HMP Northumberland

Debate between Ian Lavery and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered safety at HMP Northumberland.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to bring to this place my constituents’ concerns about the safety of those involved in activities at HMP Northumberland. As the newly elected MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed and a long-time campaigner in the county, I have met and talked to employees at HMP Northumberland for more than 10 years. I have also met many individuals who form the voluntary groups that work in the prison providing literacy skills, addiction support, chaplaincy services and support for life after prison in its multitude of areas. I declare a personal interest as a trustee of the Oswin project, a charity that supports HMP Northumberland prisoners, creating second chances for them through training, support and employment as they become ex-offenders, in order to break the cycle of reoffending.

The prison has been under constant change pressures for the past four years, first from a merger in 2010 of HMP Acklington, a category C men’s prison, and HMP Castington, a category B young offenders institution, into one adult male prison on two sites that were physically merged into one unit in 2013. This has created one of the largest prison estates in the country: a site of some 800 acres with a perimeter fence of more than four and a half miles.

In December 2013, the newly formed prison was put into the private management of Sodexo Justice Services. Management changes have only now settled this year following a turbulent 2014 in which some 200 staff of nearly 600 were invited to take voluntary redundancy between February and April. During this time there was no change in the prison population; the prison continued to be 99% full.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this really important issue to the House. As she said, once Sodexo took over and the privatisation of the prison, there was a massive decrease in staff while the prison population continued to increase. That surely says something about the privatisation of HMP Northumberland. As a result, there have been some horrendous occurrences and serious incidents at the prison. Does she agree?

[Mrs Trevelyan]

As I will discuss later, I am informed that the present staffing levels are what the National Offender Management Service would expect for the number of prisoners in the prison estate—or slightly more, owing to the new intake into the younger end of the officer grouping. Realistically, being in private hands or public sector ownership would have made no difference to the numbers, but there is a challenge for HMP Northumberland and I will set out why.

As I said, the prison has continued to be 99% full. It has a mixed population of some 880 main prisoners and 450 vulnerable prisoners—quite a complex mix. As a result of my many links with the prison, I have been privy to many conversations with staff about their concerns over safety issues. It is perhaps unsurprising that, following the loss of one third of the staff in the space of a few months in 2014, there would be immediate pressures on all those working and living on the prison estate. That certainly seemed to be the case last year.

Newspaper reports talked of the prison as a “powder keg” and as “failing miserably”. In my view, the use of social media to inflame the situation and spread discontent was real, and some in the Prison Officers Association have referred to the concerted media attacks as “Operation Certain Death”, which time has—thankfully—proved to be misplaced in large measure.

The new director, in post since early 2015, has brought stability and clear focus to the challenges of getting HMP Northumberland back on its feet in practical ways. Although the media storm has passed, continued anxieties reach me from those still working or volunteering on the prison estate. There seem to be good relations between management and the Prison Officers Association, which is most encouraging, and all the staff have a strong and committed work ethos.

However, according to the Howard League for Penal Reform, there has been a cut of more than 50% in prison officer grade staff over the period from 2010 to 2015. These reducing levels of experience among prison officers means that the difficult situations that the mix of main and vulnerable prisoners brings is quite challenging to deal with. Again according to statistics from the Howard League, there were three deaths in 2013, five in 2014 and four to date this year. Younger officers tell me that these deaths and the more frequent suicide attempts from vulnerable prisoners is traumatic for the staff who have to deal with such situations.

The Howard League states that there was a 50% increase in prisoner on prisoner assaults between 2013 and 2014, perhaps due in part to the destabilisation caused by the huge and sudden staffing cut creating the opportunities that some prisoners took to cause mischief. Staff tell me privately that there were noticeably increased levels of bullying among fellow inmates, leading to increased suicide attempts: a situation not only appalling for the prisoner, but really hard for the prison officers to have to deal with on a personal level. I have been hugely impressed by the caring attitude towards inmates that our prison officers show as well as their deep understanding of the local communities that they come from and of the problems resulting from chaotic and complex family lives.

