Alex Cunningham
Main Page: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)Department Debates - View all Alex Cunningham's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Rory Stewart
That is absolutely right. It has traditionally been a challenge to bring those private sector skills into government and to make sure we have a critical mass of people who really understand how to stay on top of those contracts, as my hon. Friend says, not just annually but day by day. We are very proud of our director, Ian Porée, who focuses on this procurement, particularly in relation to probation, and has those private sector skills. As I said, we also have 25 years of experience here.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I appreciate there are major issues around funding prisons and keeping staff and prisoners safe. The Minister wrote to me about drug scanners in Holme House prison in Stockton North, but he did not address the issue of scanners to detect drugs concealed in prisoners’ bodies when they leave one prison for another. Will we get one soon, or is there not enough money?
Rory Stewart
There are, as the hon. Gentleman points out, two different types of scanner. There is a straightforward x-ray scanner, which will generally pick up on bits of metal and things outside a body. Then there is a millimetre wave scanner, which is able, in certain of our prisons, to detect objects inside the body. These are expensive pieces of kit: in certain cases, they can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. We are now beginning to roll them out across the estate. I absolutely agree that that is the technological future and we will be piloting them in 10 prisons to see that they do what we both believe they should do.