Prison Capacity Strategy
Damian Hinds Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Alex Davies-Jones
My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. Sorry seems to be the hardest word for the Conservative party. This Government have started as they mean to go on. That is why within the first six months we have already delivered nearly 500 places, and pledged to continue building the remaining places of that 20,000-place prison building programme. We have also launched the independent sentencing review, in parallel with our 10-year prison capacity strategy. That review will ensure that sentences deliver better outcomes for prisoners and protect the public, and that we will always have space to lock up dangerous offenders.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
The Minister likes to talk about inheritances, but if she checks the record, she will discover that prison overcrowding was higher in 2008, 2009 and 2010 than it was in 2024. It is true that we brought back longer sentences for the worst offenders. That was the right thing to do. It is also true that crime came down.
There are two enormous areas that the Minister needs to work on—or perhaps I should say continue the work we were doing in government. One is the population on remand and the length of time people spend on remand. The other is at a different point in someone’s sentence, and the length of time they wait for a Parole Board hearing. We need more capacity to replace the older capacity with newer prisons, which are more conducive to rehabilitation and to getting people on to a stable path and into work.
I welcome the Minister’s continuing with the previous Government’s programme. I just hope it is more successful than when Gordon Brown’s Government tried to build the Titan prisons. If they had been built, we would not be having this conversation at all.
Prisons
Damian Hinds Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
I beg to move,
That the draft Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Removal of Prisoners for Deportation) Order 2023, which was laid before this House on 16 October, be approved.
Last week my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor made a statement to the House setting out a number of reforms in which our sharp focus is public safety. We will ensure that the worst offenders stay locked up for longer; further enlarge our prison capacity, building on the recent growth that has been achieved, which is unprecedented since the Victorians; and ensure that that capacity is put to best use for public protection.
The removal of foreign national offenders is a priority for this Government. Between January 2019 and March 2023, we removed 14,700 foreign national offenders from the country, but there are still 10,000 FNOs in our prisons, each of them taking up a prison place at great expense to the British taxpayer. While my Department is working closely with the Home Office to increase removals, there is still more that can be done.
As the Lord Chancellor set out in his statement, it cannot be right that some of these individuals are sitting in prison when they could otherwise be removed from the country. The early removal scheme exists to deport foreign national offenders. This means that any foreign national who is convicted of a crime and given a prison sentence—with the exception of those convicted of terrorism or terror-related offences—is considered for deportation. We also remove foreign offenders through prisoner transfer agreements, which enable prisoners to be repatriated during their prison sentence. Those agreements also operate to bring British national offenders back to the UK, and we currently have over 80 such arrangements in place with other countries.
The early removal scheme—the subject of this debate—allows for foreign national offenders to be removed before the end of their sentence, subject to a minimum time being served. Once removed, they are subsequently barred from re-entering the UK, and we are clear that any illegal re-entry will see them returned to prison, where they will serve the rest of their sentence. The draft instrument before us today will ensure that certain foreign national offenders can be removed earlier.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Could my right hon. Friend the Minister clarify that last point? Is he saying that someone who is removed at the end of his or her sentence cannot come back once they are free? They have served their time here, and therefore, in principle, they have paid the price for their crime, but if they go back to their country and want to come back, they are not allowed to do so.
Damian Hinds
My right hon. Friend is correct that, when someone is deported in this way, they are not allowed to return. Were there time remaining on the sentence, as I outlined, that time would be servable if they did come back illegally.
This instrument will ensure that certain foreign national offenders can be removed earlier. We seek to extend the removal window in the early removal scheme from 12 months to 18 months, meaning that we would be able to deport an eligible foreign national offender up to six months earlier, still subject to the minimum required proportion of time having been served. This builds on changes we introduced last year in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which extended the maximum from nine to 12 months. As I just alluded to, we also added the “stop the clock” provision, so that anyone removed from the UK under the early removal scheme will have their sentence paused following removal and reactivated if they illegally return to the UK at any point, which means returning to prison to complete their sentence.
Paul Holmes (Eastleigh) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that it is unsustainable that foreign national offenders in our prisons are costing the taxpayer £500 million a year, and that the actions he is taking will ensure that there are savings in the system, so that prisons can work more efficiently?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is exactly right about the significant costs involved. It is expensive to keep somebody in custody, at an average of £47,000 a year, and we want to make sure that the British taxpayer is not paying unnecessarily for people who do not need to be here and can be removed to their home country and not be allowed to return. Extending the window to 18 months will make it possible to do so for certain foreign national offenders at an earlier point. In preparation for this change, the Home Office is increasing the number of caseworkers to facilitate those removals, and that is the central part of the combined effort between the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office.
Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
On that point, does my right hon. Friend share my concern that Opposition Members have previously tried to block the deportation of dangerous criminals, and can he tell me what the Home Office can do to ensure that does not happen again?
Damian Hinds
I very much share that concern. It is all very well for people to say that they are in favour of making these removals, but their actions have to follow their words. I am afraid that, all too often, that is not what we have seen from Opposition Members, as my hon. Friend rightly points out.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
I think the Minister said that offenders sentenced to over a year would be considered for deportation. Is it the case that there is a duty to remove those offenders and that that would also apply to anyone with EU settled status convicted for over a year—they would be returned to their home country and barred from coming back to the UK?
Damian Hinds
Of course, the rules are as per the broader immigration rules and people’s citizenship rights. What we need to make sure is that, at the earliest opportunity, we are making that move and deporting those eligible foreign national offenders to their home country. We estimate that this change will add around 300 foreign national offenders to the early removal scheme’s eligible caseload at any one time. In addition to that scheme, as I mentioned, we have prisoner transfer agreements, including our new agreement with Albania, which came into force in May last year. We are looking to negotiate further such agreements.
We are a Government who are unashamedly tough on crime. By removing more foreign national offenders earlier in their sentence, we will be saving the taxpayer money, banishing criminals from our shores, and ensuring we have sufficient prison places to keep the worst offenders locked up for longer.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful for all the contributions to this SI debate, including from the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), the former Home Secretary my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), my hon. Friends the Members for Poole (Sir Robert Syms) and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson).
The Chair of the Justice Committee rightly spoke about the need to combine punishment and rehabilitation. Ultimately, the system is for public safety, and both those sides are incredibly important. He rightly said that we must use the system sensibly. He asked me specifically to confirm that this measure does not alter the minimum 50% of time in custody, and he is correct about that. On the point about Albania, we need to make all our prisoner transfer agreements work as effectively as possibly, and with Albania we have a particularly good partnership. It is a very innovative transfer agreement and I am sure there is further that we can go. I will write soon to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Eddisbury on the question he asked about women.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Witham rightly raised points about victims, and victims must always be at the heart of what we do. I confirm that the victim contact scheme applies in these cases, and I confirm again that the minimum proportion of time in custody also applies. It is not just that the sentence is longer; the proportion of time served will be longer, and it is important that we see that in the context of longer sentences. The average sentence in custody is now considerably longer than it was in 2010. Critically, the move for some of the worst offences from the automatic halfway release point to two thirds of the sentence interacts with this measure, and means that many people will be spending longer in prison than they would otherwise. Overall there is discretion not to remove someone, and that is exercised in certain cases.
The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth rightly pointed out that the prison population has grown. She is correct about that. Last week a comprehensive plan was set out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary, which ensures that the worst offenders will stay in prison for longer, and that we also make best use of the capacity we have. The hon. Lady also talked about overcrowding, and I gently remind her that prison overcrowding is lower than it was at the time of the change of Government in 2010, and that there are 2,000 fewer people in overcrowded conditions in our prison population than there were when the Labour party was in government. I also gently ask: where are her Titans? If the Labour party’s build programme had taken place as planned, many of these things would not have come to pass.
The plan set out by my right hon. and learned Friend builds on what has already been achieved, first in the rapid increase in capacity that we have seen, with 5,000 places over the past year, and tougher sentences for the worst offenders, and also with the progress on rehabilitation and what has been done on drugs, employment and housing. That has resulted in the reoffending rate coming down. That is so important, because most crime is repeat crime, and when the reoffending rate comes down, overall crime comes down. That is exactly what we have seen.
The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth asked why we have not done this before, and the answer is that we have, given the changes that we made in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, including the stop-the-clock provisions, and the new prisoner transfer agreements, including the agreement that I alluded to with Albania. That combination of factors has seen an increase of 14% in the number of foreign national offenders removed recently, year-on-year.
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Removal of Prisoners for Deportation) Order 2023 will extend the benefits of the scheme by bringing forward the time from which a foreign national offender can be removed. This draft instrument is a critical part of the approach of the Ministry of Justice and Home Office to removing foreign national offenders from our prisons and our country. It will ensure that taxpayers’ money is best used to protect the public, and I therefore commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
Probation professionals perform a critical and invaluable role for our society. We are injecting an additional £155 million a year to recruit more staff, reduce case loads and continue to deliver better community supervision of offenders. We are seeing improvements in performance as that investment beds in, but there is more to do and I continue to monitor things closely.
