Prisons and Probation

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Andrew Gwynne

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter]

I take the intervention in the spirit in which it is meant, but I hope we are not going to have a war over who did what when. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman will see in a moment, we are talking not about the last 10 years, but the last 50 years.

I should make a special mention of the debate on prison reform in the other place on 21 January in the name of the noble Lord Fowler. Lest the Lord Chancellor take exception to the wording of today’s motion—

“That this House believes UK prisons are in crisis”—

the noble Lord ended his excellent speech with these words:

“In 1970, we faced a prisons crisis; today, we face a prisons scandal.”

Every speech in that debate was superb, and I hope this House can live up to those high standards today.

Lord Fowler set out five proposals. In concluding the debate, the Minister, Lord Faulks, said he

“had no difficulty in supporting any of them”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 January 2016; Vol. 768, c. 910-940.]

I assume the same can be said for the Lord Chancellor. To remind him, the five proposals are: deprivation of liberty, but not to make life as uncomfortable as possible; end overcrowding; reduce the number of people sent to prison; do so by re-examining sentences; and pass responsibility to the governor and staff. The Lord Chancellor has spoken approvingly of the last of those points, but does he agree with Lord Fowler and his Minister on the other four points? More importantly, if he does, how will he set out to accomplish them? That is not a trick question. I do not know whether the Lord Chancellor is in muesli mode or Shipley mode today. He has made some fine rhetorical flourishes on the subject of prison reform and set reviews in progress, but what action do his Government intend to take?

I am happy to give the Lord Chancellor a platform today to add some substance to the rhetoric—it is a platform rather than a scaffold—but I will do so by setting out the scale of the task before him. Let me begin with the basic issue of safety. In the 12 months to September 2015, there were 267 deaths in prison custody—95 suicides, up from 60 in the same period in 2010; 153 deaths from natural causes, up from 123; and seven homicides. There have been the same number of homicides in prison in the past two years as there were in the preceding eight. In the 12 months to June 2015, there were 28,881 reported incidents of self-harm, up by 21% in just a year; 4,156 assaults on staff, a 20% rise from the year before; and 578 serious assaults on staff, a rise of 42% from the year before. Tragically, a prison officer, Lorraine Barwell—it was the first such incident of its type in a quarter of a century—died in July last year after being the victim of an attack in the line of duty one month earlier. We owe it to her and her family to ensure that her colleagues are as safe as possible.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has started by setting out staggering and appalling statistics on the number of prisoners who have sadly taken their own lives or who are self-harming. Does that not underline the problems of mental health in prisons? What more should the Government do to tackle the serious problem of mental ill health among the prisoner population?

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend—I know he speaks from a position of knowledge on the subject—is right. I will come to that in a moment.

The prison riot squad was called out 343 times last year—once a day on average—compared with 223 times the year before and 118 times in 2010. Alcohol finds have nearly trebled since 2010. From mobile phones to drugs and legal highs, the list of what people can smuggle into prison at the moment is elastic. According to one prisoner at HMP Oakwood, a prison that the previous Lord Chancellor called

“an excellent model for the future”—[Official Report, 5 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 114.],

it was easier to get drugs than soap, so there are some restrictions. Earlier this month, seven officers reported suffering ill effects from inadvertently inhaling legal highs. You couldn’t make that up.

Junior Doctors’ Contracts

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Andrew Gwynne

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

We have had a comprehensive and powerful debate, with 23 speakers and many more Members who would have liked to contribute if we had had more time. I would particularly like to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith), my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan), my hon. Friends the Members for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer), for Workington (Sue Hayman), for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) and for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq); the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon); and the hon. Members for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies), for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), for Erewash (Maggie Throup), for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) and for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns).

Members of all parties have spoken with great passion and praise for our junior doctors, who work tirelessly to deliver good quality services—despite the challenges they face in an NHS that is increasingly under pressure and under strain.

[Andy Slaughter]

rose—

[Andrew Gwynne]

I do not have time to give way, I am afraid.

I echo those sentiments of sincere thanks, but we have heard of junior doctors who already work weekends, already work nights, already work holidays and give their all for their patients. Despite all this, the junior doctors now face a situation that has left them feeling deflated, demoralised and devalued.

Patient safety has been a key theme of today’s debate. Some Members have valiantly leapt to the Health Secretary’s defence, but those voices have been far outnumbered by Members who are deeply concerned that this contract is unsafe for doctors and unsafe for patients.

Members have argued that the removal of the financial penalties that apply to hospitals that force junior doctors to work unsafe hours risks taking us back to the bad old days of overworked doctors, too exhausted to deliver safe care. The BMA says this safeguard, which is built into the current contract, has played an important role in bringing dangerous working hours down. Removing this financial disincentive to overworked junior doctors is extremely alarming, especially at a time when junior doctors are already coming under an enormous amount of pressure and strain. If the Health Secretary would just listen, he would hear junior doctors shouting loudly and clearly that they cannot give any more.

Many Members highlighted the protests and marches that have taken place throughout the country in recent weeks. We had only to catch a glimpse of the placards that were waved as thousands of junior doctors marched against the contract to understand that those doctors now fear for their own health and well-being. I was struck by one banner which read, “I could be your doctor tomorrow, or I could be the patient”, and those doctors’ concerns have been echoed by many Members today. How can the Secretary of State possibly say that he is acting in the interests of patient safety if the very people who work in the NHS say he is putting safety at risk?

Another argument that has been advanced today is that the contract is necessary to ensure that our NHS works seven days a week. Not only does that argument do a huge disservice to our NHS staff who already provide care seven days a week and 24 hours a day, and reveal just how out of touch some Conservative Members are with the realities of working on the frontline in our NHS, but it is wholly inaccurate. If this junior doctor contract were imposed in its current form, it would have the opposite effect, as many independent clinical voices have warned.

It is a bitter irony that the problems that the new junior doctor contract was supposed to be trying to address when it was originally proposed back in 2012—the need to introduce better pay and work-life balance—are the very problems that will be made worse should the contract go ahead in its current form. In letters to the Secretary of State, the presidents of a number of royal colleges and faculties have made it very clear that they share those concerns, but he presumably thinks that they too have been misled.

The Secretary of State said that he did not intend to cut the pay of any junior doctor, but his sums simply do not add up, and everyone can see through the spin. No one with a GCSE in maths can believe that no doctor will be worse off as a result of the new contract. Let the right hon. Gentleman come to the Dispatch Box in the minute that I have left, and answer this question. To what percentage of junior doctors currently working within the legal limits will what the Secretary of State has said today apply? Is it 50%? Less than a quarter? What is it?