Prisons and Courts Bill

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we have a programme to recruit 2,500 additional officers across the estate. I can confirm that we started in 10 of the most challenging prisons. We have now successfully secured the complement of officers in those first 10 prisons, which we said we would do by the end of March. We now have a record number of officers—over 700—in training. I do not deny it is a challenging task to recruit those officers, but as the right hon. Gentleman knows from his experience as prisons Minister, it is vital that we do that, because it is only by having qualified and skilled officers that we will help to turn people’s lives around.

I am not just interested in numbers; I am also interested in the career prospects and additional training that we give officers. That is why we are putting in an additional 2,000 senior officer posts across the country. Those will pay upward of £30,000, and they will reward officers who have additional training in areas such as mental health. As the right hon. Gentleman realises, it takes time to recruit and train those officers, but I am absolutely determined to do that, because, alongside these reforms, it is trained officers who will make the difference in our prisons.

[Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I think I can help my right hon. Friend with an idea. About 15% of the prison population are foreign prisoners, and prisoners from places such as Albania, Jamaica, Somalia and Nigeria make up about 20% of them. Surely we can have arrangements whereby those prisoners are sent back to their own, friendly countries—including Commonwealth countries. The Department for International Development might help with the arrangements in those countries.

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am pleased to say that a record number of foreign offenders were sent back last year, but we are doing even more on this and making progress. The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), is working very hard on it.

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[Sir Edward Garnier]

Or the nearest prison to that Crown court.

[Sir Henry Bellingham]

They end up in Norwich.

[Sir Edward Garnier]

They end up in Norwich having been via Maidstone, Lewes, somewhere on the Isle of Wight, somewhere in Dorset, somewhere in Devon, somewhere in Bristol, somewhere in the east midlands and somewhere in the west midlands. They eventually end up in Norwich, from where they are released miles away from their family without having had any contact with them. A prisoner’s medical records and education records do not follow them seamlessly.

I have uttered this plea time after time over the past 10 to 15 years and, no matter what party was in government, Ministers have told me, “What a perfectly sensible thing to say.” Unfortunately, because the politics is in sentencing, not prisoners, little is done about it. I hope that on this occasion, with this new Secretary of State for Justice, we will see an advance whereby it will not take another 65 years until we have a new prisons Bill to consider that question because we will not need such a Bill. I hope that in a few years we will see a reduction in prisoner numbers, an increase in reform and a reduction in reoffending levels, for the benefit of the public and the taxpayers whom my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and I want to protect, in terms of not only their pockets but their safety in their homes. I want an improvement to the advantage of us all.

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[Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), an acknowledged expert on prison reform. What she said about HMP Parc was incredibly informative and moving, and I was really interested to hear what she said about Parc supporting families, as that could be rolled out in other prisons. I wish to declare an interest, as a former criminal barrister who both defended and prosecuted. I also wish to pay tribute to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State, my Norfolk neighbour, for the work she and her ministerial team have done in preparing for this Bill. They have been indefatigable in putting together a very impressive Bill, which appears, given what the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) said, to command a great deal of consensus.

On prisons, there obviously is a crisis, and a number of right hon. and hon. Members have alluded to it. I have a great deal of concern about it, because in the 12 months to December 2016 there were 25,000 prisoner assault incidents, which was a 31% increase on the previous year’s figure. Furthermore, there were 6,430 assaults on prison staff, of which 761 were serious. As we heard from the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), there were 37,750 self-harm incidents, and 354 prisoners died while in custody, with only 55% of those deaths due to natural causes. There is obviously a crisis. Although the number of prisoners who test positive for drugs has come down, which is encouraging, there has been a big increase in the use of new psychoactive substances. I am pleased that the Secretary of State is introducing, through the Bill, measures to bring NPSs under the existing testing powers; that is sensible. I also welcome the measures on mobile telephony, because there are far too many illegal mobile phones in prisons.

