 900 of those and are on target to fulfil what we promised. We are also making sure that we retain our most experienced staff; it is essential to have that experience on the wings. As for Long Lartin in particular, as she will know, it was and is running a full regime. That means it has sufficient staff to do so and does not have an urgent need for additional staff. However, I assure her that additional staff are being recruited; indeed, five additional prison officers will be there before December.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, we join the Minister in commending the Prison Service and its staff for the effective way in which they dealt with this dangerous incident without injury to staff or prisoners. Nevertheless, the underlying crisis in our prisons remains serious. Long Lartin is a category A prison, where most of the prisoners are serving very long sentences. Notwithstanding the generally favourable report in 2014, in the past month, two prisoners were convicted of murdering a third at Long Lartin. That is the fourth homicide in that prison in four years, and there is a history of serious incidents of violence. When investigating this incident, will the Government ensure that the Prison Service concentrates on the particular problems faced by long-term prisoners arising from overcrowding, low staffing levels, excessive time spent by prisoners in their cells—and the frustration that goes with it—and the lack of opportunity?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Of course, none of the issues that the noble Lord just raised was a factor in this case, because they did not exist in Long Lartin: there is no overcrowding and the staffing level is sufficient. However, Long Lartin houses our category A prisoners. They are the most challenging prisoners on the estate. Violence is, thankfully, a rare occurrence, but it is the nature of the business of prisons, particularly category A prisons, that they can become very volatile. In a volatile situation, I think noble Lords would agree that we are fortunate to have the specialist trained staff, the Tornado teams, available to come in. In the case of Long Lartin, they put a stop to the incident within an hour. I think that should be commended.