Prisons: Young Offenders

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, since the document was published in 2005, the Government have had a thorough review of it and are in the process of producing new guidelines on restraint and behaviour management designed to replace the existing document. The new system will be assessed by medical and other experts on the new restraint accreditation board. In the mean time, as I said, a new version of the manual is being drawn up and will take account of the changes that have taken place since 2005.

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

My Lords, although the manual is going to be revised, it is currently in use, including, theoretically, on children as young as 12 who are the most damaged and difficult in our society. Is my noble friend aware that the advice given is that, in extremis, a member of staff can drive his fingers straight into the young person’s face and then quickly drive the straightened fingers of the same hand downwards into the young person’s groin area? A great deal is wrong and I hope that the Minister will agree that what is needed is proper, adequate, suitable and relevant training and not this kind of restraint.

[Lord McNally]

I can assure my noble friend that suitable, adequate and proper training is exactly what is under way. It has been suggested, particularly in the media, that some of these techniques were in general use. The techniques are for when an unarmed officer is under attack. I have looked at the manual and at some of the techniques highlighted by the media. On almost every occasion, the last line is: “The member of staff exits”. These are not techniques to inflict pain on young people; they are techniques to enable unarmed, unprotected members of staff who under attack, often by large and quite violent young people—we use the word “children” very casually—to escape from those situations.