There has been a history of drug use in our local prison for many years. Given the four-mile boundary fence, a half-decent cricketing arm can easily get a tennis ball or other object over the fencing to be collected by prisoners at an appropriate moment. Until the privatisation process, the prison used drugs dogs to scan visitors as they came into the visitor centre. I spent the day with this team a couple of years ago and it was an eye-opening experience. The dog handlers asked me to hide vials of a variety of drugs in my clothes and asked the dogs to indicate where they were in turn. It was an extraordinary thing to watch and they had a 100% success rate. An extraordinary relationship with and training of those dogs was a really vital tool in identifying and stopping the entry of drugs into the prison from visitors, as well as locating drugs falling over the perimeter fence through regular walking tours.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Lavery]

I am sure the hon. Lady, like me, would heap praise on the Prison Officers Association and the people and the staff in the prison who do a marvellous job under the circumstances, but there is a huge problem not only with illegal drugs being thrown over the fence, but with legal highs, which seem to be running amok through the prison system, particularly at HMP Northumberland. They cause huge problems.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates the next part of my speech.

Sodexo has recently invested in ion scanners, which have a good track record for identifying cocaine and some amphetamines, but they are considered less accurate at picking up heroin and legal highs. I am concerned that the continuing supplies of legal highs, most especially Spice, which are making it through to prisoners, despite regular hauls of drugs—through stuffed toys, inside mobile phones and the like—means that usage is prevalent throughout the prison, putting other prisoners and officer safety at risk.

The reality is that there is a violent culture between prisoners that is heavily exacerbated by the drugs trade. A prisoner who “buys” Spice from a fellow inmate will have strict instructions from his dealer to get his girlfriend or his mum to make payment outside the prison walls to a colleague of the drug pushers. Failure to make payments ensures that a drug-addicted prisoner’s life will be made a misery and his family will be put under pressure or assaulted.

The latest HM Chief Inspector of Prisons report indicates that in prisoner surveys, more prisoners than the comparator said it was easy to get illicit drugs and alcohol in the prison. The average positive random mandatory drug testing rate for the six months to July 2014 was 11.7%, higher than the national average of 8.9%. Illicit drugs such as Spice and illicitly brewed alcohol have been identified as problems. The inspector also praised the prison staff for the drug strategy, which firmly integrates drug reduction as a key target.

I understand that suspicion drug testing has been restarted following a break due to a lack of staff last year, but I am not certain that all requested tests are completed in a timely fashion. The inspector of prisons has recommended that mandatory drug testing should be appropriately staffed to ensure tests are completed within prescribed time scales, and I would be grateful for assurances from the Minister that he is now certain that this key recommendation is being fully implemented.

I ask the Minister to investigate whether the levels of drugs seized compared with the levels of continuing drug abuse are at an acceptable ratio. Will he consider bringing back drugs dogs to increase the chances of catching those poisons before they can get to prisoners? I am keen to hear from the Minister how the Department assesses whether any prison is managing its drugs problems in individual prisons across the country’s full estate of 136 prisons, and whether there is any best practice guidance or mandatory levels that the Minister expects his prison governors to achieve in reducing the quantity of toxic substances reaching our prisoners.

On my most recent visit to HMP Northumberland, prison officers showed me the new portable body cameras that they are trialling—it is one of 30 prisons to do so. There was a really positive vibe from the officers about their effectiveness in reducing antisocial behaviour among the inmates; the threat of being recorded seemed to remind them that poor or threatening behaviour is just not acceptable. Body cameras have been used by the police for some time now, and a recently published study found that equipping them with body cameras reduced their use of force by around 50%, while complaints against them by the public dropped by almost 90%.

Those startling figures were revealed by a research study conducted by the University of Cambridge, based on a 12-month trial conducted among police officers in Rialto, California. The dramatic results have led to calls from police chiefs throughout the country who are keen to equip their officers with cameras, especially in the light of increased tensions between police and local communities. The year-long study, which began in 2012, had its findings published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology in November and answered the hotly debated topic of whether cameras can reduce both police force and the number of complaints filed.

