Prison Communications

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It is difficult to be certain, but I suspect that it is not a problem right across the prison estate. We will have to ensure that the standards in the best prisons are spread to those that are not meeting those standards. It is difficult to know at this stage whether it is a matter of inappropriate staff training or just of it being difficult to spot the name of an MP if they have not been identified. I expect that Nick Hardwick will give us that information and enable us to make appropriate changes.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his speedy response and on the choice of Nick Hardwick, who is clearly the most appropriate person to conduct the review. Will he confirm one final point, which is that no prisoner-lawyer matters are outstanding and that all such matters have been dealt with?

[Chris Grayling]

I am not aware of any outstanding matters. On my hon. Friend’s point about Nick Hardwick, I should tell the House that the reason I did not ask the surveillance commissioners to carry out this piece of work is that they are the auditors of the process. I felt that it was better to have somebody who was not the auditor investigating this matter because we must also check that our audit processes are robust enough.