HMPPS Update

Debate between Alex Chalk and Richard Thomson

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. My party hopes Khalife will soon return to custody. Leaving aside the extraordinary manner of the details of the escape, some more immediate questions arise. Mr Khalife may have been believed to pose a low risk to members of the public, but he was clearly thought to present a considerable risk to his service colleagues and to national security. As such, it will strike people as extraordinary that he was being held under category B conditions, rather than category A, pending any trial.

What is more extraordinary is that prison inspectors reported concerns in January last year about the measures in place at Wandsworth to prevent escapes, after finding what they believed to be potential shortcomings in physical aspects of security locally on site. It was also alarming to hear the former head of security at Wandsworth, Ian Acheson, on the radio this morning saying that, on any given day, some 30% to 40% of frontline staff are unavailable for duty at the prison.

The Prison Officers Association has highlighted that some £900 million has been stripped out of prison budgets in England and Wales since 2010, which will leave more prisons than just Wandsworth overcrowded and under-resourced. The Prison Officers Association’s national chair has called this morning for an urgent review of how prisons across England and Wales are run. I appreciate that the Secretary of State has announced two separate strands of inquiry from the Dispatch Box, which I am sure will be welcomed, but will he expand the scope of his questioning to allow for that inquiry into how the Prison Service across England and Wales is run, in the light of the concerns that have been expressed?

[Alex Chalk]

May I deal with the hon. Gentleman’s second point first? Prison officers do an extremely important job, and I will of course listen carefully to what the Prison Officers Association has to say about this matter. I have already had a meeting—albeit predating this incident, as he might expect—and that productive and constructive relationship will continue.

Let me deal with the hon. Gentleman’s point about categorisation, because I am instinctively sympathetic to his point about why this prisoner was in the category B estate. That is precisely what I want to have some information about, but we have to proceed with caution. Although we are not going to look at the details of the specific offences, section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is an either-way offence. There are other offences that are either-way. It is not the case, and never has been since the Terrorism Act was created 23 years ago, that everyone charged with a section 58 offence would be in the cat A estate. Were that to happen, it would turn the whole system of categorisation on its head. It is an offence I have prosecuted many times in the past. We need to ensure that we are looking at the detail of what he was charged with and the specific risk or otherwise that he may have presented.