Oral Answers to Questions
Imran Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Rory Stewart
A lot of lessons have been learned since that initial event, but the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; there was a very disturbing event two weeks ago. The basic challenge, as he will be aware, is getting the balance right between ensuring that people are motivated and focused on the regime and that there are high expectations around prisoners and prison officers. To some extent, it is like running a very difficult school, particularly when we are dealing with 16 to 18-year-olds. It is a mixture of being strict on the one hand and loving on the other that is the key to a good prison.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree with his party’s former long-serving Secretary of State, Sir Malcolm Rifkind—a self-confessed true believer in privatisation—who wrote recently in the Financial Times:
“The physical deprivation of a citizen’s liberty should not be the responsibility of a private company or of its employees”?
Does the Minister accept that the renationalisation of HMP Birmingham heralds the end of his Government’s failed prison privatisation agenda?
Rory Stewart
I respectfully disagree with Sir Malcolm on this issue. It was absolutely right to take Birmingham back in hand, because that prison was not performing properly. On the other hand, the same company is running some very good prisons in Oakwood, Altcourse and Parc. It is doing good things on family work and on technology. Private sector prisons are often among the safer local prisons in terms of assaults per 1,000. We are not ideological on this. The private sector can certainly play a role.
Youth Inmates: Solitary Confinement
Imran Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) for securing this important debate. She was absolutely right to do so, as the issue is covered much less than other wide-ranging problems in our criminal justice system. Even within the youth custodial estate as a whole, it sometimes does not get the airtime that it perhaps should. None the less, it is very important. I also congratulate her on making such powerful and substantial points. I will come on to some of the issues she raised, but she comprehensively covered a very difficult area and made particular reference to some of the international rules and laws that we are subject to and that we probably fall short of in terms of our compliance. She mentioned the Mandela rules, which I will come on to later in my speech.
The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) spoke eloquently and drew on his previous work in this important area. He also spoke well on some of the broader issues and challenges in our criminal justice system. He highlighted some of the disparities around mental health issues—another area that perhaps does not get so much airtime in this place, but that should be of concern not least to the Minister and the Justice team, as well as more broadly across other Departments.
Hon. Members have already mentioned the report published by the Children’s Commissioner’s late last year, which should be a final wake-up call for the Government, as its verdict was so damning. It highlighted excessive use of segregation, solitary confinement or isolation—whatever we want to call it—by institutions holding children and young people, with a rise in the number of episodes of segregation taking place at the same time as we have seen an overall fall in the number of children and young people held in custody and a rise in the length of those episodes of segregation, with many instances going on for many weeks and sometimes months. Although that should be the final wake-up call for the Government, it is far from the first alarm that has gone off, with serious concerns repeatedly raised in recent years by a range of organisations involved in inmate and child health.
The picture painted by the Children’s Commissioner and others might not be the full one; tragically, the situation could be far worse. Hampering the ability of organisations to report effectively on the issue is the lack of data being collected by the Government. The Children’s Commissioner herself stated that the lack of transparency in the recording of segregation is an issue that needs to be corrected. Her report states:
“the number and average length of periods of segregations are not published at all for YOIs...Figures for all segregations of young people should be collected centrally and included in the Youth Justice Statistics.”
On such an important issue as the wellbeing of children and young people, we need better reporting and better data from the MOJ. Frankly, I am alarmed that the data is not sufficiently recorded at present.
What the data and reports do agree on, however, is that segregation has an extremely damaging effect on the mental health of all those subjected to it, and particularly children in the crucial stages of development. The World Health Organisation has identified a range of typical mental health symptoms that are presented among those who have been segregated in custody. Medical associations here in the UK, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health corroborate those findings. That contributes to what is now an unequivocal body of evidence on the hugely damaging effect that segregation has on health and wellbeing.
Segregation poses huge risks of psychiatric and developmental harm, and various studies show that there is also an increased risk of suicide and self-harm among those in segregation. The hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), who is no longer in her place, asked about that, and I think there is certainly a link between suicide and segregation. Our prisons are already in a severe mental health crisis, with more than one in three offenders across the whole custody estate reporting mental health issues, and many more likely to be experiencing them. We should not be adding to those worrying figures by segregating children and young people.
We cannot look at the issue in isolation, and there are other issues within the broader custodial estate that will have an impact on it. The Children’s Commissioner noted that poor child-to-staff ratios are making it harder for children to be moved around the prison. That difficulty is compounded by the overall shortage of experienced prison officers, as those who have gained vital skills and understanding, having worked with children for years, have left the prison service, and by the specific shortage of mental health-trained officers, who were forced out by Government cuts that left staff undervalued when they were being put through increasingly difficult and trying conditions.
The shortage of mental health beds across the country following underfunding and under-resourcing is also forcing many institutions to keep children and young people in segregation for long periods while they wait for mental health beds to become available. That abhorrent practice is damning of the crisis in our NHS. A report by NHS England last year that looked at the characteristics, needs and pathways in terms of the care of young people in secure settings found that 41% of young people placed in the youth justice estate had mental health or neurodevelopmental difficulties, as the hon. Member for Henley pointed out. We must ask whether we should be sending young people with such difficult challenges to custody in the first place, and whether they would be better placed in secure medical institutions that are better equipped. It is clear to me that, with the cuts to NHS services, many mental health services are being reduced in comparison with the need for them. The justice system is being used as a dumping ground for individuals when there is no capacity elsewhere.
We cannot ignore, either, the lack of procedural safeguards that allows institutions to place young people in extended segregation. The Howard League has stated that, when it requests paperwork on isolation—even when it is the subject of a legal challenge—it faces difficulties in obtaining it. It also states that children are denied clear targets to help them move out of segregation. Particularly critical, however, are cases where institutions were unaware that external professionals such as youth offending teams and social workers should be invited to segregation reviews. Coupled with the length and nature of segregation, that all amounts to a wilful violation of the internationally recognised Mandela rules.