Chris Evans
I thank the Minister for that answer, but he will know that Napo, GMB and Unison all say that the probation service is facing soaring workloads. Employees are battling under the pressure and sickness rates are high. With many workers off sick, the impact on public safety will be massive. Something must be done. Stepping outside the politics of this, will he commit to working constructively with unions and other agencies to bring about a strategy that will address this critical area of probation?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman who I know takes a very close interest in these matters, and rightly so. I commit to working in partnership with unions and other representative bodies and others to make sure that we have the right support for this service. Let me reassure him that recruitment to the probation service has been very encouraging over the past three years and we have managed to exceed our stretching recruitment targets.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
In July, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation reported that it had found that far too many potential victims of domestic violence are at risk from those on probation due to wide-ranging systemic failures in the service. Furthermore, the chief inspector of the probation service said that things have deteriorated since the 2018 report into the probation service. Is the Minister not concerned that, once again, after 13 years of Conservative rule, things are continuing to get worse for victims of domestic violence?
Damian Hinds
First, may I join you, Mr Speaker, in welcoming the hon. Lady to her place? I look forward to working constructively with her. She raises an important point about the protection of people from domestic abuse from those who are on probation. I can reassure her that we have put in place further measures and, indeed, invested additional money—£1.5 million a year—to support those extra checks into addresses of where offenders may be going, to make sure that there is not that domestic abuse risk.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
We continue to develop opportunities for work and training, both during custody and on release. I am pleased to say that the proportion of prison leavers employed six months after release has increased markedly over the past two years.
Mrs Murray
What help can the Department give to aid the mobility of this potential workforce and get them to where they need to be?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Going to where the job opportunities are is incredibly important; I would mention to her opportunities such as the Jobcentre Plus railcard through the Department for Work and Pensions. We also need to make sure that, at the point of release, prisoners are put in touch with opportunities near to where they live—where they are going to. Although we work with employers large and small, there is a particular value in working with multi-site firms that have locations in many different places.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
There have been seven deaths in Wormwood Scrubs prison as a result of self-harm in the past three years. The first of the inquests into those deaths—that of Luke Clarke—was concluded only last month. It found that inadequate care, fear and confusion contributed to Luke’s death. What is the Ministry of Justice doing to prevent the unacceptable level of self-inflicted and avoidable deaths in prison and what is it doing to speed up the inquest process? I am still waiting for the meeting into the inquest process that I was promised on 27 June by the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer).
Damian Hinds
We were talking about employment on release, but what the hon. Gentleman raises is incredibly important. I have visited Wormwood Scrubs. Rates of self-harm are unacceptably high. They vary by place. In the women’s estate, we have a particular issue with self-harm. We are working closely with the national health service, which provides mental health support in prisons. I am absolutely determined that we bring down levels of self-harm.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Prison leavers in employment training are less likely to reoffend. That means that education and training for young offenders in prison is crucial. Will the Minister say why the Government have failed so far to implement a new prison education service? It was promised in their party’s manifesto in 2019. Implementing it in 2025 is too little, too late.
Damian Hinds
I join you, Mr Speaker, in welcoming the hon. Lady to her place and similarly look forward to working with her. I can bring her good news. First, there is an education service operating in every prison, with four contracted providers. We also have additional provision that governors can put in place, but for the new service that she mentions—it was indeed a manifesto commitment—the process is well under way. I look forward to being able to make further announcements before long.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
The most recent annual prison performance ratings for 2022-23 were published in July. His Majesty’s Prison and Young Offender Institution New Hall was rated a 2, which is a matter of concern. HMP Wakefield was rated a 4, or outstanding.
Simon Lightwood
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons inspected HMP Wakefield last year and had several concerns, including many that remained unaddressed since its previous visit. Those concerns included infrastructure that is in such a poor condition that it needs investment, insufficient healthcare staff, a lack of mental health interventions and too few activity places. The prison leadership and staff continue to do the right thing and should be praised, but when will the Minister play his part and get our prisons back on track?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the inspectorate of prisons reports, which are a very important part of our system and help to hold the Prison Service and us to account. In the case of Wakefield, as he mentions, it was judged a 3, which is reasonably good, for safety, for respect and for rehabilitation and release planning. There was more to do on purposeful activity, which I readily accept is a theme we have seen in a number of reports from different prisons over time, particularly since covid. The inspector also mentioned the strong leadership at the prison and that the prison was settled. We need to continue to make progress, but I join the hon. Gentleman in playing tribute to the leadership at that prison and throughout our Prison Service, and to all the brilliant staff who make it what it is.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
We are building 20,000 modern prison places to help rehabilitate prisoners, cut crime and protect the public, and we continue to invest in prison maintenance, so that existing places remain in use and safe.
Ms Brown
The Minister’s answer is very interesting because, let’s face it, our prisons have been run down for 13 years. Many are so old that they were built before RAAC—reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—was even a twinkle in somebody’s bank account. If we read the inspection reports, as I have, it is a list of woes. They are draughty, damp, infested, terribly overcrowded and woefully understaffed—hardly likely to enable rehabilitation. It is our communities that endure the consequences, with at least 37% of prison leavers reoffending within 18 months. It is simply not good enough, is it?
Damian Hinds
We continue to upgrade the prison estate. As I say, we are investing in 20,000 new places—the biggest expansion in the secure estate since the Victorian era. At the same time, we have been taking out some of our most overcrowded and unsuitable prisons. In the last financial year, we took out 1,900 places, and we are investing £168 million in custodial maintenance for 2023-24 and 2024-25.
The hon. Lady mentioned reoffending. There is no good level of reoffending but zero, but I am pleased to be able to report good progress on reoffending, which has been coming down as a result of more ex-offenders getting into employment, fewer of them being homeless and more being able to get suitable, good treatment for addiction.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
The Justice Committee is proposing to hold an inquiry into future prison population and estate capacity, and I look forward to the Minister giving evidence to us about that. He will know that that is prompted in part by concerns that overall overcrowding in the adult male estate is some 23%, and it is much worse in many of the old local prisons. While he is right to draw attention to the Government’s new prison building programme, even if that were all completed on time, there would, according to figures we have seen, be a shortfall in March 2025 of about 2,300 places as against anticipated demand. What is going to be done to deal with that? Should we have a proper conversation with the public about what is a reasonable expectation of what can be done in prisons, what is the best use of prisons and who should be there?
Damian Hinds
On my hon. Friend’s last point, of course we must constantly be having an intelligent, constructive public debate about these matters. On the question of capacity, projections change, and there are many complex factors at play. I look forward, as ever, to being scrutinised by his Committee on that point.
It is important to note that crowding—doubling up in cells—has for a very long time been a feature of our prison system. Crowding overall is 2,000 fewer than it was when we came into government in 2010.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
Between January 2019 and December 2022, we removed 13,851 foreign national offenders from the country. As my hon. Friend rightly suggests, that is all about close working with colleagues, including in the Home Office.
Dr Evans
We have all seen the stories of convicted foreign criminals being pulled off planes at the last minute. The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 was brought in to improve the process of returning criminals—to speed up that process and increase the window for removal of foreign national offenders from prison under the early removal scheme. Could my right hon. Friend comment on how that scheme is working, how he expects it to affect the numbers, and how he expects the process to be sped up?
Damian Hinds
As my hon. Friend mentions, under the Nationality and Borders Act, we expanded the FNO early removal scheme window from nine months to 12 months, allowing for earlier removal. We are working closely with the Home Office on that. In May, we also agreed a landmark new deal with Albania, and we are working to negotiate new prisoner transfer agreements with EU member states and other countries.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for that response. It has been reported that the proportion of Northern Ireland’s total jail population who hail from outside the United Kingdom and Ireland is disproportionately high—the figures indicate that it is between 7% and 9% per year. Has the Minister had an opportunity to assess that with the Department of Justice back home?
Damian Hinds
As the hon. Gentleman knows, given the way we are organised, we do not cover the Northern Ireland Prison Service. However, it is very important that we stay in close touch and, although I have not had that specific conversation recently with colleagues in Northern Ireland, there will no doubt be opportunities in the future.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
The sale of Reading Prison is proceeding and, barring any unexpected complications, completion is expected later this autumn.
Matt Rodda
I thank the Minister for his answer, and for meeting me and the right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma) recently to discuss this matter. Reading Gaol is a hugely important historic building, and nearly 13,000 people across Berkshire have now signed a petition asking the Government to work with me and the local arts community to turn the gaol into an arts hub. It has taken the Government a long time to discuss the proposed sale with their preferred bidder and no progress—or slow progress—appears to be being made. Will the Minister now reconsider the Government’s approach and work with me, Reading Borough Council and the local arts community to save this wonderful building?
Damian Hinds
The sale is progressing. Of course, any proposed development would be subject to approval from Reading Borough Council’s planning department, and the usual due diligence requirements and so on will apply.
We quite often throw around the term “doughty campaigner” in this Chamber, but I can certainly say that the hon. Gentleman and my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma), his neighbour, have been incredibly assiduous in their attention to this matter on behalf of their constituents. In turn, I commit to him that we will absolutely stay in touch.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
We have recently seen indications of an improving national staffing picture in prisons, with an increase of 700 full-time equivalent bands 3 to 5 prison officers and youth justice workers in the year to June 2023.
