Prisons and Courts Bill

Holly Lynch Excerpts

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

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham), whose speech was very articulate. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate ahead of serving on the Bill Committee over the next few weeks.

With the Government’s White Paper, which was published in November last year, and the Bill before us today, I welcome many of steps being undertaken to get to grips with the challenges in our prisons and the justice system more widely. Greater scrutiny and more transparent allocation of responsibility are positive steps but, as others have already said, the Bill will succeed only once we have comprehensively got to grips with overcrowding and safety in our prisons. Without an effective, functioning prison system with reform at its very core, the wider justice system simply fails to function. When he appeared before the Justice Committee back in November, the Minister for prisons and probation admitted that all the numbers relating to prison violence, self-harm and deaths in custody are pointing in the wrong direction. I shall therefore use my role as constructively as possible to make sure that the Bill goes far enough and fast enough in improving those numbers.

In part because of several high-profile incidents, Members will be well aware of the prevalence of overcrowding in prisons, which is so commonplace that it sadly now seems to have become institutionalised in the justice system. When they gave evidence to the Justice Committee, both the Minister and the chief executive officer of the National Offender Management Service were in agreement that overcrowding has been a sustained problem for the past decade. The prison population rose from 43,000 in 1993 to just over 84,000 in 2016. Despite this increase, the number of uniformed prison officers tasked with managing and caring for those in prisons has decreased. Following the closure of 18 prisons since 2010, the prison estate has seen a reduction of around 6,000 places, at a time when the prison population is increasing. Although there are plans for new prisons and extensions at existing sites, at this rate such measures will not alleviate overcrowding in this Parliament or the next.

Overcrowding is a problem in 69% of prisons—that is 80 out of 116 establishments. My nearest prison, HMP Leeds in Armley, is one of the most overcrowded in the country. The Prison Reform Trust found that although it was built to accommodate 669 men, as of October 2016 it held 1,145, meaning that it is populated at 171% of its intended capacity. What is the impact of overcrowding on the conditions inside prisons? We have already heard statistics from the House of Commons Library, which reveal that, in the 12 months to September 2016, the number of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults increased by 31% on the previous year, with just over 25,000 recorded incidents. There were nearly 38,000 incidents of self-harm, which is an increase of 61% compared with 2006. In the 12 months to December 2016, there were 354 deaths in custody, 34% of which were self-inflicted and 1% the consequence of homicide.

A report by the Prison Officers Association revealed that there are more than 42 incidents of violence in prison establishments every day. Given, as the Minister said, that all the numbers by which we measure the effectiveness and safety of our prisons are pointing in the wrong direction, it is perhaps surprising that we have seen a reduction of 7,000 prison officers since 2010. I appreciate that the Government have closed 18 prisons in that time, but the prison population has still increased. In fact, it peaked at an all-time high in 2011. By any analysis of prisoner to prison officer ratios, the number of officers will surely be found to be inadequate to meet the challenges, and I support the call from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) to look at how we can introduce ratios into the Bill.

I welcome the decision announced in the White Paper to recruit 2,500 more prison officers, and I am glad that the Secretary of State was able to tell us more about that recruitment process, and that 400 more prison officers have been recruited for the 10 most challenging prisons, but I hope that the Minister can go further in outlining what the next steps will be in recruiting for the remaining 2,100 posts.

Michael Spurr, chief executive officer of the National Offender Management Service, confirmed to the Justice Committee in November that the rate for new prison officers leaving within their first year is 13.5%, and has been as high as 16% in the past three years. I would be interested to know whether the Secretary of State has factored in that retention rate when recruiting those new officers. If 13.5% of the 400 already recruited leave within their first year, we will need to find 54 additional officers. I have set out the context not simply to make the case for sufficient prison capacity to meet demand, but to make the case for my amendments on prison officer safety, which is an area in which this Bill could go much further.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham talked about how two officers were left to cover a wing of more than 150 prisoners. Members can appreciate that sense of being outnumbered when they think about the reality of those figures. What needs to change to make sure that prison officers do not leave in their first year, are safe at work and are staying in post until retirement? Colleagues will be aware that, since having had an eye-opening experience while shadowing a lone police officer in my constituency last year, I have been campaigning for greater protections for emergency service workers, and prison officers are no less deserving of those same protections.

A report by the Prison Officers Association revealed that eight staff members are assaulted every day and that, in 2010, there were 24 sexual assaults against prison staff. That is just unacceptable. Section 8 of the Prison Act 1952 says:

“Every prison officer while acting as such shall have all the powers, authority, protection and privileges of a police constable.”

In the event that a prison officer is assaulted, and where the evidence affords, the prosecutor has a choice between pursuing common assault charges, under section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, or assault police charges under section 89 of the Police Act 1996. Assault police is a summary only offence and as such carries a maximum of 24 weeks custodial sentence, with community resolution orders and fines the most common outcome. I will not share the details now, but I can recommend the report “Prison Violence—How serious does it have to get”, which is published by the Prison Officers Association, for harrowing testimonies from prison officers, complete with photos of their injuries. It is well worth a read if anyone is in any doubt about the need for having the toughest possible deterrents in place to protect prison officers.