It must also be noted that segregation is just one aspect of the many problems with our youth custodial estate that show how unfit for purpose it is—another point highlighted by other hon. Members. One of the biggest issues is violence. The chief inspector of prisons declared in his 2017 annual report that there is not a single establishment in the youth secure estate where it is safe to hold children and young people. That was followed up by his annual report last year, in which he declared that children continue to feel unsafe in young offender institutions, and that rates of violence against both staff and young people are higher than in previous years.
The youth custodial estate also shows how great the disparity between BME and non-BME offenders has become. According to the prisons inspectorate more than half of young people in YOIs are from a black and minority ethnic backgrounds. That is a massive disparity when compared with the general population, and we should be asking deep and serious questions about why our youth justice system and custodial institutions are locking up so many young people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.
Staff in the youth custodial estate must be able to maintain order in their institutions, but it must not be through painful restraint techniques or extreme segregation measures. That view is shared by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the UN special rapporteur on torture, who all agree that segregation should never be used on children and young people. The Children’s Commissioner, among others, warns about segregation practices in the youth estate, and the Minister must commit today to an immediate, independent review that has the power to make recommendations not only on the use of segregation in the youth estate, but on every facet of youth custody, with a view to rebuilding the broken system that is failing to keep children safe.
Edward Argar
I am always willing to do my hon. Friend a favour, and he is right to highlight that point. It is important to have processes, but we need to know that they are followed. In a number of cases, I ask for random individual updates and snapshots of information, so that I can get a feel for whether things are being done the way they should be done, and I look at those files as appropriate.
Wherever possible, children should engage with the regular regime, and other children, during their time in custody. However, there are occasions when it is necessary to remove a child from association because their behaviour is likely to be so disruptive that keeping them in an ordinary location would be unsafe, either for them or for others.
Imran Hussain
Perhaps that is one of the reasons why. I did not intervene earlier because I wanted to allow the Minister to progress his points, but does he draw a distinction between solitary confinement and isolation? Does he think that they are two different things? The European Prison Observatory states that those are just alternative terms, and even the former Chief Inspector of Prisons, Nick Hardwick, says that although the terminology may change, those things are the same.
Edward Argar
As I said clearly to the JCHR, removal from association and segregation is different from solitary confinement or isolation. The Mandela rules mention having no “meaningful human contact”, but that simply is not the case when someone is segregated or removed from association. I set out previously just how much direct, meaningful human contact continues throughout that time.
When a child in a YOI is to be removed from association, they must be supported in making representations, with governors taking into account literacy levels, whether they need help from the advocacy service and what might be behind their behaviour—I have met the Howard League, and others, who make that point forcefully and reasonably. Prior to a segregation or removal from association, our experienced staff will do everything they can to de-escalate the situation in other ways. If a young person is removed from association, it is not a case of, “That solves the problem”. That is a reaction and a last-resort response based on safety considerations, and the focus throughout will be on what can be done to support that young person back into association, and address their underlying issues or concerns.
Rule 36 of the STC rules states that a young person who has been removed from association and placed in their room cannot be left unaccompanied for more than three hours in any 24-hour period. Providers keep records on staff observations, which must be undertaken at least every 15 minutes. Authorisation for keeping children “removed from association” is escalated during that three-hour cycle, with authorisation from the duty director to extend beyond one hour. All episodes are discussed at monthly performance meetings as part of the governance and oversight arrangements. In contracted-out STCs, the YCS monitor is informed within 24 hours about any removal from association. The monitor is given a summary of every occurrence of a child being placed in their room within 24 hours, and they receive detailed incident reports that articulate the circumstances that led to that removal.
As I explained to the JCHR last year, when a child is removed from association, they are given as much access as possible to the usual regime, including education and healthcare. That includes not only the provision of education packs and in-room learning but teachers attending to children in their rooms to teach them in person so that they have regular human contact. Children in YOIs are also given time in the open air, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle said, and access to healthcare, physical education and legal advice, even when they are removed from association.
Individual regime plans designed around the child’s needs are agreed and reviewed frequently for each child by a multidisciplinary team. Staff in all under-18 YOIs have been given additional training on the use of segregation or removal from association, on the rules governing it and on how to ensure they comply with them. The use of segregation is heavily monitored by the youth custody service and the independent monitoring board, and indeed by me through my regular meetings with the chief executive of the service.
I am absolutely clear that the safety and wellbeing of the children and young adults in our care must be our highest priority, and I am committed to delivering wide-ranging reform to ensure that we are able to meet that priority in an increasingly challenging environment. The shadow Minister suggested that we needed a review of how youth justice, or youth custody, is conducted. I point him to the review conducted a few years ago by Charlie Taylor, which did exactly that. That review set out for us the direction of travel, which we are pursuing with the new secure schools programme, for example. I will touch on that before I conclude.
To provide some context, as hon. Members stated, there has been a sustained fall in the number of children entering the youth justice system in recent years. In the decade to 2018, juvenile cautions decreased by 91%, the number of first-time entrants into the youth justice system reduced by 86%, and, importantly in the context of this debate, the number of children in custody fell by 70%. The latest official statistics I have indicate that there were only 812 children in the youth secure estate as of January this year, a significant reduction from the almost 3,500 to 4,000 around a decade ago.
Those figures represent significant successes and are a testament both to the work and dedication of those who serve our youth justice sector in all capacities, and to the determination on both sides of the House to focus on rehabilitation and give young people the opportunity to reform and live a productive and successful life rather than being condemned at an early age to a life of going in and out of prison. However, that overall decline has resulted in a concentration in the youth secure estate of children who are convicted of the most serious offences—those who pass the bar above which custody is deemed the last resort for someone under 18 and demonstrate very complex behaviour.
