Safety in Prisons

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. The probation service is not just fractured from the rest of the criminal justice system; it is fractured within itself due to an unnecessary, pointless, destructive and quite dangerous separation.

[Rachael Maskell]

I was talking yesterday to Napo, the trade union representing probation officers, about further cuts that are going to be made to the service at a time when, including in this debate, we are hearing that we need investment rather than cuts, without which we will not be able to break the cycle. This reorganisation of the probation service is yet another that has no purpose or point in respect of feeding into the bigger picture.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone.

I approach the debate with a heavy heart. The Minister is the fourth prisons Minister whom I have had the pleasure of shadowing since my appointment. Issues such as the one we are discussing have been part of our debates throughout that time. It has never been easy and I have never been able to arrive in such a debate and say, “I am glad that things are improving.” I have never felt so concerned about the situation in the prison system. I would like debates to be more focused on rehabilitation, dignity for victims and work in our prisons, because those are the things that we should be discussing. Instead, we are continually forced by the reality on the ground to concern ourselves with understaffing, overcrowding and, increasingly, violence. The Minister cares deeply about that—he often looks at me, plaintively, as if saying, “I care about this too.” I know that he cares, and I am pleased that he does. Surely the number of Members—including, pleasingly, new Members—who have felt the need to come to this Chamber for the debate shows the level of deep concern in the House. I hope he will be generous in allowing interventions.

I congratulate my new colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), on her election and on securing the debate. It was a pleasure to listen to her thoughtful opening speech. I look forward to working with her on such issues in the months ahead. Her constituents will be proud of her speech today, as will her predecessor.

The speeches we have heard from hon. Members capture the concern that is felt about the state of our prison system. Violent, overcrowded and understaffed prisons do nothing to challenge offender behaviour or to protect victims of crime. We have heard examples of exactly what was achieved by the prisons policy of the previous Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who is no longer in the Chamber, spoke about release on temporary licence and overcrowding. She is completely right. She has great experience of serving as a magistrate in Manchester, and has frequently seen the problems upon release and the difficulties in securing the important staged release. Sadly, that has been mismanaged too often and is now unavailable to too many inmates.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) spoke about death in custody, which he cares deeply about. Sadly, he is getting more and more experience of dealing with the relatives who have suffered such a tragedy.

The hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) spoke about governorship. Clearly, there is a problem with resources in the prison system, but the problems faced by the Minister will not be dealt with simply by increased resources, even if were he able to secure them. Governorship is very important. There is too high and too frequent a turnover of senior staff in our prisons. The average tenure is far too short, especially when compared with, say, the length of tenure of a leader in an education establishment. On average, the tenure of leaders in educational establishments is nine years, whereas the tenure in prisons is about three years. That has to change, and it would not require additional money. The Minister could instigate that kind of change very quickly.

We would like boards to be established to provide an opportunity for stakeholders across the community to get their expertise in the running of prison establishments. We have seen that boards can be very effective for colleges, schools and hospitals. It would change completely the way in which an establishment is managed. Prisons should be managed with continuity and expertise and should be inspected rigorously. The Government could make that change quickly and at no cost, and it would be an effective way of changing the culture within our jails. We know that prison culture is important in preventing violent incidents.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) made a good observation about stress at work and the dangerous and monotonous work that prison officers often undertake. We would not tolerate nurses, health professionals or teachers being subjected to violent incidents, but often, precisely because it is a prison officer affected and the incident takes place in a closed environment, the press do not get so agitated, the issue is rarely debated properly in the prison and the Government do not feel moved to do much about it. We need a change in attitude from the Ministry of Justice. It is not tolerable that people should be asked to go to work in such circumstances, and it has gone on too long. The Minister is nodding, but this is not new—we have not suddenly noticed it happening. It is a trend that has been getting worse and worse for a long time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) always speaks with great passion. He quite rightly identified the problem with probation. The chaos and the looming crisis are not restricted to the closed prison estate. We are not resolving issues inside prisons, and so those issues are being left to the probation service, which is under increasing strain and has endured a completely needless and distracting reorganisation in the past two years. It is less and less able to deal with the more difficult problems with which it is confronted.

Rehabilitation is not a light bulb moment—it is not a case of holding one course and then someone is somehow mended. That is not what happens. It is day after day of challenges and problems, of slipping back, then making progress, then slipping back again. When we say, “There will be more courses, we will have work in our prisons and that will somehow solve deeply rooted psychological problems,” it shows that we do not properly appreciate that. We need to get real.

The way to help put people back together is having good behaviour modelled day after day by prison officers, yet more and more they are being shut out of the rehabilitation process. Prison officers are there on the wings when someone’s visit does not take place, or when someone has clearly been taking drugs, or is doing things they should not, or losing their temper. Yes, we need professionals—psychologists, social workers, educational experts—in there as well, but prison officers are there all the time, and should be showing people how to keep their temper, how to treat people with respect or how to deal with difficult conflicts without resorting to violence. However, they are not able to that, because there just are not enough of them, and the ones we have are too often less experienced about prison life than the prisoners they are supposed to be holding. We have learned that from governors and from Nick Hardwick, the excellent inspector of prisons. I urge the Minister to look at that with a great deal more urgency than he or his predecessors have shown to date.

Last week, a report from the prison and probation ombudsman showed a rise in deaths of inmates in segregation units. That was deeply shocking for people who work in the system. I encourage the Minister to think carefully about the impact that working on a wing on which someone has committed suicide will have on that unit’s staff, and to look at the support those staff receive from their employer.

