Oral Answers to Questions

David Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I am fully aware of the issues that these women face. I am very pleased to have held a number of roundtables, as part of our understanding for the review, with a number of vulnerable parties, including women. Women’s Aid was part of those roundtables, where we had an opportunity to hear from it directly. That is one of the reasons why we have specifically mentioned victims of domestic violence, and we will look at the thresholds in the legal aid review that we are conducting.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

14. What progress the Government have made on improving the safety of prison officers.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

We are doing everything we can to protect prison officers. That is about perimeter security to make it more difficult to get the drugs and weapons into the prisons, making sure that prison officers have the protective equipment to protect themselves against attack, gathering the forensic evidence when an attack takes place, and prosecuting prisoners who attack prison officers. We have a huge duty and we will do everything we can to protect them.

[David Morris]

I thank my hon. Friend for that good answer. The hard-working staff at HMP Lancaster Farms are doing a very good job in this respect and I invite my hon. Friend to come to Lancaster Farms whenever he can.

[Rory Stewart]

Lancaster Farms is a cat C training prison. It is a challenging prison and we are very pleased with the recent inspection report that we have received from Peter Clarke. He is a tough critic, but he sees it as a decent and competent prison. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the governor, Derek Harrison, for the work that he does.