Greg Smith
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer, but the damning report into HMP Woodhill, just adjacent to my constituency, was clear that staff shortages were a huge factor in the serious issues that prison faces. It is equally well known that HMP Spring Hill and HMP Grendon in my constituency have faced recruitment challenges. In that light, if we cannot staff the prisons that we do have, surely it is unworkable to carry on with my right hon. Friend’s totally unwanted plans to build a new mega-prison in my constituency and that planning appeal should be withdrawn.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who takes a close interest in these matters, and rightly so, particularly on behalf of his constituents who are prison officers and other staff in and around his constituency. I can assure him we are working urgently to address the findings and the urgent notification at Woodhill. I think we will come on to that a little later in questions from hon. Friends. The Lord Chancellor will, as ever, be publishing an action plan by the end of the month. We also have active recruitment campaigns in place for Grendon and Spring Hill and are seeking to increase numbers by incentivised recruitment.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
At 30 June just over 20,000 people were working in the probation service—an increase of just over 2,300, or 13%, compared with 30 June the previous year.
Theresa Villiers
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Two horrific cases—those of Jordan McSweeney and Damien Bendall—show how vital it is to have effective supervision of recently released offenders. What lessons have been learned from those two cases, and will the Minister provide an update on the action being taken to address problems in the probation service caused by high vacancy rates and consequentially unmanageably large case loads for probation staff?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and again I express my sincere condolences to the families of Zara Aleena, Terri Harris, Connie Gent and John and Lacey Bennett. We have increased probation staff in the London area by 4.5% over the last year, and that includes 270 trainee probation officers in post. The service has accepted all the chief inspector’s recommendations in respect of the two appalling cases that my right hon. Friend mentioned, and it is implementing robust action plans, especially with regard to improving risk assessments.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
Ministers engage regularly with colleagues in the Welsh Government, including discussions on female offenders and alternatives to custody. Both Governments work closely on delivering the “Women’s justice blueprint for Wales” on female offending.
Liz Saville Roberts
Short sentences for women often do more harm than good, reinforcing trauma and leading to further reoffending. In 2022, two thirds of sentences for immediate custody for women were for less than 12 months. It is anticipated that 1,000 more women will be in prison by 2026. How does the Secretary of State justify the growing female prison population and the use of short sentences, given Wales’s ambition to divert as many women as possible away from prison?
Damian Hinds
The women’s population in prison has come down, and sentencing is a matter for the judiciary and not something in which the Government intervene. It is important that suitable alternatives to custody are available, and I join the right hon. Lady in paying tribute to the people running women’s centres, for example, which do a fantastic job specifically for women, as well as to the broader set of alternative and community sentence options. It is important that we make sure we continue to work on those, including working together with the Welsh Government.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Lord Chancellor, who has been in Riga attending a Council of Europe meeting, where a political declaration was signed on support for the Ukrainian justice system. He is sorry not to be here for these oral questions, and he has asked me to convey to the House his thanks to the Metropolitan police for their quick work in finding and returning Daniel Khalife to custody. The independent investigation that the Lord Chancellor commissioned must now get to the bottom of this serious breach. Since the last oral questions, the Government have also announced that we will make whole life orders the expectation in sentencing where they can be applied. We have also outlined plans to order the worst offenders to attend court for their sentencing hearings. We want to ensure that the worst offenders receive their sentences in the full glare of the courtroom, and that victims have the opportunity to set out the impact the crime has had on them.
Dame Nia Griffith
With Government spending for housing legal aid falling in the past decade from £44 million to £20 million and the spending for disrepair cases falling from nearly £4 million to just over £1 million, it is not a moment too soon that the Government have begun to restore some legal aid with the housing loss prevention advice service. Due to the Government’s disastrous Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, many housing legal aid providers shut up shop, leaving 42% of the population of England and Wales without a single provider in their local authority area and 84% with no access to welfare legal aid. What recent analysis has the Minister made of legal aid deserts, and what steps is he taking to remedy the situation?
Damian Hinds
We are putting more money into legal aid and criminal legal aid following the independent review. Specifically on housing, which the hon. Lady mentioned, we are injecting an additional £10 million from 1 August.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamp- tonshire) (Con)
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for the update about Daniel Khalife, but the fact remains that HMP Wandsworth has been a known problem for the best part of a decade, with a litany of failures including overcrowding, staffing and security issues. Khalife is not even the first escape from Wandsworth; there was an incident in 2019, which the chief inspector of prisons said was the result of a “serious security breach”. Why, after so many warnings about Wandsworth, have the Government failed to act?
Damian Hinds
We take these matters extremely seriously. The independent investigation will of course look at the question the hon. Lady raised specifically about the 2019 incident to ensure that lessons were learned. If we look at the independent review of progress from His Majesty’s inspectorate, we see that progress has been made in Wandsworth, particularly on staffing, which I know has rightly been a matter of considerable public interest. There has been an increase of some 25% in staffing specifically at Wandsworth since 2017.
Shabana Mahmood
Years of warnings and years of inaction—I am afraid that rather sums the Government up. On Sunday, the Justice Secretary told us that 40 prisoners have been moved from Wandsworth, claiming that that was out of “an abundance of caution”. Will the Minister tell us how many other prisoners will have to be moved across the whole prison estate as a result of this escape? What the public want to see is not an abundance of caution after the fact of an escape but an abundance of certainty that the prison estate is secure. Is it?
Damian Hinds
It is. The hon. Lady would not expect me to get into a running commentary on transfer arrangements when we are talking about security. I want to reassure her, the House and the public that escapes from prisons are very rare, and much rarer now than they used to be. The number of escapes from prison in the last 13 years—since 2010—is considerably lower than it was in the 13 years before.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)
Damian Hinds
I think the hon. Gentleman has achieved his objective: to get something on the record. I will not comment on ongoing cases, but, speaking more generally, access to justice is at the heart of what we do.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)
Last month the United Nations called for an urgent Government review of sentences of imprisonment for public protection. Will the Secretary of State listen to the UN? Can he explain why the number of people with an IPP sentence recalled to prison without committing any further offence has soared in recent years?
Damian Hinds
I can confirm that the Lord Chancellor and I—and us all—are very conscious of the difficulties around IPP sentences, which would not be introduced today. We abolished them, as the hon. Lady knows, but there are people in prison who have been recalled or not released by the parole board because they have not been considered safe for release. Our objective is to help to manage people towards safe release into the community. To that end, our recently announced action plan is central.
Mark Eastwood (Dewsbury) (Con)
The rehabilitation of offenders is so important in reducing the chances of them committing crime once released from prison, especially if they can get back into work. Could the Minister outline any schemes that help to give offenders the skills they need, and how they can access companies that are willing to give them a second chance in life?
Damian Hinds
My hon Friend is so right. In topical questions, I do not have the time to start to unpack all the different things I would like say, so I will not. Suffice it to say that brilliant companies are providing training opportunities.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I have written to the Secretary of State about the tragic case of my young constituent Gregg McGuire. He has agreed to meet with me and I am very grateful. Does his Department have any plans to reassess the current rules which mean that victims’ families are unable to appeal sentences for those convicted of causing death by careless driving?
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The scale of the illegal drugs problem in prisons was such that five years ago the Government introduced a programme that cost £100 million. Has the problem got worse or improved in the time since?
Damian Hinds
We are seeing progress. It is a combined approach of drug recovery wings and incentivised subsidised free living, and ensuring that security is able to stop drugs getting into prison through things like x-ray body scanners, which we have deployed in many prisons.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
It is perhaps unfortunate that many members of the public and much of the media only take an interest in prisons when there is an escape, but that is, thankfully, very rare. Will my right hon. Friend join me in hoping to now see a calm and measured public debate about the role of prisons, not least working out ways to improve rehabilitation, which ultimately protects the public.
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is exactly right. He has a long history with this issue since before he reached this House. It is, ultimately, all about rehabilitation, reducing reoffending and helping to keep the public safe.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Over 10,000 women have signed a public letter to the Prime Minister asking him to take action against the escalating campaign of threats and intimidation against women who stand up for women’s rights. Many of these women are particularly concerned that the institutions supposed to protect them are failing to do so, including the criminal justice system. Will the Minister with responsibility for victims be good enough to meet me and representatives of those who organised the letter to discuss this important issue?
His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service
Damian Hinds Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, for his opening remarks and, more broadly, for securing this important debate on this estimates day. I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate.
There can be no higher purpose for a Government than protecting the public from the devastating consequences of crime and maintaining a criminal justice system in which people have confidence. We have honoured our manifesto commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers and, through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, we have introduced tougher penalties for the most serious crimes and removed automatic halfway release of the most violent and sexual offenders so that the worst criminals are locked up for longer. We are building new state-of-the-art prisons that will not only give effect to the order of the court to take criminals off our street, but properly rehabilitate them so that they turn their backs on crime for good. That way, we can break the destructive cycle of offending that costs the taxpayer £18 billion a year and has an incalculable personal cost to the victims and communities blighted by it.