I urge the Minister to look closely at the data from the prisons that are currently testing body cameras, and I encourage continued and extended use of the technology if the results are anything like as good as those for the police. I was pleased to hear from prison officers that Sodexo has purchased the cameras that are currently in use at HMP Northumberland. It absolutely wants to be able to continue to use them for the foreseeable future. What is the Minister’s assessment of the trial of body cameras to date? When does he intend to determine whether their use should be made permanent?

Although it is an excellent decision for the health of prisoners and officers alike, the impending ban on smoking in prisons is going to bring some serious problems to HMP Northumberland, and no doubt to every other prison. Most legal highs are taken by being smoked, so prisoners will stop getting not only their nicotine fix but other drug fixes. I am deeply concerned about the short-term risks to officers’ safety as inmates suffer from no doubt very real withdrawal symptoms, about the new culture of smuggled smoking paraphernalia, and about the health and potential fire risks. The cigarette, the box of matches, the lighter, the bag of loose tobacco and Rizlas will no doubt threaten to become new prison currency for prison officers to manage.

The Prison Governors Association has cautiously welcomed the move to ban smoking from 2016, but has called for the ban to be implemented in a safe and staged way, because 80% of prisoners smoke. Even as the ban on smoking in cells is due to come into force before the end of this year, it is of grave concern to all those who will have to manage these changes, knowing the behavioural impact it will certainly have. I have watched family members give up smoking, and even with all the support around them it has never been easy—sometimes it was deeply unpleasant for the rest of us—so how much harder will it be for those incarcerated, for whom a tab is a comfort and boredom-filler through the long days inside? I would appreciate assurances from the Minister, along with details of the tangible policy plans that are being set in place to manage the transition to a smoke-free prison estate.

Last, but definitely not least, are my concerns for the safety, both real and perceived, of visitors to the prison, be they chaplains, readers, educationalists, or support workers for those preparing to seek work when they leave HMP Northumberland. Over the past 18 months, I have received repeated calls and emails from individuals concerned about the level of officer cover during their visits.

For example, where two officers used to be present during chapel services, there is now only one. Historically, if a prisoner started to misbehave, he would have been removed, leaving other participants to continue their faith practice peacefully. With only one officer on duty that is no longer possible, so the calm and contemplative time supposedly provided by such services is broken and continues to be disrupted. As a result, fewer prisoners now come to chapel services and have less contact time with faith leaders, who have a vital role to play in supporting their spiritual and personal wellbeing.

My concern for the safety of volunteers is a challenging issue to solve, since the director of HMP Northumberland informs me that the current number of prison staff meets—indeed, slightly exceeds—the standard NOMS ratios for prisoners in the estate. Because of the geographical size and layout of the prison—a large RAF base in a former incarnation—the need for officers to manage the movements of prisoners and to monitor them means that there just are not the numbers to provide the level of cover to get prisoners to voluntary activities like faith services or to provide support at a practical level in chaplaincy activities and other provisions.

The huge reduction in staff numbers last year has also led to a decision to provide Manchester college’s education and training programme over four days rather than five. Although prisoners are still able to access the same number of hours per week, it is done over four days, leaving Friday, Saturday and Sunday without constructive activity to focus on. I can only imagine that three long days at a stretch with little to do is less than conducive to best behaviour, and the Sunday outing to chapel might easily seem like an opportunity to release frustration—an opportunity that was previously less abused. Given that HMP Northumberland is now supposed to have a working prison ethos, does the Minister believe that it is doing enough? Can it possibly meet the aim of five days’ full working and training opportunities with staff numbers that are so physically stretched by the nature of the geography and layout of the prison?

HMP Northumberland has some unique challenges to address. Although I am impressed by the steps now being taken, after four turbulent years, to move forward and find new training and work opportunities for the prisoners, will the Minister come and see for himself how difficult that will be to achieve in practice without continued investment in manpower and training for better safety and a sense of security for all those who work and volunteer there? I am grateful to have had the opportunity to raise this issue, which is of concern to many of my constituents. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, with the hope that some of my concerns might be unfounded or resolvable.