[Philip Davies]

I commend the hon. Lady for all her work on this matter and also with regard to police officers. It is very much appreciated by them. She says that the number of assaults on prison officers is going up, but is she also aware that the number of extra days given for the assault of a prison officer by a prisoner is going down? The average number of extra days given for a prisoner assaulting a prison officer was 20 five years ago, and it is just 16 now. Does she agree that that is completely inadequate punishment for a prisoner assaulting a prison officer?

[Holly Lynch]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I wonder whether the pressures of overcrowding are starting to reflect in those sentences handed out in prisons, which do not then serve as a proper deterrent. I would be more than willing to consider that point and others when we debate the Bill in Committee.

This is why I am calling on the Government to consider making it an aggravating factor to assault a prison officer under existing common assault, grievous bodily harm, actual bodily harm and malicious wounding charges. That would give the judiciary much greater flexibility when considering sentencing. Sentencing must be about effective deterrent. It is about not exacerbating the existing conditions in prison, but ensuring that there is a real incentive not to assault officers.

There is also the practice of “potting”, where urine and faeces are thrown at a prison officer as a means of assaulting them—it seems to be female prison officers who are singled out for this treatment—and it is simply horrific. Those acts must be followed up and charges brought against every individual who engages in that activity. It is no wonder that there is a 13.5% drop-out rate in the first year when that is what we ask our prison officers to face every day they go to work.

The second part of my campaign relates to spitting. As well as being horrible, spitting blood and saliva at another human being can pose a very real risk of transmitting a range of infectious diseases, some with life-changing or even lethal consequences. In presenting my ten-minute rule Bill, which addressed that very issue, I shared with MPs the story of Arina Koltsova, a police officer in Ukraine who died after contracting tuberculosis from an offender who spat at her while she was trying to arrest him. At the moment, if a prison officer or any other emergency service worker is spat at, they can take a blood sample from an individual only if they give their permission. Needless to say, in most cases in prisons, prisoners are deliberately seeking to inflict the maximum distress on a prison officer, and so decline to provide a sample. This then leaves the prison officer or staff member with no choice other than to take anti-viral treatments and face a six-month wait.

To address this issue, I have looked to laws in Australia where refusal to provide a blood sample can result in a fine of 12,000 Australian dollars and a custodial sentence. Adding such a measure to the Bill would mean that to refuse to provide a blood sample would in itself be a crime, punishable by a fine or an additional custodial sentence. If a prison officer has already had to endure being spat at or bitten, this measure would hopefully save them having to endure a six-month ordeal waiting to see whether the consequences are much more serious. I hope to demonstrate the merit of these amendments in Committee and hope that the Government will work with me on these measures.

On behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), who cannot be in the Chamber today, I wish to raise his commitment to Helen’s law, which would deny parole to those convicted of murder who refuse to reveal the location of their victim’s remains. He will be seeking to build support for that change and amend the Bill to that effect, and I will be supporting him in doing so.

I have been particularly animated about the closure of both the magistrates court and the county and family court in my constituency. I am grateful to the Minister for Courts and Justice for keeping me informed about this Bill. He knows that I am particularly passionate about the provision of justice.

Last week, having attended the briefing on the sweeping reforms to access to justice, I can see that there is a lot to be optimistic about. When starting from a position of what is best practice for supporting vulnerable victims and witnesses through the justice system and when giving evidence, I accept that our old-fashioned court buildings and outdated systems are just not up to the job. However, having accepted some of the reasoning for the closure of the courts—to facilitate this revolution in access to justice which promised to make justice more available than ever before—what happened in Halifax was that the courts closed, and people now have to travel much further than ever before to attend old-fashioned court buildings and use outdated systems. With a six-year roll-out on the measures that we are all looking forward to seeing, my experience in Halifax is that there has been a massive step backwards in justice provision in the intervening years. I have engaged with this process, accepted that there were inefficiencies across the two courts, and even lobbied to merge them, which would have returned a cost saving for Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service.

I visited Kent police’s excellent video-enabled justice system, and bought the Government’s arguments, but, through no lack of trying, I have failed to get HMCTS to engage with me on how technology can be used to the benefit of my constituents and to deliver a justice system that is indeed fit for purpose. I am really grateful that the chief executive of HMCTS, Susan Acland-Hood, has offered to meet me to discuss this matter further, following similar pleas that I made at that briefing hosted by the Minister for Courts and Justice last week. I genuinely hope that we can get a video hub in place to mitigate some of the impact of the court closures in Halifax.

I genuinely welcome the move to introduce modern technology into the justice system, so that vulnerable victims can record their evidence just once to save potentially painful and unnecessary repetition; so that we can cut down the time spent by police officers in court; and so that justice can be accessed on an iPad in a front room. Such changes would be fantastic. I will use my time in Committee to outline examples of where court closures have left a void, which this Government have failed to bridge, and work towards practical measures for delivering a better service as soon as possible.

I look forward to examining and debating the Bill in more detail in Committee. I welcome many of the measures. While the situation remains so pressing—I would go so far as to say pretty desperate—in some of our prisons, the pressure to get this right and quickly weighs on us all. I intend to work constructively to firm up the Bill as it relates to prison officer safety. Given the recruitment and retention pressures they face, I hope that the Government will be receptive.