The PCSC Act also brought in better monitored and more effective community sentences, which were just mentioned by the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves). They punish offenders, tackle the underlying drivers of offending and support people who want to turn their lives around. Those measures include tougher and more flexible electronically monitored curfews. We aim to almost double the number of defendants and offenders tagged at any one time to reach 25,000 by March 2025.
We have recruited more than 50 new health and justice co-ordinators, who will cover every probation region and work with health partners so that offenders get the right treatment to stay on the straight and narrow. That will be underpinned by regular drug testing to monitor compliance. We are investing up to £93 million in community payback to drive up the hours of unpaid work done by offenders, so that they visibly pay their debt to society for the damage they have done.
We are achieving our vision to cut the youth custodial population, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. Roughly 3,000 children and young people were in custody in 2008-09; as of April this year, the number had fallen to around 600. It is also important to note that, in line with our female offender strategy, between 2018 and 2021, the average female prison population fell by 17%.
Our £100 million security investment programme to reduce crime inside prisons, including stemming the flow of illicit items such as drugs, mobile phones and weapons, was completed in March 2022. Enhanced gate security—including 659 staff, 154 drug dogs and over 200 pieces of equipment—has been deployed to 42 high-risk prison sites that routinely search staff and visitors. We now have 97 X-ray body scanners covering the entire closed male estate and they have recorded more than 28,000 positive indications.
To date, 89 prisons have completed their roll-out of PAVA synthetic pepper spray to stop violent prisoners in their tracks and we have introduced 13,000 new generation body-worn video cameras across the estate, with networked, cloud-based technology. These important investments rightly underpin our focus on the safety of staff and others in prison.
Linked to that, we need prisons to be a place where offenders overcome addiction, which is why we are rolling out abstinence-focused drug recovery wings and increasing the number of dedicated, incentivised substance-free living units across the estate, where prisoners commit to regular drug tests in return for incentives such as more gym time.
Alongside safety and security in prisons, we must invest in education and employment if we are to cut crime sustainably. We know that, if a prisoner can hold down a steady job, it reduces their chance of reoffending by up to nine percentage points, which is why we are driving forward initiatives to help prisoners to secure jobs on release, including through prison employment leads to match prisoners to jobs and employment advisory boards to build links between prisons and local industry, and to ensure that the skills being taught in prisons align with what is demanded and required in the local labour market.
I agree that we need to go further on education. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) spoke about the Shannon Trust and I pay tribute to its work. I confirm that we are extending what we do with the literacy innovation fund across 15 prisons. There is also a much sharper understanding of neurodiversity in our prison population, and I am pleased that we will have neurodiversity support managers across the estate by January 2024. I am also excited about the prospect of the first secure school, which we will be doing in partnership with the Oasis Trust. It is a different approach from those in youth custody, further elevating the role of education.
Ensuring proper support is on offer beyond the prison gates is also crucial if we are to help offenders stay on the straight and narrow, so we are improving pre-release planning and continuity of care. We want to ensure that no one supervised by probation is released from prison homeless. Our new transitional accommodation scheme—community accommodation service tier 3, so below the level of bail hostels—helps us to deliver on that commitment. It was initially delivered in five probation regions in 2021, but our investment is expanding to operate across all of England and Wales by April 2024.
We are also investing in pre-release teams, which have been embedded in 67 prisons and provide an important interface for commissioned rehabilitative services that help ex-prisoners with accommodation, personal wellbeing, employment, training and education. To improve continuity of care for prison leavers with substance misuse or wider health issues, we are recruiting more than 50 health and justice co-ordinators with responsibility for ensuring more joined-up support between prison, probation and healthcare treatment services. Where appropriate, alcohol monitoring on licence is available.
Small things that the rest of us can take for granted can make all the difference, for good or ill. That is why we have introduced resettlement passports, set up ahead of release, to bring together the essentials that offenders need in one place: bank accounts, CVs and the identification people need to prove the right to work and to rent a flat. We have also supported the Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Act 2023, which recently received Royal Assent, having started out as a private Member’s Bill. It will enable offenders at risk of reoffending to be released up to two days earlier, to avoid what can be the hectic rush of trying to get round different services on a Friday.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst asked specifically about magistrates’ sentencing powers. Given the time, I should not talk about that in great detail now. We have had a chance to talk about it in the Select Committee. On his specific question about working with the judiciary, we are working with the Judicial Office as part of the review we are undertaking on the changes and plan to engage magistrates on it. We should have completed that review by the autumn.
My hon. Friend and others rightly asked about capacity, the role of Operation Safeguard and other shorter-term capacity measures, as well as the longer-term capital programme. Since October 2022, we have seen an acute and exceptional rise in the prison population. Operation Safeguard is a temporary measure to provide a short-term solution to that acute rise in demand. He asked how much of that capacity has been used. The answer is that it goes up and down; it is a facility to be drawn on as needed. The average over the period is really quite low, but there are days when its usage is greater. Standing it up has provided us with vital extra short-term resilience as we develop further that longer-term capital programme.
As of April, we had invested £1.3 billion in capital towards the delivery of the 20,000 additional, modern prison places to which my hon. Friend referred. By the end of June, about 5,400 of those places had been added to the estate. That includes the two new 1,700-place prisons, HMPs Five Wells and Fosse Way, with the latter having accepted its first prisoners at the end of May.
Sir Robert Neill
I am grateful to the Minister for that update. Those who have been to Five Wells and Fosse Way recognise what an advance they are in design and facilities. Will he give us a specific update on where we are in the stalled planning process on the other three prisons, which are still stuck in the system? When are we likely to get those moving forward?
Damian Hinds
As my hon. Friend well knows—he was previously a leading light in ministerial office, dealing with local government—we do not control the planning process. I am therefore not in a position to give him a bang-up-to-date update, except to say that those three projects remain part of our plan. Overall, this is a complex capital programme and we need to deal with external factors, including working through the planning process.
Sir Robert Neill
Perhaps the Minister could write to me and the Select Committee to set out where we are with those projects. Have they gone to appeal yet? If so, has any indication been given as to when the hearings will take place?
Damian Hinds
Of course, I will be delighted to correspond in that way with my hon. Friend.
We are also rolling out 1,000 rapid deployment cells across the estate. The first three sites, HMPs Norwich, Wymott and Hollesley Bay, are now accepting prisoners, and the majority of the 1,000 additional places will be delivered this year. We are undertaking major refurbishments at sites including HMPs Birmingham, Liverpool and Norwich, delivering about 800 cells between them. The wing-by-wing refurbishment at HMP Liverpool will see every cell renovated. Construction has also started on new house blocks at HMPs Stocken, Hatfield, Sudbury and Rye Hill, which will add around 850 places between them. HMP Millsike, the new prison of some 1,500 places by HMP Full Sutton, will open in 2025. Our new prisons have a laser-sharp focus on rehabilitation, with workshops and cutting-edge technology that puts education, training and jobs front and centre, so every prisoner gets the right opportunity to turn over a new leaf.
Like many, or most, workforces, the Prison Service has experienced recruitment and retention challenges at a time of very low unemployment. Ensuring our services are sufficiently resourced and that we retain levels of experience are fundamental for delivering quality outcomes. That is why we are targeting the drivers of staff attrition and taking steps to improve recruitment, alongside a wider agenda of development in the workforce.
We welcome the Justice Committee’s important inquiry into the prison operational workforce and we have worked closely with the Committee to provide evidence. We are now closely considering the survey of prison staff, and I reaffirm that we take the issues of the morale and safety of staff with the greatest gravity. Prison staff do incredible work and, so often, are the hidden heroes of our justice system and society. In every prison I have visited, their dedication and drive are clear to see.
We fund a range of services to support staff wellbeing, which include care teams in public sector prisons that are trained to provide support to any member of staff involved in an incident at work. We are committed to making sure our prison staff feel safe, supported and valued, and we look forward to receiving the Committee’s full report and recommendations in due course.
The 2022-23 prison staff pay award was announced in July 2022. It represented a significant investment in the workforce. Alongside an increase in base pay of at least 4% for all staff between bands 2 and 11, we targeted further pay rises for our lowest-paid staff of up to £3,000.
The probation service is in its second year of a multi-year pay deal for staff. Salary values of all pay bands will increase each year, targeted at key operational grades to improve what has been a challenging recruitment and retention position. The pay increases differ for different job roles, but to provide an example, probation officers will see their starting salary rise from around £30,200 in 2021-22 to a little over £35,000 by 2024-25.
Let me respond briefly to some of the individual points made by colleagues during the debate. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) asked about crowding in prisons. The most recent statistics show crowding at 20.6% in the estate; by way of comparison, in 2009, that figure was 25.3%.
My near neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), raised the horrific crime of overkill. I have heard what she says and I will pass on those points within the Department.
I commend the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for his close association and work with the Prison Officers Association. I confirm that I will continue to look forward to speaking with the Prison Officers Association and other staff bodies throughout the Prison and Probation Service. He was right to identify the centrality of safety and security in people’s experience of work. I reassure him that we measure those things centrally through the key performance indicators that we have in prisons.
