Prisons Strategy

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement.

We all want to see safer prisons that rehabilitate and reduce reoffending, so investment in providing purposeful activity and preventing drugs from getting into our prisons is welcome, yet the Government have a broken track record on prisons. In 2016, they promised 10,000 new prison places by 2020, but they managed to build only 206 in that time. They simply cannot be trusted on prisons.

Many of the measures announced today treat the symptoms of our broken prison system but do not tackle the root causes of the problem. Drug use in prisons is not a new problem, and it has soared by a shocking 500% over the past decade, so why has it taken so long for the Government to take action? The announcement of airport-style security in prisons is not a new policy—the Government announced it in 2019, in 2018 and in 2017, and it was even a commitment in their 2015 manifesto—yet it has still not happened. Why should we have any confidence that it will happen now?

This is a Government who have failed to get even the basics right in our prisons. After a decade of cuts in the justice system, prisons are currently understaffed, dilapidated, dangerous and overcrowded, with prisoners spending up to 23 hours a day in their cells with no purposeful activity. I remember a visit that I made to Rochester Prison a few years ago. That Victorian prison was so run down that it was marked for closure and services were decommissioned, but then the Government changed their mind in order to cut costs. When I visited, the drug and alcohol treatment programme had stopped running, and the education programme could not operate when it rained because of a leak in the roof. This happened on the Government’s watch, so how can we have confidence in their current plans?

Since 2018, eight prisons have been issued with urgent notifications, most recently Chelmsford Prison, which is housing 700 inmates when it is supposed to hold no more than 545, and where there have been reports of filthy prison cells with a rat infestation. The Howard League described the prison inspection report as the worst that it had ever seen.

We welcome the recruitment of an extra 5,000 officers and measures to upskill staff, but there are now 2,900 fewer officers than there were in 2020, and more than one in 10 frontline prison staff were lost last year. Among band 2 staff, the leaving rate was a shocking one in six. A survey conducted by the Prison Officers Association in early 2020 found that 48% of members believed that the quality of their on-the- job training was poor or very poor, and nearly half the staff reported that they were seriously considering leaving their jobs soon. How will the Minister tackle the issue of retention in the Prison Service, and will she commit herself to the pay review body’s recommendation of a £3,000 uplift for band 3 prison officers, previously rejected by the Government?

The Minister mentioned Downview Prison, which I have visited twice. The work done in that prison is commendable, but many of the women there are victims of domestic abuse, and the majority suffer from mental health difficulties and addictions. Although the Government’s own female offender strategy promises a focus on early intervention and community-based solutions—not only are they more cost-effective, but they reduce reoffending—the Government are investing £150 million to build 500 new prison cells for women instead of investing in what works: women’s centres and community sentences. Can the Minister tell us when they will finally implement the female offender strategy?

A shocking 75% of prisoners reoffend within five years of release, so we welcome measures on training and education and resettlement, but how can they be implemented when there are not enough staff, when prisoners are kept cells for up to 23 hours a day, when assaults in prisons have doubled since 2010, when the prison budget has been slashed by £6 million since 2010, and when self-harming incidents in prisons have increased by 132%? The Conservatives call themselves the party of law and order, but the figures speak for themselves: they have allowed reoffending to rocket because of the dire state of our prisons.

Today’s announcements are a sticking plaster over the fundamental crisis facing a prison system that has been neglected for more than a decade. All that we have had from this Government are warm words and broken promises, when what we need and what is long overdue is real action.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady, whom I welcome to her new position. If I may, however, I will start by correcting some of the statements that she has just made. In case she missed this information in the statement, I can tell her that 74 body scanners have been rolled out across the male closed estate and have already produced impressive results, spotting more than 10,000 instances of prisoners trying to bring forbidden objects into prisons and thereby helping to safeguard both staff and prisoners.

The hon. Lady asked about the state of the cells. We have said that many of the establishments, some of which date back to Victorian times, are not what we would wish for in the 21st century, and not commensurate with what we know works with prisoners when it comes to rehabilitation and cutting crime. That is why we are upgrading safety standards in 35,000 existing cells. In addition, our unprecedented plan to build major new prisons across the country will incorporate many of the modern technologies that we want to see rolled out over the next few years.

The hon. Lady rightly raised the issue of recruitment and retention. As I said in my statement, buildings are but one part of our plan. We must have dedicated and committed members of staff in those buildings, not only delivering the safety that prisoners within the walls expect but keeping members of the public safe outside those walls. The hon. Lady also raised the issue of recruitment. We take very seriously the recruitment challenges faced by some prisons across the country, which is why prison officers in our 31 “hardest to recruit” sites receive an additional payment of between £3,000 and £5,000. Since the end of October 2016, we have recruited a net increase of more than 4,000 staff.

We do not shy away from the fact that the role of a prison officer is extremely difficult, and does not suit everyone. These are people who bear a great deal of responsibility and who must work with some very dangerous and difficult people, as several highly publicised cases have demonstrated in recent weeks. That is why in the White Paper we have put such an emphasis on supporting our staff and enabling them to develop their careers in the Prison Service, so that they feel fulfilled and are helping to contribute to our nationwide effort to cut crime.

The hon. Lady asked me about women in prison. I am sure it was not deliberate, but she overlooked the fact that the number of women in custody has fallen by 24% in the last decade, since Labour was last in power. We very much stand by the female offenders strategy, as I said in evidence to the Justice Committee only recently. We want to ensure that only women who must be in custody are in fact so sentenced, and we are helping magistrates and judges to find alternative sentences for those women when that is appropriate.

Throughout my statement run the golden themes of education, rehabilitation and reform, but protecting the public is another important theme. I look forward greatly to working with the hon. Lady and other colleagues on both sides of the House to ensure that we keep our constituents safe, while also ensuring that justice is served for victims of crime.