The shadow Minister and others referred to the report by the Children’s Commissioner. We studied that carefully, but we challenged a number of her assertions, as I did openly at the JCHR. There are several reasons behind our challenge. The first is the change in the nature of data collection in the period that she looked at. That is not the only reason why we have seen the number of incidents we have, but we need to be careful about the data. Previously, if a young person was segregated in their own cell, it was not recorded as a segregation; a segregation was reported only if they went to a segregation unit or wing. It is important that we have clear data on any segregation or removal from association. That is one factor. It is not the only one, but it is a factor, so I just sound a slight note of caution there.
The other reason goes back to that really concentrated cohort of people convicted of the most serious offences. The average number of children held for violence against the person has increased by 11% in the last year. The proportion of children in custody for more serious offences, including violence against the person, robbery and sexual offences, has increased from 59% to 70% over the last five years. That is due to the increase in violence against the person offences, which now account for 41% of the youth custody population. The changing mix of offenders who make up that smaller overall number plays a part in both the rising levels of violence and the challenges faced by our youth custody estate.
Furthermore, as I think the shadow Minister touched on, despite the reduction in overall numbers, there has been an increase in the proportion of children from the black, Asian and minority ethnic community in custody. They currently make up around 45% of the custodial population. I am deeply concerned about the proportion of BAME children in custody, and understanding and addressing that is a key priority for me. Since my appointment, I have had the great pleasure of working with the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on implementation of the Lammy review. We have created a dedicated youth justice disproportionality team, which is working with stakeholders and criminal justice agencies to follow the principles we set out in response to the review, either to explain clearly why this is the case or to change the way the system works to ensure that there is not unwarranted disproportionality of outcomes for BAME children.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle is absolutely right about the importance of not giving up on anyone, however challenging they are. Young people in custody are some of the most challenging people in our society, for a variety of reasons, as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley said. People may be challenging for mental health reasons or as a result of substance misuse. Often, people are challenging because they come from a background in which they experienced significant adverse childhood experiences or trauma, family breakup or domestic violence. There is a whole range of factors behind that. Where the severity of a crime justifies and requires a custodial sentence, our judiciary must have the power to impose one, but we should not give up on any of those young people, and we should work with them in custody to try to address the challenges and background issues they face.
Knife Crime
Imran Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I too thank the petitioners and the Petitions Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) for opening the debate and making very important points, along with the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), who rightly set a measured tone across the Floor. Some broader political points need ironing out, but today may not be the day for that. I will refer to them briefly, but in the light of what the hon. Gentleman said I have altered huge parts of my speech—I thought he made a good point about that.
I join many of my hon. Friends in remembering all the tragic victims of knife crime—those who have been mentioned, and those who have not.
Mrs Hodgson
It would be remiss of me not to mention two young people from Sunderland who were also victims. In the north-east, we do not have an epidemic of knife crime. There is a regional element to it, but none the less 31-year-old father Gavin Moon from my constituency was a victim, as was 18-year-old Connor Brown, from the neighbouring constituency of Sunderland Central. As my hon. Friend was talking about victims, I thought I should mention those two.
This has been an excellent debate. I did not intend to stay for long, but it has been so good I have stayed for the wind-ups.
Imran Hussain
I join my hon. Friend in remembering the victims she refers to, and all other victims. Our thoughts and hearts go out to the grieving families. These are tragedies beyond words.
We have heard moving accounts from hon. Members from their constituencies—from communities coming together to deal with the issues to the broader impact and trauma, which is sometimes not acknowledged, on society as a whole and on communities. All those things happen in the aftermath, and are sometimes not given as much thought as they should be. I thank all hon. Members for their valuable contributions.
The rise in knife crime and the number of young people who have been killed should keep us all awake at night. This is deeply complex. Although we support robust sentencing, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones), made pertinent and persuasive points. I do not wish to repeat them, but I believe that she set the tone regarding the broader impacts by giving some hard facts. In particular, she referred to the record numbers of offenders sentenced for knife crime, with more people being given an immediate custodial sentence. She rightly pointed out that we must realise that we cannot achieve lower levels of crime through sentencing alone. We need an approach that is rooted in effectiveness. Only then can we begin to stop the rise in violent crime.
In taking such an approach, we need to understand what is driving knife crime. Although, as we have seen today, there is little consensus on what has been the trigger for the marked increase in knife crime, the drivers and issues that have created the conditions in which this epidemic has been able to grow are difficult to dispute. The clearest is that, with such a dramatic rise in knife crime, young people are now more scared of becoming victims than ever. They have seen friends wounded or killed and fear that the same will happen to them. They even feel ignored by authorities when they raise that fear, particularly since those who are most likely to be victims live in high-crime neighbourhoods where police are sometimes seen as unable to protect them. That is compounded by a rise in violence and a fall in the proportion of crimes for which an offender is identified.
We cannot get away from the fact that police numbers have been slashed: there are 20,000 fewer police officers than there were in 2010, and police community support officers, who are so vital to building relations, have also been lost. At the same time, there are serious issues in our schools: as schools face significant funding pressures, interventions for vulnerable children are being cut and there has been a marked increase in exclusions and illegal off-rolling. We know that vulnerable children are more likely to be off-rolled or excluded, and the Children’s Commissioner has reported that those who are excluded are 200 times more likely to be involved in gangs, which demonstrates that we simply cannot ignore the correlation between the rise in exclusions and the rise in knife crime.
There have also been huge reductions in the services available for young people. Again, I am not making a political point out of this but just giving the hard facts. Some 3,500 youth service jobs have been lost and 600 centres have closed, with 130,000 places lost. There have been sweeping cuts to education, and teachers and vital early intervention services have been lost as councils face unprecedented funding cuts. Youth offending team budgets have been cut in half, curbing interventions and degrading services that help to prevent young people from becoming victims and offenders in the first place. All those services assist people who are already disaffected and vulnerable. It is no coincidence that victims and offenders are from areas of huge social disadvantage.