Multiple Members rightly talked about rehabilitation. Specifically on the question about education providers asked by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, it is true that there are four education providers contracted to provide education services through the prison system. However, there is also a flexible fund that enables individual governors to draw down funds to make supplementary provision in certain ways. It is important that we get a blend—that we are able to respond to local conditions and the specifics of a prison population, and have some commonality in the provision and in the qualification studies.
Damian Hinds
I am sorry, but I think that I might be starting to stretch Mr Deputy Speaker’s patience. I will be happy to follow up with the hon. Gentleman separately if he would like to do so as an alternative.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North talked, quite rightly, about the impact on families. That works in both directions—the effect on the children and what can be an adverse childhood experience, and the effect on the prisoner. Then there is the importance of having family time and family support, and the difference that that can make on release. I pay tribute to Lord Farmer for the work that he has done in that area. We have done some work on improving the maintenance of family ties, but I bring here today the good news that we are working on some data-linking in order to understand the extent and nature of these issues more closely.
We know overall that the efforts of our dedicated staff are working. The proportion of prison leavers in employment six months after release has more than doubled in the two years to March 2023, from 14% to more than 30%. Since 2010, the overall reoffending rate has decreased from 31.6% to 24.4%. As of February 2023, our transitional accommodation service had supported more than 5,000 prison leavers who would otherwise have been homeless across the initial five regions. Of course, there is still a huge amount more to do, but it is clear that we are making significant and important progress. The Government will always value and invest in His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. Our prisons must be and will be a safe place in which to work, where staff are provided with the right support, the training and the tools to empower them to do their jobs. I look forward to a continued dialogue on this matter with the Committee and others beyond this debate and the report.
In closing, let me repeat my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst for securing the debate, and to all who have contributed today. I commend the estimates to the House.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The final brief word goes to Sir Robert Neill.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
The number of IPP offenders in custody has fallen from 6,000 in 2012 to 2,916 at the end of March this year. That includes 1,561 who had been released but were then recalled. The Government are committed to helping IPP offenders to progress through their sentences, under the revised IPP action plan published in April, and towards safe release.
Chi Onwurah
At age 17, my constituent Danny Weatherson was convicted of shoplifting, with a recommended term of 15 months. Seventeen years later, he has only just been granted parole, in a justice system that seems too under-resourced to progress his case. Imprisonment for public protection is a complex area, and many who serve such sentences undoubtedly do present a threat to the public, but does the Minister agree that discussions on reform should take place on a cross-party basis, with the voices of victims and justice campaigners heard, and that a functioning probation system is a prerequisite?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the tone in which she asks about this issue. Obviously, the role of the Parole Board and the probation service is vital, and the Parole Board is regularly looking at cases. I welcome what she said about continuing to look at this matter, and the Government welcome the Justice Committee’s recent report, which was an important opportunity to take stock. The Lord Chancellor will speak further on this matter in due course.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
We are committed to recruiting 5,000 additional prison officers across the public and private estate by the mid-2020s. We have seen recent improvements in recruitment, with 655 additional full-time equivalent officers appointed between December 2022 and March 2023 alone.
Andrew Selous
At risk of being potted, kettled or attacked with toothbrushes that have razors fastened to the end, the work of a prison officer is not for the faint-hearted, yet their role is essential to keeping us free. We have just celebrated Armed Forces Week, and rightly so—I say that as a former veteran—but it troubles me that we do not have a similar week to celebrate the work of prison officers. We do not do enough to recognise their service to keep us all safe and free, across society. Can we change that, please, and urgently?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is right about the paramountcy of safety for our brave staff, which is why we have been investing in security, body-worn cameras, PAVA spray and so on. He is also right that prison officers are often hidden heroes in our society, and they do not always get the recognition they deserve. As it happens, this evening is His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service staff awards, which I am looking forward to attending, and I am keen to find more ways to publicly recognise these incredible people for what they do. His suggestion of a Prison Officers Week is interesting. More generally, I hope all colleagues will take the opportunity to visit their local prisons and to speak directly to prison officers.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
According to the Prison Officers Association, the turnover rate among officers is still very high. What discussions has the Minister had with the POA about not only recruitment but retention?
Damian Hinds
I have spoken to the POA about recruitment and retention, as the hon. Gentleman would expect. We have recently seen about a 1 percentage point improvement in the resignation rate, which is significant, but we have to make sure that all aspects of the job are right. Of course it is about pay and conditions, but it is also about things such as safety and making sure prison officers have the right support for what can be, mentally, a very difficult and straining job.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
The work that our probation service does is incredibly important and, like the work of prison officers, it often goes unseen. There have been recruitment challenges throughout society, as the hon. Lady will know, but we have been focusing particularly on recruiting into probation. I am pleased to report that, over the past couple of years, we have exceeded our target, which was already stretching to 4,000. In regions such as London, where recruitment has been particularly difficult, we have had encouraging signs, including, for example, 144 new trainee probation officers starting in London in 2022-23. Their ongoing training and professional development will be incredibly important over the next few years.
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I wonder what conversations the Lord Chancellor can have with the Chief Coroner about the poor performance of the Somerset coroner’s office, where the waiting time went up from 23 weeks to 31 weeks in 2022 against a decrease in the rest of the country. That involves worse things for individual constituents. Mrs Deborah Cox has been waiting nearly four years for the coroner to get on with the job of providing an answer. That is deeply distressing for families, and I wonder what can be done.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Damian Hinds
What the hon. Gentleman said is just not the case. He is absolutely right that securing accommodation on release is incredibly important—we have just had a similar conversation about employment, but accommodation underpins so much else, including the ability to get into work—but the tier 3 accommodation that he mentions had, by February of this year, already supported more than 5,000 people who would otherwise have left prison without a home to go to.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
Further to the Minister’s comments about the progress made in magistrates courts, may I thank him for recently meeting members of the Cheshire bench who came to Parliament? Will he update the House on the decision to pause the additional sentencing powers granted to magistrates in 2022? Does he agree with me and members of the Magistrates Association that restoring those powers could free up about 1,700 extra Crown court sitting days each year?
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
I recently visited Aylesbury Prison, where I was very impressed with the excellent work that is being done at the establishment as it has transformed from being a young offenders institution to a category C adult jail. One particular challenge, though, is the prevalence of psychoactive drugs such as spice. What progress is my right hon. Friend making on combating this appalling and deadly substance?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, both for the particular interest he takes in his local prison and for using his much broader experience across the system. He is right to identify the issue with keeping drugs out of prisons. Different substances come and go to some extent, but particularly for spice, the investment we have made in drug trace machines for post—I think there are now over 100 of those—has been very important.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
The Ministry of Justice has been trying to sell Reading jail to a commercial developer for some time, but our community hopes that it can instead be turned into an arts hub. Can the Minister update me on that sale, and will he meet with me and constituents on this important matter?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. He and I have met, along with the other MP for Reading, my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma). As he is aware, a sale is progressing, and of course there is commercial sensitivity attached to that, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that assurances for purchase will be required by solicitors and all required due diligence will be undertaken. I will be happy to talk with him further.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Louise and her family are facing unnecessary and quite challenging delays in the local coroner’s service in Cheshire. This seems to be happening far too often at the moment. What more can Ministers do to speed up that process?
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
Offenders who get off drugs are some 19% less likely to slip back into a life of crime, so the Ministry of Justice is investing strongly across security, testing, treatment and continuity of care.
Maggie Throup
Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that there is a clear correlation between criminal offences involving drugs and alcohol and the prevalence of antisocial behaviour, particularly in and around our town centres? What is being done to ensure that persistent offenders of drink and drug-fuelled antisocial behaviour are not only prosecuted but receive tougher custodial sentences to keep them off the streets so that people feel safer in our communities?
Damian Hinds
I certainly appreciate the link that my hon. Friend mentions. The MOJ has worked closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Home Office on the antisocial behaviour plan, which includes funding to use out-of-court disposal conditions in 10 police and crime commissioner areas to deliver immediate justice. The probation service will pilot new rapid deployment teams of offenders serving community sentences to clean up and repair more serious incidences of antisocial behaviour as quickly as possible.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
The Government have received a pre-reporting list of issues from the UN Committee against Torture, as is routine. We are finalising our response.
