Prisons and Probation

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon]

My hon. Friend makes some important points. No one is saying that the publicly run prison system is without problems, because the crisis extends across public sector prisons, but my hon. Friend explains eloquently that lessons can be learned from the experience at places such as HMP Berwyn. His point about accountability is crucial. With a privatised justice system and private prisons, accountability, which is so important for our democracy and so important to turn the justice crisis around, is sadly deficient.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

On accountability, the previous Prisons Minister, the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), was going to resign if he did not improve the prisons, so I wonder whether we will hear about the current Prisons Minister’s attitude to that. The previous pledge was based on improvements at 10 institutions, including Wormwood Scrubs in my constituency, but of course there are another hundred or so prisons. We want to get away from this ad hoc approach. We need consistency across the Prison Service.

[Richard Burgon]

My hon. Friend, who makes an important point, has always been a passionate advocate for the improvement of conditions at Wormwood Scrubs. He is right that the former Prisons Minister had pledged to disappear from that role if he did not improve things in those 10 prisons.

[Andy Slaughter]

He has! [Laughter.]

[Richard Burgon]

He has, but under different circumstances. The key point is that the 10 prisons were cherry-picked and were not the 10 worst. If we are to turn this justice crisis around, we need a serious, measured, objective approach based on the evidence, not on chasing headlines for political promotion.