We cannot address the drivers of offending with more sentencing alone. We can address them only with an interdepartmental approach, because sentencing is a downstream solution that is applied when it is already too late. We need an upstream solution that identifies the root causes of crime, brings together organisations across central Government, local government, the police and the community sector, and is built on the well-documented public health approach that many hon. Members have referred to, which involves collecting data, identifying the factors at play, implementing solutions and rolling out the ones that work.
More broadly, solving the issue requires the stimulation of housing, employment opportunities and community facilities, as the Association of Directors of Children’s Services suggests. It also requires investment in young people, who are overwhelmingly the most affected, and a cross-departmental approach like that of Police Scotland’s violence reduction unit in Scotland, with close co-operation among partners in the NHS, education and social work. That will help to give young people the future they deserve and lift them out of the dire situations in which they find themselves, which all too often lead them to fall into a life of crime.
Such an approach is far from being soft on crime but, as the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) says, it gets results. The considerable success of the approach taken in Scotland, with homicide rates halving between 2004-05 and 2016-17, has led the Youth Violence Commission, the Select Committee on Home Affairs and the head of Scotland Yard to call for it to be implemented in England. Even the Home Secretary has said that we need to treat knife crime “like a disease”. Unfortunately, he has offered to tackle the symptoms—stabbings and possessions—but not the causes.
We need to do more. We need to shift the focus of our model away from purely specific interventions for high-risk individuals and cast the net wider, to focus on low and medium-risk offenders, from whom most of the cases arise, and avoid a prevention paradox. We need joint ownership to be taken of the problems that lead to knife crime, because responsibility does not lie just with police—we have to be clear about that. Ultimately, we need to adopt an approach that recognises violence as preventable, not inevitable. We need a meaningful public health approach that can address knife crime and its causes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Imran Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Rory Stewart
In terms of inexperienced prison officers, it is about longer training courses and better mentoring on the wings, with band 4 officers in particular working day in, day out with new staff. In terms of time out of cells, this is why having 4,700 more staff is really important—it allows us to unlock people more and get back to a regime that allows people to get into education and work and protects the public.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
The point that the Minister conveniently misses is that frontline prison officer resignations have more than tripled since 2010, and now one in three officers has less than two years’ experience, as the Minister fails to get a grip on a retention crisis caused by years of relentless cuts. Does he really think that this exodus of experienced staff will keep prisons safe, as assaults and violence rise to record levels?
Rory Stewart
There are two separate things here. The shadow Minister is correct that experienced staff are vital, but it is also worth bearing in mind that one reason why there are so many new staff is that we have recruited 4,700 additional officers; by definition, many of them will be new. Retention is vital. The development of the advanced prison officer grade, which allows experienced closed grade officers to move from band 3 to band 4, will be very important in stabilising prisons.
Short Prison Sentences
Imran Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
It is, of course, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) for bringing this very important debate to the Chamber. She is right to say that it follows a number of linked debates of equal value. That shows the interest among hon. Members in this important subject, and I thank hon. Members for their valuable contributions.
The starting point is that we cannot shy away from the fact that many short sentences simply do not work. The points in that respect have been eloquently made by my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham West and Penge and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), and, of course, by the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill).
The reoffending rate for those serving a sentence shorter than 12 months is higher than that for community orders or suspended sentences. That is causing real damage not just to communities and victims, but to the public finances—another point that has been made. Short sentence reoffending is conservatively estimated to cost the economy between £7 billion and £10 billion a year; others rightly say that the figure could be £15 billion or more.
It is glaringly obvious why short sentences are so ineffective. An offender who is sentenced to just a few months or even a few weeks will still lose their job, their home and their family. These are all things that offenders themselves say are factors that influence whether they reoffend. The problems are exactly the same as those that an offender serving a sentence that runs into years experiences, but crucially, people serving short sentences are not in prison long enough to put in place steps to address these needs before their release.
An offender serving a short sentence also has no time for purposeful activity, which is proven to reduce reoffending. They have no time to equip themselves with skills or gain qualifications to get a job and pay for a home after release, because in most cases a course cannot be taught and skills cannot be gained in a matter of months, particularly when much of the time is spent isolated in cells due to the lack of experienced prison officers and the other issues that we face in the emergency that exists within our prisons.
There is also no time to get help with regard to other drivers of offending, such as mental health issues and substance misuse. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons states that one prisoner in three has mental health issues—a problem that is undoubtedly much greater than is portrayed—and one prisoner in five tested positive for drugs and psychoactive substances in 2017-18. Those are real, serious problems that these offenders face, but when serving short sentences they cannot get the treatment or rehabilitation that they need to get their lives in order. In some cases, people need rehab and medical attention, not cells.
It is clear that we need to end the use of ineffective short sentences, but although the Government have floated the idea on several occasions, the reality is that they are not doing much about it; we have yet to see them take any concrete action.
The proportion of short custodial sentences has barely shifted in the past three years. More staggeringly, community sentences, which can provide an alternative to short custodial sentences, have fallen by 78% over the past five years, with the fastest decline being for non-violent theft and drug offences. The Minister’s first step must be to halt this worrying trend. Forgive me if I do not entirely believe that the Government will act.
I am even less assured by the Government’s record, because every major policy announcement that the Ministry of Justice has made on prisons falls short of the mark and has come to nothing thus far. The female offender strategy promised five new residential women’s centres—a rehashed Labour idea—which are nowhere near being built. The educational employment strategy scrapped careers advice in prison, which is a negative step, and has not done much beyond that. The Minister’s 10 prisons safety project is failing to deliver improvements in safety anywhere, let alone across the whole estate.
If we have learnt anything from the MOJ it is that it is all noise and no substance. I wish that were not the case. The overuse of short sentences is a substantial and important issue. We want to be able to work with the Government on this. We agree that short sentences do not work and that locking someone up for just a few weeks or months provides no benefit to anyone. We have common ground to build on.
