Privately Financed Prisons

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

That question comes from someone who was of course a very distinguished Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. My right hon. and learned Friend makes a powerful point: we need to ensure that prison is there primarily for the purposes of punishment, the protection of the public and turning around lives in order to prevent reoffending. We have to be absolutely clear that people who ought to be in prison must be in prison and properly housed there, and we must work to turn their lives around. He has put his finger on the fact that we have inherited a very challenging estate. Almost a quarter of our prisons are buildings that stretch back to the Victorian era or, in some cases, to the late 18th century. That causes unbelievable problems of maintenance, and it contributes to problems of overcrowding and to issues of decency. All of that gets in the way of our ability to provide the conditions that allow us to turn around prisoners’ lives. Therefore, it unfortunately gets in the way of preventing reoffending, which, ultimately, is the best way of protecting the public.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

In the same week that the east coast line trains began running under public ownership, following the third failure in 10 years of the privatised model, we now have the Tories moving to privatise yet more of the Prison Service. We know it was the then Justice Secretary—he is now Transport Secretary—who awarded Carillion the £200 million outsourcing contract for prison maintenance. What due diligence did he complete on Carillion before signing off on that? Why was it allowed to underbid for the contract by £15 million? The prisons Minister said that the Carillion deal was “completely unsustainable” and a “real, real lesson” for the MOJ, so why does he think that yet more privatisation is the solution?

Lastly, the MOJ confirmed in a written answer on 21 June that the Government hold contracts worth £3.6 billion with the private firm Serco, despite the firm having been the subject of an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. Does he honestly think that will reassure the public that we are not heading for a repeat of what happened with Carillion?

[Rory Stewart]

To some extent, we are going over old ground again. The key, I believe, is to focus on the results on the ground. Let us start with the hon. Gentleman’s final question. We should really be judging Serco’s, Sodexo’s and G4S’s performance in prisons by what they are currently doing in prisons. Nearly 25 years of experience now lie behind this. We have a highly experienced Department. There are 14 privately run prisons with very clear key performance indicators. The inspection reports on those prisons are strong—some are among the cleanest and best run in the country, with very good scores from the inspectors on decency, purposeful activity and resettlement.

To clarify on the issue of Carillion, yes, the company was losing approximately £15 million a year on that contract, but the taxpayer was not losing that money. Carillion was bearing the cost. The taxpayer was effectively saving £15 million a year on that contract. At the same time, I agree that we need to take a lesson from what happened, look carefully at the financial viability of these companies and look at their performance in prisons.