Neale Hanvey
Article 3 of the 1984 UN convention against torture and other cruel, unhuman or degrading treatment or punishment sets out the grounds on which a state should judge all risks of mistreatment in considering extradition. Will the Minister clarify whether the UK Government give due consideration to those provisions? Specifically, what consideration is the UK giving to providing a right of safe passage for those fleeing Sudan and South Sudan with family members in the UK? Will the Minister set out what safe, open and legal routes are available to those people?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, though I know that you would not want me to stray too far into matters that are for other Government Departments, Mr Speaker. The UK has carried out by far the longest and largest evacuation of any western country from Sudan, bringing 2,450 people to safety. Preventing a humanitarian emergency in Sudan is our top focus. Alongside the evacuation effort, we are working with international partners and the United Nations to bring an end to the fighting.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State explained earlier, getting offenders and ex-offenders into work has a material impact on the odds against their returning to a life of crime. There is a fantastic opportunity to maximise that because of the tightness of the labour market. My hon. Friend is right about the need to match local skills needs, and the employment advisory boards are there to ensure that that happens.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
Damian Hinds
I think that any such review and analysis would be led by the Government Equalities Office, but I can of course speak with reference to the prison system. On the particular issue of transgender prisoners on the women’s prison estate in England and Wales, our approach is that transgender women can be held on the main women’s estate only if risk-assessed to be safe. That is part of the reason why more than 90% of transgender women in custody in England and Wales have been held on the men's estate, compared with only 50% in Scotland. The further changes in our policy strengthen the position, meaning that no transgender woman convicted of a sexual or violent offence and retaining male genitalia can be assigned to the general women’s estate other than in truly exceptional circumstances, with ministerial sign-off.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
A few weeks ago, I visited Poundland at Sailmakers shopping centre in Ipswich, as well as the Military Unit shop and Essential Vintage. All those businesses are at their wits’ end with repeated thieving in their shops, to the point that one of them has temporarily shut its doors. Does the Lord Chancellor agree that the criminal justice system needs to be far harder on those who are repeatedly caught shoplifting? It is debilitating for a town centre, and we should not let cultural sensitivities get in the way.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I recently wrote to the Secretary of State’s predecessor about what his Department calls the “temporary release failure” from Her Majesty’s Prison Sudbury, as it was at the time, of the known criminal Dean Woods, which is on the public record and is of grave concern not only to the Prison Service in England but to some of my constituents, given what he was convicted of and what he is accused of by police forces across Europe. Since last year, has the Department done anything to make sure that Mr Woods is returned not to a category D prison but to a category B prison, and to ensure that it works with colleagues across the rest of Europe to make sure that, if he is to be sent to prison for other possible actions, it happens as quickly as possible?
Damian Hinds
If I may, I offer to meet the hon. Gentleman to talk through that detailed case.
Imprisonment for Public Protection Sentences
Damian Hinds Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
It is very good to see you in the Chair, as always, Mr Twigg. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) for his opening remarks and for securing this debate on behalf of the Justice Committee following the publication last year of its report on imprisonment for public protection sentences. I also thank all colleagues in the Chamber for what they have brought to this important debate and to our discussion of these incredibly serious matters.
The Government welcomed the report by my hon. Friend and his Committee as a real opportunity to take stock of the debate on the IPP sentence, which rightly continues to generate enormous interest, attention and challenge across both Houses of Parliament. Having discussed this matter with IPP campaign groups and colleagues of different parties last month, I am even more acutely aware of the depth and strength of the feeling evoked.
Today’s debate is timely, because the updated IPP action plan from HM Prison and Probation Service was shared with my hon. Friend’s Committee yesterday. One of the Committee’s key recommendations was to refresh the agency’s action plan, and this debate provides an opportunity to share some details of the refreshed plan with the House. I am confident that it will make a genuine difference to the way that IPP offenders are rehabilitated and supported through to safe release, consistent with public protection.
I will provide a brief overview of the IPP sentence, before turning to the Justice Committee’s report and the Government response. As a number of colleagues have mentioned, the IPP sentence was introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 for offences committed on or after 4 April 2005, and it was abolished from December 2012. As has been noted, abolition was not applied retrospectively, as the Government assessed that it would not be right to alter a sentence that had been lawfully imposed by a court prior to its abolition. This means that the Parole Board grants release to those serving an IPP sentence once they have demonstrated that they are safe to be released.
At the time of abolition, more than 6,000 offenders were serving an IPP sentence in prison. Since then a substantial number have been released on licence, so that at the end of March this year there were 2,916 offenders on an IPP sentence in custody. Although that is a significant decrease from the peak in 2012, I recognise that there is more to be done. I reaffirm the Government’s commitment to support those serving an IPP sentence, both in prison and on licence in the community, to work towards a safe and sustainable future release. We will continue this work through the updated IPP action plan.
I thank all members of the Justice Committee for their thorough work in examining the issues surrounding IPP sentences. The Government gave careful consideration to all the report’s findings and each of the Committee’s recommendations. We carefully considered the recommendations to undertake a full resentencing exercise of all remaining offenders serving an IPP sentence and to establish a time-limited expert committee to advise on the practical implementation of such an exercise, as the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and others outlined. However, the Government’s priority remains the protection of the public, and any resentencing exercise that aims to provide each IPP prisoner with a definite release date would inevitably result in the immediate release of a considerable number of offenders who committed serious sexual or violent offences and whom the Parole Board has previously deemed unsafe to be released.
James Daly
What evidence basis does the Minister have to make that statement?
Damian Hinds
I make it on the basis of the profile of the prison population and the fact that prisoners have had parole hearings where determinations have been made not to release. That is based on the release test, with which I know my hon. Friend is extremely familiar.
It is vital for public protection that those serving the IPP sentence in prison, whether not yet released or recalled following release, are released only following a thorough risk assessment that finds that their risk has now reduced to the point where they can be safely managed in the community. That is a judgment for the parole board. It is for that reason we rejected the Committee’s recommendation of a full resentencing exercise for such offenders.
John McDonnell
I am not sure we all share the same understanding of the Committee’s recommendation. My understanding was that the Committee recommended bringing together an expert panel that would advise on the process. That does not mean the expert panel would precipitously leap us forward into a mass release or anything like that. It is just an expert panel that could advise the Government on how the process might operate. The Government could refuse its recommendations. It is just another way of exploring—to the point made by the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly)—an evidence- based judgment rather than one based, frankly, on prejudice.
Damian Hinds
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that our decision is based on principles of public safety, consistent with wishing to help and support the prisoners on an IPP sentence through to the point where they can be released safely into the community. All of us want that ultimate goal.
The Committee also recommended a reduction in the qualifying period for licence termination from 10 years to five following first release from custody. As hon. Members know, the licence period following custody is an important tool not only for public protection, but to ensure that offenders are properly supported to manage risk when they are integrating back into the community. As I said earlier, offenders who originally received an IPP sentence did so because they committed a qualifying offence and were considered to pose a risk of serious harm to the public. It is extremely important to allow a proportionate licence period after release to ensure their safe management and reintegration into communities.
Sir Robert Neill
Will the Minister set out, either here or in the Library, what evidence he has that suggests the risk is significantly greater at five years as opposed to 10? What statistics lead to that decision?
Damian Hinds
We will continue to engage with my hon. Friend’s Committee in the normal way. It is perfectly reasonable of him to challenge us. I was coming on to say something about the licence periods.
Although we will not be reducing the eligibility period for licence termination at this time, we have committed in the action plan to review the current policy and practice for suspending the supervisory elements of IPP licences to ensure that all cases are considered at the point when they are eligible, which, for the supervisory element, is after five continuous successful years on licence in the community. My hon. Friend will be aware of the changes that we made in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 in regard to making sure that eligible cases are brought forward.
Colleagues have expressed legitimate concern about the high number of IPP offenders recalled to custody, and asked about the proportionality of that. I assure colleagues that in 2020 His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation did a thematic report on recall in terms of its proportionality, and it found that decisions to recall were proportionate. As part of our action plan, we will be internally reviewing our recall processes. We are also asking His Majesty’s inspector of probation—the chief inspector—to undertake a thematic inspection of recalls specifically for IPP and for that to happen in this calendar year. He will also look at the weeks leading up to recall—I know that this is a significant point that matters to colleagues, and rightly so— and consider whether, had the support on offer been different, recall could have been avoided. I thank the chief inspector for stepping up to undertake that piece of work.
I will move on to the IPP action plan, but first may I ask what time I must finish by, Mr Twigg?
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
I would usually allow a minute for the Chair of the Select Committee.
Damian Hinds
Then I will turn to the IPP action plan, which sets out the range of work that His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service does to support the progress of IPP offenders towards a prospective safe and sustainable release.
The Committee’s report criticised the then IPP action plan for lacking clear performance measures, an accountable owner and a timeframe for completion of workstream actions. We accept those points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and his colleagues. It had actually long been the intention of the Government to refresh the IPP action plan, once his Committee’s report had been published.
Having taken that evidence into account, I am pleased to be able to share some of the details of the refreshed plan, building on the previous one. I am confident that it will deliver tangible change by safely reducing over time the IPP population in custody and in the community, while still prioritising public protection. Our key priority is managing the sentences of those serving an IPP to a consistently high quality, ensuring that the delivery of systems and processes in every prison and probation region facilitates risk reduction and the prospect of progress towards a safe and sustainable release. That will include the delivery of specific interventions and services to enable sentence progression, rehabilitation and effective resettlement for those who continue to serve the IPP sentence. To respond to a point brought up by my hon. Friend, it is true that covid restricted access to some of those programmes. The plan has now set out—and itself includes—actions to ensure that IPP prisoners get access in a timely way to the programmes they need to be able to reduce their risk.
I will say a little about the governance of the plan—that comes to the accountable owner and ensuring that it has sufficient heft. There will be a new senior IPP progression board, chaired by the executive director with responsibility for public protection, who my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and some of the campaign groups met and heard from recently. The board will drive the completion of actions, reviewing the impact and progress of the action plan every six months. Each workstream will be formally owned by a senior leader in HMPPS and held accountable for delivery through the new board. We will also set up a new external reference group for open engagement with external stakeholders, which is very important. That will give them a chance to engage directly with and provide input to the action plan and its delivery.