However, the Government do not seem serious about tackling short sentence overuse. If they were serious, they would ensure that there was a real alternative to custody, in the form of robust community sentences or a stricter fines regime; they would not allow the disaster that is our probation system, which provides community sentences, to continue; and they would address the dangerous lack of confidence among magistrates in the probation system and community sentences—a point that the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst made very well.
A study conducted last year with the support of the Magistrates Association found that 37% of magistrates are not confident that community sentences are an effective alternative, 45% are not confident that community sentences currently rehabilitate effectively, and almost half believe that community sentences cannot be tailored to suit the individual needs of an offender. By contrast, a survey in 2003 showed that magistrates had much higher levels of confidence in the ability of community sentences to punish and rehabilitate offenders.
Even after that study and numerous recent, high-profile and wide-ranging critical reports, the Government are continuing with their failed privatisation experiment in probation. The reports are long and damning. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of probation found nine out of 13 community rehabilitation companies to be performing poorly overall, with poor-quality work in reducing reoffending and protecting the public. The Justice Committee ripped into poor performance on reoffending, concerning high workloads and worries over the confidence of judges and magistrates—a point made earlier. Last Friday’s National Audit Office report found that CRCs failed to meet MOJ targets to reduce reoffending and had created an increase in offenders on short sentences who were recalled. Community sentences simply are not viable under their current providers. Magistrates and judges do not trust them, and neither do the public.
We have heard about Scotland’s model in contrast to the Government’s action. The Labour shadow Justice team has committed to bringing probation services back in-house to deliver a service that works, has the confidence of judges and magistrates, and can show the public that there is a real robust alternative to short custodial sentences. The shadow Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), recently visited Scotland, where a presumption against short sentences is being rolled out. He saw the positive work done to deliver justice for the public and victims through sentencing alternatives that do reduce reoffending. The use of community sentences in Scotland has risen by 16% in the past decade, which contrasts to a decline in England and Wales. The Scottish model has been in place for some time and shows a clear way forward, which the Government must seriously address.
The Government must show that they are capable of more than just words and setting the mood music; they must prove that they are serious. The Minister must set out what they are doing to end the huge overuse of ineffective short sentences, which serve little purpose in our justice system, including what action they are taking to stop the dramatic fall in the use of community sentences in recent years and how long it will be before the MOJ gets the proportion of community sentences back to previous levels.
Addressing this important issue can reduce reoffending, so I extend an offer to work with the Minister to bring reoffending down. However, that offer is not a blank cheque. A new consensus must be built on strong proposals by the Government. The Minister must show us that he is doing this for the right reasons: to reduce reoffending and better serve the public, not just to reduce the prison population. He needs to outline how he will regain the confidence and trust of the judiciary, which the Government have lost with their probation changes. Given the growing number of damning reports on these probation changes and their failure to reduce reoffending, he must commit to ending the failed privatisation experiment, which cannot deliver the viable and robust alternatives to custody that are needed, and bring this back into public ownership.
Recall of Women to Prisons
Imran Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to follow so many strong and passionate contributions. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing this important debate. She is a passionate advocate of supporting women in prisons and vulnerable women more generally.
The “Broken Trust” report found that the number of women recalled to prison has more than doubled since the end of 2014. Equally shocking is the fact that 40% of recalls were due not to breaking conditions or reoffending, but to losing contact with the offender manager—a point made by several Members today. It is not right. It is heavy-handed, disproportionate and in no one’s interests but those of the probation providers.
The conditions for recall were set out by the National Offender Management Service, now Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, which put forward a test by which recall decisions must be judged. The test operates on a scale, with “threat to the public” at the top, but the test is clearly not being adhered to. Recalls should be for public safety alone, either to protect members of the public or to prevent imminent offending. Instead, it has become a box-ticking exercise for private probation companies more interested in profits and contracts.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I wanted to attend this debate, Mr Hollobone, but I had to be in the Chamber for a statutory instrument and could not be in two places at one time—although, I do try to do that sometimes. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the Prison Service must answer the question as to why the use of recall of women continues to increase when they are far less likely to commit serious offences? Why is the trend not slowing down as it did for men? That poses a question for the Minister, who must consider how the resettling process is carried out. Can it be improved and regulated better? Clearly it can.
Imran Hussain
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. That point has been made by various Members today and the questions have been posed. I will continue to explore further some of the concerns he raises.
Because of the bureaucratic approach, probation companies are not respected or trusted by the women they should work with. Instead of seeing the complex needs that women face, probation companies look past them and see them as risks, so that homelessness, joblessness, poverty and childcare are not needs to be met, but risks. It is outrageous, particularly when years of austerity have resulted in closed independent support networks and therapy groups in the community and left probation as the only means of assistance. The probation companies see the women not as vulnerable but as potential reoffenders, whereas others would see them as women who needs help, and they issue them with recall orders, sending them back to prison, even though they have done nothing wrong.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East, I want to cite real examples. One woman slept rough for two weeks before signing for a flat in a new area. She contacted the probation service to say that she had settled in but that she had not heard from them and did not know whether to attend the old or the new office, the address of which she did not know. She was instead told that there was a warrant out for her arrest and then returned to prison for 14 days. That directly affected her settling into the new area and delayed her social services assessment. As if that was not bad enough, her paperwork stated that she had been recalled because
“a period of stability in custody would benefit her”.
She had a house and she had stability, but still they recalled her. It is shocking.
Probation staff are under significant pressure, with ever-growing workloads and directions from above to fulfil quotas. The culture of privatised probation means that no thought is given to the rule to consider the specific needs of female offenders. We have seen that clearly with community rehabilitation companies believing that that need is fulfilled not by funding a network of women’s centres, but by making available a female offender manager. With pressure to be rid of female offenders so that CRCs no longer have to deal with their often complex needs, what is created is the disproportionate and excessive recall that many hon. Members have spoken about today.