I recently went round Wayland prison in Mid Norfolk, and I was struck by the number of prisoners who are getting access to Spice and other NPSs. They are having a devastating effect on the management of prisons. The death of a prisoner in HMP Forest Bank on 29 January from a Spice overdose was the 16th death throughout the prison estate in that month. One prisoner who was recently released from Forest Bank said that half the prison is on the stuff, and the other half spend their whole day trying to keep away from those prisoners who are on the stuff. We have a real problem.

When I visited a particular prison—I shall not say which one it is because I do not want to embarrass the governor—the governor said he was keen to create a drugs-free wing. I find the lack of ambition incredible. Our prisons should be drug-free; it is as simple as that. How are the drugs getting in? The prisoners do not bring in drugs and I do not believe that visitors do so. They are coming over the wire on drones and perhaps in supply vehicles, and I am sorry to say it, but there may well be a small number of corrupt prison officers. A significant amount of drugs, particularly these new psychoactive substances, are getting into our prisons and causing a great deal of mayhem, misery and, in some cases, death. I urge the Secretary of State and her team to do all she can to keep up the pressure to make our prisons entirely drug-free.

I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) that, in some ways, there are too many people in prisons. I think that not enough people who have done certain things wrong and have committed horrendous crimes are in prison, and they should be in prison for longer, but I also feel strongly that some people who are in prison should not be there. I am worried that there are more and more prisoners aged 50-plus, and there are currently many more prisoners aged over 65. As the Secretary of State conceded, that is partly because of the extra convictions for child abuse crimes. I certainly do not want to underestimate the seriousness of some of those crimes—no one can claim for one moment that they are victimless crimes, because they are not; there are victims of such crimes and the perpetrators need to be punished—but I agree with Chief Constable Simon Bailey of Norfolk constabulary, who is the Association of Chief Police Officers lead on this subject, that some people need help, not prison. There has been over-zealous prosecution of some of these people, who should be given help to wean them off their dreadful habits.

Several colleagues—including the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), my hon. Friends the Members for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) and for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), and the good doctor, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter)—have mentioned the mentally ill in our prison estate. It is worrying that 4% of prisoners have a psychotic illness, 14% suffer a major depressive illness, and nearly two thirds have some form of personality disorder. I wish to make a suggestion to the Secretary of State as to how we could make some progress on this issue.

The alternative to prison for some people who suffer from serious mental ill health is to be found in the mental health treatment requirement. It can of course be added to a community or suspended sentence after a conviction, but it worries me that only 0.5% of community sentences in 2016 included an MHTR. Why is that? Perhaps the prisons Minister can look into that and elaborate further on it, because significant progress could be made on that front.

[Elizabeth Truss]

indicated assent.

[Sir Henry Bellingham]

I am glad to see my neighbour the Secretary of State nodding.

I find it extremely worrying that of our prison population of 84,307—as at last week—just under 10,000 are foreign prisoners. I have not done the maths, but I think that is around 15% or 16%. Some of them are of course European, so there is a problem with ensuring that they are deported, because we have to have arrangements in place and that does not normally happen across Europe. There are, though, prisoners from countries including Albania, Jamaica, Pakistan, India, Somalia—unfortunately —and Nigeria. Roughly 3.5% of all foreign prisoners come from Nigeria, and a staggering 5.3% come from Jamaica. The prisons Minister and his team of officials really must try to do more to grip the problem. Why are better, reciprocal arrangements not in place? Why are we not working with the Jamaican and Nigerian Governments to, for example, use Department for International Development money to improve their prisons? Why are we not doing the same in Somalia? As far as I understand it, the new Government there have complete control of most of the urban areas and most of the prisons, so surely something could be done.

I shall conclude in a moment; I was going to say something about the courts, but a lot of colleagues are waiting to speak. I was keen to get the key points across, and additional points can be discussed in Committee and on Report. I find it heartening that the Bill commands a great deal of consensus among all parties and that, although the Government’s energy over the next few months—indeed, perhaps two years—is going to be focused on Brexit and all the challenging negotiations that will go with it, they still have time to stand true to their reforming zeal and introduce an important Bill. I congratulate the Secretary of State and her team. Let us hope that a really good Bill can be made better still in Committee.