I accept the points made by my hon. Friend about transparency and reporting, and we are committed to reporting more and in a timely way. The Government’s priority continues to be the protection of the public, but we remain fully committed to doing all we can to support the safe progression of those serving IPP sentences. I look forward to continued dialogue on this matter with the Committee, colleagues here and others beyond this debate. I repeat my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst for securing the debate and to all who contributed to it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
Among other things, we are renewing the prisoner education service, establishing an employability innovation fund, and ensuring that skills acquired match business need through close work with employers.
Bob Blackman
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Under my Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, prison governors have a duty to ensure that people leaving prison are housed properly after they have served their sentence. It is vital that, to prevent reoffending, we ensure that prisoners get the best possible education. What extra measures is he considering to ensure that prisoners are given the skills they need to rebuild their lives after they have served their sentence?
Damian Hinds
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he did, through the Homelessness Reduction Act, to support prisoners throughout our communities. He is right to identify not only the importance of skills and getting into work, but the need for direct support with accommodation. We are investing heavily in expanding transitional accommodation at the different levels. Although there is still a way to go, it is very encouraging that the proportion of prisoners being left homeless after leaving prison has reduced by 5 percentage points over the past couple of years.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
We all want to see more people rehabilitated from the Prison Service. The Minister will know, however, that His Majesty’s chief inspector of probation has described that service as “in survival mode” due to staffing pressures and huge workloads. What does he expect his Department to do to put that right?
Damian Hinds
In relation to the probation service, which I think the hon. Gentleman is asking about, we are investing in increasing staff numbers and ensuring that those staff have the right support, and we have seen those staff numbers grow. It is also important, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State just said, that we learn from when things go wrong or have gone wrong in the past and ensure we respond appropriately.
Stephen Metcalfe
Getting prisoners with substance abuse issues into meaningful skills training first requires getting them off drugs. Can my right hon. Friend tell the House what he is doing to help prisoners and to tackle drugs in prisons?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is quite right; that is a crucial part of the jigsaw, together with maintaining family ties. In a major new initiative, we are creating up to 18 new drug recovery wings so that prisoners can focus on achieving abstinence not only from illicit drugs, but from prescribed substitutes. We are also increasing the number of incentivised substance-free living units and have been investing strongly in prison security to stop drugs getting in in the first place.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Shannon Trust—no connection to me, by the way—has concluded that 50% of people in prison cannot read or struggle to do so. What steps are being taken to ensure that basic literacy and reading skills are taught at all prisons for all ages across the United Kingdom?
Damian Hinds
We all trust Shannon; the hon. Gentleman is quite right to draw attention to the good work of his namesake trust, which for many years has operated a very good peer model in our prisons, where prisoners help other prisoners. We also work with the trust directly on other programmes, and just last week we announced a new funding award to the Shannon Trust and one other charity to help in that important basic literacy work that he mentions.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
Improving education in prisons is a top priority. The public sector, the independent sector and the voluntary sector all have an important part to play in that. Indeed, three of the four contracted core education providers currently are classified as public sector bodies.
Mary Kelly Foy
We spend more than £150 million a year on a prison education system that is unfit for purpose, and much of that is extracted as profit for failing outsourced companies. Does the Minister think that is good value for money?
Damian Hinds
That is a mischaracterisation of how the education service runs in prison. There are an extraordinary number of very dedicated people working in that service, and three of the four providers, as I say, are essentially further education college providers. We can and must do better, because we know that education and the acquisition of skills help to keep people out of trouble and from returning to jail once they get out.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
We have injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year to deliver more robust supervision, recruit thousands more staff, and reduce case loads to support the vital work of the probation service in keeping the public safe.
Kerry McCarthy
I thank the Minister for that response, but it does not really accord with what I have been told by probation officers, which is that they are overworked, underpaid and feel undervalued, and that the service is haemorrhaging staff. There are also an awful lot of people off sick. What impact does he think that will have on efforts to make sure that offenders do not go on to reoffend, and that we do not have a crime wave on our streets because we are simply not putting the resources into the probation service that could help prevent that?
Damian Hinds
I join the hon. Lady in paying tribute to the men and women who work in the probation service for the absolutely vital work that they do tirelessly. It is very important that we make sure we have the right levels of staffing; I can report to her that in calendar year 2022, the number of staff in post rose significantly, from 17,400 to 18,600. In her own area of the south-west, covering Bristol, we had 210 joiners for the year, but it is obviously very important that as those people come through, we carry on having the pipeline of talent coming in. It is also very important that we are investing suitably in senior probation officers for their oversight, which we are doing.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
Kelly Tolhurst (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
I thank my right hon. Friend. All our sympathies are with her constituents and the family. I will, of course, be very happy to meet her.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Casey report reminds us that we must be alive to racism not only in the police, but in the whole justice system. Will Ministers engage with and act on a significant report by Manchester University and a Crown court judge, which found that racial bias plays a significant role in the justice system, including discrimination by judges? The report made a series of constructive suggestions to address this issue.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Damian Hinds
I echo the hon. Gentleman’s good wishes for the victim. He is absolutely right about the importance of the safety and security for our prison officers. Things such as the rolling out of body-worn video cameras are an important part of that, along with the sensible use of PAVA spray, which I know the POA wants.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Will the Minister end the nonsense of community punishments discharged by working from home?
Damian Hinds
I am not sure that I can respond in quite the same style as my right hon. Friend. During the pandemic, being able to do certain tasks remotely or from home was a way of carrying on with unpaid work. But in general, we expect people to turn up and do that work, usually, in a group setting.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Draft Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Home Detention Curfew) Order 2023
Damian Hinds Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Home Detention Curfew) Order 2023.
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. The home detention curfew scheme has been in place for more than two decades and is an important tool in safely managing the transition of eligible offenders from custody back into the community. It does so by enabling certain lower-risk prisoners to be released from prison early, while remaining subject to significant restrictions on their liberty, including a curfew, which is monitored by an electronic tag.
The draft statutory instrument before us forms part of wider changes that we are making to that scheme. Our changes put public protection first, while ensuring closer scrutiny and supervision in the community for those less serious offenders who are ready to be released on home detention curfew. We will be making changes to the eligibility criteria and risk assessment set out in the HDC policy framework, which will mean fewer people are released on HDC overall, the public are better protected, and a clear message is sent to domestic abusers. Tackling violence against women and girls is a Government priority. It is abhorrent and preventable, and an issue that blights the lives of millions.
Certain offenders, such as sex offenders and those convicted of child cruelty offences, are already excluded or presumed unsuitable for home detention curfew. We will add to the “presumed unsuitable” list any offenders currently serving a sentence of imprisonment for 11 offences that are often linked to domestic abuse, such as stalking, harassment, breach of protective orders—restraining orders, for example—controlling and coercive behaviour, and non-fatal strangulation and suffocation. Adding those offences to the list will mean that those offenders will not be considered for release on HDC unless the governor is satisfied that there are truly exceptional circumstances justifying it and that their risk can be safely managed in the community.
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for putting women’s safety at the heart of this. Can he give me the assurance that I can tell women in Chelmsford that it is absolutely the case that those who have been found guilty of domestic abuse and other violent crimes against women will be kept in prison and not released in this way?
Damian Hinds
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend and I do want to give her that reassurance—that we are extending the list of people who will be presumed ineligible for this programme to include those 11 new offences. Actually, it is part of a broader scheme and some changes that we brought in last year, which I will come to in a moment. It goes beyond, necessarily, that which a person was imprisoned for; often, we need to consider wider intelligence as well.
Assessment of risks to those at the curfew address is key and will remain so, but it is also absolutely right that risks to the public more generally are taken into account. We will therefore be mandating that public protection as a whole is considered in the risk assessment for someone being considered for home detention curfew, and that all necessary information sharing takes place before a decision on HDC release is made. This builds on changes that I alluded to in response to my right hon. Friend’s question—changes that we introduced last year. Since April 2022, it has been mandatory for the community offender manager to request information from the police and children’s services about domestic abuse or child safeguarding risks associated with the offender or the proposed address, to help to inform the assessment of HDC suitability. Home detention curfew must not be authorised until that information has been obtained and assessed. But we are clear that we must go further, and that is why we are making these changes today.
At the same time, the purpose of the draft instrument is to extend the maximum period of the existing home detention curfew scheme by 45 days. That extends the benefits of the scheme for eligible, suitable offenders, helping to support their rehabilitation in the community with a view to reducing reoffending. That will mean that some people will spend longer on HDC, but no change is being made to the minimum period that someone must have served in custody before being released on HDC.
Although fewer people will be released, the number who are on HDC at any one time will grow because of the longer period to be spent under curfew. There are currently around 1,850 offenders on HDC. The combined effect of these planned changes will be to increase that number by around 300, which means that the prison population at any one time will be lower by around 300.