The rapid rise of recall is worrying, and so too is the disproportionate and negative impact it has on women. By repeatedly dragging women back into our prison system, we are trapping them there. A woman might complete her short sentence, but if she does not get help she may be recalled, serve a couple more weeks and then get out. If she still cannot get help she may be recalled again, thus entering a cycle. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East was absolutely right to describe it as being trapped in the criminal justice system.
The Ministry of Justice has abolished the use of IPP sentences—imprisonment for public protection—as my hon. Friend said, but it has created problems by locking in offenders with no prospect of getting out or ever actually being free or alive and kicking. Make no mistake: prisons are in a state of emergency. Women cannot access help in them, violence has exploded and safety has plummeted. Far too many women are killing themselves, and many more are committing acts of self-harm.
That leads me to the question of the suitability of prison and short sentences for women in the first place—an issue that many hon. Members have spoken about. The women we are locking up have committed crimes of poverty such as petty theft. More than 80% are inside for non-violent offences, and they are often troubled and vulnerable. More than half have mental health issues, have suffered child abuse or domestic abuse, or are struggling with substance misuse. There is no way we can deal with the problems that drive them to offend in the first place in prison because there are not enough experienced officers or the support services to aid them. We are clear that we must end super-short sentences, which cause too many women to be in prison for petty crimes. That is the only way women will be able to access the support they need to tackle their offending. That is the only way we can keep the public safe.
The Justice Secretary spoke about this matter on Monday, and the Prisons Minister has done so on previous occasions. I sincerely hope that we do not see another plan that comes to nothing in reality. We are having this debate because of a plan that has come to nothing. At the heart of the rise in recall is the Government’s failure to address female offenders’ needs and reduce their reoffending. If we do not have women offending or serving short sentences in prison, there will be no one to recall.
The Government set out a strategy and goals nine months ago, but they are yet to set out how they will achieve them. They offer warm words but no way forward. They propose residential women’s centres, which are a revised policy of the previous Labour Government, but they have promised only five and there are no signs of where they will be, how they will be funded and who they will be for. Will they house homeless women or those with housing? Will it be judges or the probation service and the Prison Service that send them there? Months later, we still do not have those answers. Perhaps the Minister will start by answering some of those pertinent questions about the female offender strategy.
Kate Green
Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be very helpful if the Minister could show us, either today or in due course, the evidence about the efficacy of residential women’s centres? An even better solution might be simply to support them in their own homes and in the community.
Imran Hussain
My hon. Friend makes a very pertinent point. She is right, and I hope the Minister will address that issue.
The Government also delivered a huge funding cut to the female offender strategy. They promised £50 million but reduced it to £5 million over two years. How they intend to achieve any of the strategy’s goals with such insufficient funding, particularly given that it is double-counted and has already been announced elsewhere, is a mystery. I do not want to alarm the Minister, but there is just one year of the strategy and £5 million left, with no sign of progress or more funding next year. Again, can the Minister provide answers about where the money for the five residential centres will come from? What progress has been made? Those are important questions that he and others have not yet answered.
The excessive use of recall for troubled women who have done nothing wrong after release, and whose recall is the result not of their failings but of those of CRCs, is an absolute scandal. The Government were warned that the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 would force women through needless hardship, but they neglected to listen.
As well as providing answers to the questions that have been asked, the Minister must use his response today to announce a review of the impact that the extension of recall for short sentences has had on women. He must set out plans that will ensure that people are detained only on the orders of judges, not probation officers. Ultimately, he must set out a coherent plan for ending short sentences, which trap many vulnerable and troubled female offenders in the criminal justice system, and for ending the involvement of private companies in our probation system, which has left it target-driven, not people-driven.
Exiting the European Union (Mediation)
Imran Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
Across Parliament and throughout the legal sector, there is serious concern that the Government’s inadequate planning for justice co-operation after Brexit puts the most vulnerable people in our society at risk. The Chair of the Lords EU Justice Sub-Committee took the step of writing to the Secretary of State in October to criticise his lack of planning and warned:
“The government needs to wake up to the reality of what having no answers on family justice will mean after Brexit.”
Many people are concerned that the Government’s failure to secure agreement on a form of continued participation in the European arrest warrant will leave us less safe.
We currently benefit from a well-established, frequently updated and comprehensive set of reciprocal justice arrangements with the EU. These cover everything from disputes over child custody to medical negligence abroad. As a recent House of Lords European Union Committee report states, these specific EU regulations provide “certainty, predictability and clarity”. Without an agreement with our European partners on what the future of those reciprocal arrangements looks like after we leave the EU, people who are forced to go to court or mediation to protect their rights could face extremely damaging consequences. Whatever claims the Minister makes about the secondary legislation that the Tories are bringing in, the Opposition need to see concrete action, not words, to defend rights, because we simply do not trust the Government to protect working people’s rights.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
The shadow Minister puts a lot of store in comments made by various House of Lords Sub-Committees on this statutory instrument. Will he tell us whether the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments raised any objections to it?
Imran Hussain
A number of objections have been raised, as I have set out, but the bottom line is that these regulations repeal legislation and mean effectively that the higher European standards will not be followed and that, instead, lower international standards will be.
Bob Stewart
But I thought I just heard the Minister say that in the matter of mediation, there will be very little difference, and that is what we are talking about: mediation.
Imran Hussain
Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman is right; we are talking about mediation. The Minister will know, and rightly pointed out, that there are two issues: time limits and confidentiality. This statutory instrument will repeal legislation that allows for extra time for that mediation, so that is substantially different. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that position in her closing remarks, because my understanding is that there is a substantial difference.
This statutory instrument would revoke and repeal the domestic legislation that enshrined in law the mediation directive. Many Members will be unfamiliar with the purpose of the mediation directive, but it is one of many examples whereby, through co-operation with our European partners, we have raised legal standards and protections across Europe. The European Statutory Instruments Committee—as raised by the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood)—considered whether this instrument could diminish rights. It found that it
“repeals legislation that extends the time limit for bringing certain claims in civil courts and employment tribunals to enable mediation”.