I welcome the Government’s important plans to ban legal highs and prohibit their production. They are a significant and growing problem in our prisons, leading to bullying, intimidation and violence. The inspectorate has found that they are increasingly a great risk in our prisons—it estimates they have posed that risk in around a third of prisons in the past year. Legal highs do not show up in mandatory drug testing and are not being caught in the way they should because of staff shortages. Will the Minister tell us what, beyond all the usual stuff that we have all heard before, the Government are going to do about legal highs inside the prison estate? This is an issue of prison culture. There must be a zero tolerance approach, and we have to mean that—I have been in too many debates in which a Minister has reassured me on just about everything and then nothing seems to change.

On staffing, will the Minister tell us how many prisons are currently reliant on detached duty? Officers on detached duty go into prisons where they are not familiar with the establishment, with the other staff or with the inmates. It is a big, expensive problem that he needs to turn his mind to very quickly.

Most importantly, will the Minister tell us what he is going to do to tackle the rising level of violent assaults on prison officers? It is unacceptable to send public servants into a dangerous workplace, day in, day out, in fear of their safety. No wonder so many are either leaving the service, taking sick leave or becoming ill at work because of stress.

Once again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for York Central for securing this debate, which has given us the chance to put serious concerns to the Minister. I am pleased to see so many Members here. We have given the Minister enough time, so he needs to respond to the questions we have raised. I also hope he will take some interventions.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Andrew Selous)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) on a very polished opening speech. She raised a number of important issues, which I will do my best to address in the time I have.

The hon. Lady talked about the importance of probation supervision. The transforming rehabilitation reforms mean that people with sentences of under 12 months now get probation supervision—they did not in the past. She also talked about mental health issues, so I am sure she will warmly welcome the liaison and diversion services that are spreading across the country; they were introduced by the previous Government and we are continuing them. We would all agree with her that prevention is better than cure, and we all want to see fewer people committing crime and going to prison.

The hon. Lady talked about prisoners being locked up for 23 hours a day. That relates only to a very small proportion of prisoners in operational emergencies. Even in planned restricted regimes, prisoners get considerably more than one hour out of their cells.

[Jenny Chapman]

Will the Minister give way?

[Andrew Selous]

In a second. I want first to ask the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for York Central to use the term “lethal highs” when they talk about new psychoactive substances. That term is more helpful. We are all determined to try to get those dreadful things out of our prisons, and the language matters, so perhaps we can all agree to call the substances “lethal highs”.

[Jenny Chapman]

The Minister is quite correct to encourage us to use that term. On the issue of work, he is fond of saying that there is more work in prisons, but, again and again, inspection reports indicate that there is not and that prisons overestimate time out of cells and underestimate time in them. He needs to challenge his officials more on those data. The prisons inspector seems to be encouraging us to question them, so I want to ensure that the Minister does as well.

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady is pushing at an open door on work in prisons. The number of such hours has gone up. Do I think it satisfactory? Absolutely not. Of course I want to increase it much more. If prisoners are gainfully employed during, roughly, the hours the rest of the population have to work, that will aid rehabilitation and make them more likely to get employment on release. I want more of that, and I will say more about it if the hon. Lady bears with me.

Reoffending was mentioned. Since 2002, the proven reoffending rate has remained stable, and it stands at 26.2%. For adults released from custody, the rate is 45.2%, and it has remained relatively stable since 2004, although it was slightly higher in 2002 and 2003.

Let me turn to the other excellent speeches we have heard. I commend my hon. Friend, as I often call him, the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on raising the issue of drugs. I share his horror of drugs in prison. Drugs destroy lives in the community and in prison. I will say more about that.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) talked about the stress on staff, and I know he cares deeply about that, as I do. The hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) raised a harrowing case. I did not have warning of it, but I can tell her that the prisons and probation ombudsman’s recommendations are being addressed, mostly by the healthcare provider involved. There is also an ongoing investigation of what happened by the Nursing & Midwifery Council. The hon. Lady might be aware that healthcare in prisons is provided by the NHS, not the Prison Service. If she would like to write to me, I should be more than happy to receive a letter from her.

The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) talked about his concerns over Sodexo. He is right that its parent is a French catering company. I would just say that another Sodexo prison won the Elton prison industries award, which has been mentioned. The prison I recently visited in Salford had pretty low levels of sickness absence among its staff.

The hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) mentioned mental health. He was absolutely right to do so, not least because of the horrific incident in his constituency. He talked, quite properly, about the need for suitable accommodation for prisoners on release. If he wants to correspond further on that, I would be more than happy to do so.

The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) told us about the Scottish prison system. I will ensure that National Offender Management Service officials have close contact with the prison service in Scotland. NOMS does things very well, but I absolutely believe we can learn lessons from other parts of the world. I will make sure that that contact happens.

The hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) spoke about the importance of the governor’s role, and I agree. As has been said, this is a leadership issue. She rightly referred to the daily interactions of prison officers, and I will say more about that. She also asked about longer tenures for governors, which is a fair point, and the idea might have merit. I will look into it, within the constraints of normal career planning. We need governors with the right experience, particularly in some of our larger establishments.

One hon. Member—you will have to excuse me, Mr Bone, but I forget who—asked how many prisons still have detached duty. The answer is 15. That is not something we want longer term, because it disrupts prison officers’ lives and costs us more money. I will talk about the success we have had in recruiting more prison officers. We continue to recruit them very actively.