Our changes pull in both directions on prison population because, while we think it right to exclude those convicted of stalking, harassment and other offences, we also think it right to extend the HDC period for the limited cohort of offenders assessed as suitable for the scheme. When I refer to the “limited cohort”, it is worth bearing in mind that, of the total cohort who could, on the face of it, be eligible for such a scheme, some two thirds do not go on it.
The change will provide a longer transition from custody to community for a smaller cohort of eligible, risk-assessed offenders, allowing them to work towards rehabilitation in the community while remaining subject to strict conditions. The electronically monitored curfew is a significant restriction on their liberty. If the curfew or any other conditions of their licence, such as the requirement to report to probation, are breached, they can be recalled to prison.
Electronic monitoring is also an opportunity for offenders to break habits that have led them into offending previously, improve chances for employment and training, and help to maintain positive relationships. We have enhanced our use of electronic monitoring across the board, which is supported by ever-improving technology and the broader use of GPS tagging, which allows us to monitor offenders when they are away from the curfew address where necessary and not just whether they are at home during curfew hours.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Will the Minister give us a reassurance that the new GPS monitors—the tags—will make it safer to have prisoners at home under curfew, compared with the current situation, and that that will allow victims to feel reassured that, when perpetrators are released under the new system, they will be properly monitored?
Damian Hinds
There are different layers to that extra reassurance about safety. Risk assessment is one part of that and the exclusion of more offenders is another, but the technology itself is an important part of the picture. All tagging technology improves over time, and we also get “learning by doing” effects from its wider deployment.
As well as RF or radio frequency tagging, which is a binary thing that basically detects whether the individual is where they are supposed to be or not—“Are you in your curfew address or not?”—these days there is also the option, where that is deemed appropriate and suitable, of GPS tagging, which can track where an individual actually goes. There are multiple benefits to that—for example, in monitoring exclusion zones or, if somebody is supposed to be going to work on a daily basis, ensuring that that is in fact what they are doing. We also now have alcohol tagging, to detect whether people have complied with an alcohol order.
Home detention curfew is an effective approach for the management of lower-risk offenders, and it allows for their safe and controlled reintegration from prison into the community. I look forward to today’s debate, and I commend the instrument to the Committee.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Lady speaking for the Opposition, to all colleagues who have taken part in the debate and to everybody on the Committee for their scrutiny of the instrument. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West said, the order will extend the benefits of this well-established scheme by changing the maximum period of home detention curfew to 180 days.
To respond to the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge, I must say that I do not recognise some of what she set out. It is the case that we are expanding the Prison Service, and quite rightly so. We are keeping dangerous offenders behind bars for longer, having moved back the automatic release point for the worst offences from half to two thirds. We have seen longer custodial sentences for indictable offences, and it is absolutely right that we must ensure that we have the infrastructure and dedicated workforce in place to manage that.
We are creating 20,000 new prison places, 3,200 of which have already been delivered, while a further 5,200 are already contracted. Those places will come through a mix of different delivery options, including new prisons—one opened last year, and another new, whole prison is due to open in a couple of months’ time. We are also putting in place rapid deployment cells, making extensions, building new house blocks and rightly increasing the capacity of our prison system to ensure that we can house the people who need to be in it.
In toto, the changes in this instrument work in two different directions, as I said earlier. They increase the maximum length of time from four and a half to six months—of course, not everybody gets the maximum—which will take some pressure off prison places, whereas the exclusions we are making, which make more people ineligible for the programme, will increase the pressure on prison places. The net effect will be about 300 places, which one needs to put in the context of a prison population of some 84,000 people. I can give the hon. Member the reassurance that the necessary checks will be made diligently. We are also ensuring that the sequence is right, to ensure that things must have happened before the next stage in the process can go forward.
I echo the hon. Member’s words of appreciation for the dedicated people who do such incredibly important work in our Prison Service and in the probation service. We should see this increase of 300 additional people at any one time in the context of the probation service’s caseload, which is much bigger than many people realise—some 170,000 people are on probation supervision of one sort or another in the community. As with the Prison Service, we are committed to ensuring that the probation service is well resourced, and we are recruiting at pace to ensure that that can happen as well.
In conclusion, we are taking a balanced approach. We will ensure that those who commit serious crimes spend time in prison that reflects the gravity of their offences. We will ensure that we keep the policy under review, as we keep all policies under review, and I will commit to coming back to Parliament in 12 months’ time and reporting on the overall effectiveness of the programme. For other, lower-risk offenders, where they can benefit safely from the long-established and successful HDC scheme, it makes sense that we should allow a somewhat longer period of release, subject to curfew, supporting their transition into the community with a view to reducing reoffending. I commend the draft instrument to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Bill
Damian Hinds ExcerptsFriday 3rd March 2023
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Act 2023 View all Offenders (Day of Release from Detention) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) for his excellent work bringing this important Bill to the House and navigating it through to this stage. It is a great credit to him that there is such support for this legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) has played an important role in this Bill to date. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), for Loughborough (Jane Hunt), for North West Norfolk (James Wild), for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis), who spoke passionately about their local communities and the great work carried out by the voluntary and charitable sector, and with particular insight as local representatives. I also thank the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), who speaks for the Opposition, for the manner and content of his remarks in welcoming the Bill. It is a good and positive thing when we have legislation coming forward with wide support from different parties in the House and different perspectives and traditions to do something sensible in the interests of our society.
As the House has heard, the Bill ensures that offenders who have resettlement needs will no longer need to be released on a Friday or the day before a bank or public holiday. It will do that by enabling a release date to be brought forward by up to two eligible working days, so these offenders will be released earlier in the week. In practice, this means that offenders with resettlement needs will no longer face that race against the clock, which my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness set out, to find accommodation, access medication and access finance support all before services close for the weekend. As he outlined, that is particularly challenging for people with more complex needs, of whom there are many, such as drug dependency or mental health illness, and, crucially, for those with a long distance to travel before they can access those services. The Bill will achieve that by tackling the practical challenges that Friday releases can create. It will address the issues that can lead to an increased risk of reoffending by ensuring that custody leavers have a better chance to access the support they need to reintegrate into the community and to turn their back on a life of crime.
As my hon. Friend said, the Bill also applies to children sentenced to detention. It will ensure that the release provisions relating to Friday, bank and public holiday, and weekend releases exist in respect of all youth settings, including the recently created secure 16 to 19 school. Despite the various safeguards and legal duties that exist for children leaving custody, being released on a Friday still means that a child would go for at least two days with no meaningful contact with their youth justice worker exactly when they are at their most vulnerable.
Rob Butler
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the impact on young people and children is accentuated by the tremendous success there has been in reducing the number of children in custody from around 3,000 in 2007 to around 400 today? That means there are fewer secure settings for children, so they are frequently further from home and it takes them much longer on the day they are released to get to where they need to be.
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is spot on and speaks from great personal experience and expertise. It is true that far fewer children are being locked up than in 2010. We know that being incarcerated at a young age means people risk becoming more criminal and it exposes them to a whole range of different risks. Of course, sometimes that is exactly what we have to do—we must be able to imprison people where necessary—but where it is possible to avoid it, that is often better for the individual and for wider society. An effect of that, and this exists for women prisoners as well, is that a person is much more likely to be far away from home. Because there are fewer of these institutions, they are more spread out, so access to services, which my hon. Friend identifies is an issue, can be particularly acute for younger people.
In practice, it will be for heads of establishments to apply the power in bringing forward an offender’s release data. Aided by policy guidance, they can allow an offender additional time to resettle where it will support their reintegration into the community and reduce their risk of reoffending. As the House will be aware, the Government have made significant progress in tackling the £18 billion annual cost of reoffending and protecting the public.
Data show that the overall proven reoffending rate for adults decreased from 30.9% in 2009-10 to 25.6% in 2019-20, which is truly significant. The rate is still too high, however, and we have to do all we can to bring it down further. We are investing substantial sums to achieve that, including in prison leavers’ access to accommodation, about which several hon. Members on both sides of the House have spoken; and in building stronger links with employers through dedicated prison employment leads and prison employment advisory boards where business leaders can interface with their local prisons.
We have also seen encouraging improvements in employment rates for prisoners on release, which is an area where hon. Members can play an important role through their discussions with local employers by putting them in touch with this opportunity. We are also investing in offering more prisoners the chance to work while inside prison; developing the prison education service to raise the skills of offenders, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury also spoke; and increasing access to drugs rehabilitation through the recruitment of health and justice partnership co-ordinators to better link up services for offenders inside and beyond the prison perimeter. The hon. Member for Hammersmith was exactly right to identify that we need to think of it as a holistic process that starts inside and continues outside; it must be as linked up as possible.
We are also making large investments into youth justice to tackle offending by children. As my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough said, there is a lot that the Government and the Prison Service can do, but charities and voluntary organisations, including the four that she mentioned in her constituency, are an absolutely irreplaceable and fundamental part of that fabric.
Those interventions should improve resettlement opportunities for all offenders and help to reduce reoffending, but they cannot fully address all the practicalities that are presented by being released on a Friday. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East vividly illustrated that journey to the House. This common-sense Bill will help to achieve that. I reiterate my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness for bringing this important Bill before the House and I confirm again, with great pleasure, that the Government support it. I wish it all the best in its progress through the other place.