Some people may claim that legislation setting out the time limits for bringing civil claims is a minor issue, but it can have substantial real-world consequences. It could mean the difference between people being able to reach a mediated solution to a child contact case or not. The Government’s explanatory memorandum makes it clear that maintaining the standards of the mediation directive was an option available to the Government, but they have not sought to maintain the highest possible standards in all circumstances.
Why has the Minister not sought to maintain the highest possible standards? Can she guarantee today that if the statutory instrument passes and we move away from the high European mediation standards, people who rely on mediation for a family law matter—for example, a dispute over custody of a child—will be no worse off than they would have been had the mediation been conducted under the current European standards? I wait for her response, but she knows that the answer to that question is no.
For decades now, people from across the UK have travelled, lived and done business across Europe, safe in the knowledge that if something goes wrong they will be protected by legal systems that work, and work together. Many people from elsewhere in Europe have made their lives in the UK—some have started families, some created businesses, others are working in the NHS and other vital services—and they, too, trusted that they could rely on cross-border legal co-operation if something went wrong. That is why the Government’s failure to secure full judicial co-operation after we leave the EU is so damaging—it puts people’s rights at risk by lowering standards—and that is why we will vote against the SI. We in the Opposition know the Tories cannot be trusted to defend people’s rights.
Lucy Frazer
I thank hon. Members for their important contributions, and I will respond briefly to some of the points raised. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), made broad criticisms of the Department’s justice planning, but we in the Department take our governmental responsibilities very seriously. We have laid before Parliament several SIs for no-deal planning, many of which we have debated and passed; we have the £17 million from the Treasury to prepare; and we are liaising and working with Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and the judiciary to ensure that we are ready should we leave on 29 March without a deal. That said, the best way to avoid a no-deal outcome is to approve the Prime Minister’s deal. That is why I voted for it. If the hon. Gentleman would like to avoid a no-deal exit on 29 March, that option is open to him as well.
I will deal now with the shadow Minister’s specific points about the SI. We have always had very high mediation standards. Domestic mediations take place across the country in a wide range of jurisdictions; they did so to a high standard before this directive came into force a few years ago; and they will maintain those high standards when we leave the EU. As I said in my opening speech, we are revoking the EU directive because we cannot rely on reciprocity in the future—that is the approach we have taken in our SIs—and where we will not get reciprocity, we are revoking the instruments by which we are currently bound.
Imran Hussain
Will the Minister confirm that as a direct result of the SI standards will be lowered, particularly with regard to mediation, because time limits will be reduced?
Lucy Frazer
If someone wants to stop a time limit running in mediation, they need only issue proceedings before a court, because that stops time running. If someone issues proceedings and asks for a stay of those proceedings, time stops running. That measure is available to people in mediation.
I will respond to the few points made by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands). I recognise that the Scottish system is a distinct legal system, but I challenge his claim that we have ignored the Scottish Government. I was in Scotland—in Edinburgh—two weeks ago sitting with members of the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations, and I was pleased to hear Scottish Ministers praise my Department for our work at official level liaising with them on matters of justice. We have, then, been working hard to involve the devolved Administrations in these measures.
For those reasons, and because it will maintain clear and effective rules for our courts and citizens to follow during challenging EU cross-border mediations, I commend the instrument to the House.
Question put:
Draft Mutual Recognition of Protection Measures in Civil Matters (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Imran Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. Civil law is rarely presented as the most exciting aspect of the legal profession—the Minister herself said as much in an article on civil judicial co-operation last September—but, as she too accepts, that does not mean it is not important. Certainly, the matters before us are of huge importance. These regulations, while unassuming at first sight, with their long title serving to deceive, and tucked away in this SI Committee, are of huge importance and should not be understated. They extend vital protections from harassment, abuse and risk to vulnerable people from the EU while in the UK.
The interconnected world in which we live means that people have never been freer to travel, move and relocate. It means that we must have interconnected protections extended to cover different nations. Although these regulations extend protections, they are not what we had hoped for. They are worryingly one-sided, and we have serious concerns about them. First, the regulations lay bare the inadequacies of the Government’s preparations for a post-Brexit world in the area of judicial co-operation, as it is the Government’s failure to secure a deal on judicial co-operation and the recognition of civil protection measures that makes them necessary in the first place.
The Government stated in their future partnership paper “Providing a cross-border civil judicial cooperation framework” that their intention was to secure
“an agreement with the EU that allows for close and comprehensive cross-border civil judicial co-operation”.
In their White Paper on future UK-EU relations, they further stated that they were
“keen to explore a new bilateral agreement with the EU”
on civil judicial co-operation. The White Paper also stated that the EU has shown that
“a deeper level of civil judicial cooperation with third countries is both legally viable and operationally achievable”.
The real question is why they have been unable to replicate that civil judicial co-operation, if it is all too possible. Why have we been forced into this situation at all? The answer is the Government’s poor negotiation and a lack of preparation by the Ministry of Justice for a post-Brexit world. The Government’s preparations for judicial co-operation have been shredded by parliamentary Select Committees in both Houses. The Chair of the Justice Committee warned the Minister of a lack of clarity on the implications of Brexit for the justice system, including little certainty about how the civil judicial objectives that the Government are reaching for will be achieved. The Chair of the EU Justice Sub-Committee in the other place, in a letter to the Justice Secretary last October, expressed further concerns about how the Government are handling the Brexit negotiations, warning of the “profound and damaging impact” of a no-deal Brexit on those whom the courts seek to protect.
This damaging impact is seen all too clearly here, because a failure to prepare and secure a deal now means that there is no reciprocation by the EU on the recognition of protection measures. Although these regulations mean that protection measures issued in the EU will be recognised and enforced in the UK, the reverse is worryingly not true. Instead, protection measures issued in the UK will be neither recognised nor enforced in EU member states, meaning that those in the UK will be at risk when they are in the EU.
Ultimately, that means a harassed mother seeking protection for herself and her children, with an abusive partner barred from making contact, will be left vulnerable in the EU. That is simply unacceptable. It is deplorable that, with just weeks to go, we are unable to offer her the protection she needs, particularly given that the Government’s own explanatory memorandum states that protection measures impose obligations and prohibitions on persons causing risk—the word “risk” is not used lightly and shows the grave seriousness of the issue.
Although the Minister in the other place states that the Government are hopeful of taking forward recognition by EU member states in future negotiations, they have failed to set out specifically what is being done exclusively on the issue of judicial co-operation and recognition of protection measures in current and past negotiations. That Minister further stated that the Ministry of Justice had discussed the issue of protection measures post Brexit with family law stakeholders and practitioners, something reinforced here today by the Minister, to develop the MOJ’s thinking. Even today, we have failed to hear which groups were consulted and what they think about the lack of reciprocation secured by the UK and the impact that would have on those travelling to the EU. What assurances has the Minister given to those groups that protection measures issued in the UK will be taken forward as a matter of urgency to maintain protection for vulnerable adults and children?
The Opposition have long warned of the damaging impact of no deal. We are clearly seeing today just how bad no deal will be. The damage of no deal extends beyond trade and the movement of people, beyond the economy and migration, and into laws that would otherwise ensure that we all have protections in an interconnected world—protections from abuse, harassment and danger.
We do not support the regulations today. Although they have our support for extending the recognition of protection made in EU member states to the UK, they do not have our support for their failure to secure reciprocation. We are deeply unhappy with the situation and want to express our serious concerns. However, our view, supported by the Law Society, is that not allowing the regulations to pass would leave people worse off in the event of no deal. Opposing the regulations will not leave UK citizens better protected; only a better deal and better negotiations by the Government will do that. It would instead leave those from EU member states worse off and less well protected for no benefit whatsoever to any parties involved. We are not prepared to do that. We are not prepared to act out of spite, so we will not oppose the regulations.
However, we must be clear that the Government must come forward at the earliest opportunity to set out how they will achieve reciprocation across the EU, which is not for lack of willingness on the part of the EU, and how the framework for achieving judicial co-operation and recognition of protection measures will be achieved. A failure to do so would be a betrayal of vulnerable people seeking protection and a failure of the Government’s duty of care towards them.
Lucy Frazer
I will respond to a couple of the points made by the hon. Member for Bradford East. He is right to identify this as an important matter affecting families across Europe and the UK. He said that the regulations are one-sided; we have been very up front that this is a one-sided relationship, because we cannot legislate for other member states. All we can do is ensure that our regime provides the best possible protection.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that the Government have failed to prepare. I made it clear at the outset that in this SI we are legislating for a no-deal scenario. The Government would very much like to have a deal. If we have a deal, the EU has been clear, in our discussions and in its written guidance, that it would like to have a strong relationship with the UK in family matters, and to develop further the basic requirements that we would have in a no-deal situation, so that families are protected.
We have liaised extensively with the EU on this matter, and the deal—as set out in the political declaration—makes it clear that the EU is willing to give us a deal on family matters on a reciprocal basis. We cannot come here today and offer that deal, because Parliament did not vote in favour of it. A large number of Labour Members did not support that deal, which is why the Government are in this position.
I would like to make clear the protection that these individuals will have. It is not the case that vulnerable people going to EU member states will have no protection at all; they will be able to make an application in a foreign court for the same protections. It is just that the measures currently in place give automatic protections, so that an order made here is treated like one made in another member state. There are protections, but it would just be more laborious and expensive.
Imran Hussain
The Minister conveniently forgets that many Government Members rejected that very bad deal as well. She must accept that some of the most vulnerable people will be put at risk in the case of no deal. She cannot provide any guarantees here to the contrary.
Lucy Frazer
We have been up front that the current provisions in civil judicial co-operation in family law matters do provide some protection even without the EU regimes, but not the same level of protection, and this is an example of that. It is not the case that they will get no protection at all, but the protection they have at the moment is better. We accept that, which is one of the reasons I will be voting again for the Government’s deal when, or if, the opportunity arises.
The hon. Gentleman raised a legitimate point about consultation. I can assure him that we have liaised with a number of bodies interested in family law. We have a Brexit law committee, on which sit members of the Bar Council, the Law Society and the City. We also have sub-committees in different areas of law. There is a family sub-committee, with which I have held roundtable discussions. My officials met the sub-committee regularly to discuss these and other areas of family law. We have also met Resolution and the international Family Law Committee, and I have spoken with the Family Law Bar Association. The Ministry of Justice has not taken these decisions in isolation; we have very much engaged with stakeholders to come up with the best possible solutions. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Imran Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Gauke
Over time, more of those IPP prisoners are being released, but the Parole Board has to make a judgment in each individual case on whether there is a risk to society from releasing a particular individual. Those judgments can be difficult. Sometimes the Parole Board faces criticism when it does decide to release somebody in these circumstances. These matters have to be addressed on a case-by-case basis.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
Last year, almost half of prisoners held at HMP Birmingham were held in overcrowded cells, contributing to the crisis of violence that six months ago forced the Government to step in and take control away from G4S. On the last occasion I asked about this, the Minister of State was unable to give a response, so will the Secretary of State now confirm that he will not be handing HMP Birmingham back to G4S, and will he draw the obvious conclusion that privatisation has been a failure in our prison system?
Mr Gauke
We will not hand HMP Birmingham back if it is not safe for us to do so. I am afraid that the attack on any involvement of the private sector in the prison system that we hear from Labour Front Benchers does not represent a balanced approach. We have to look at the successes that exist within the prison system, where the private sector has run very effective prisons. That cannot be ignored, notwithstanding the very real problems that exist, and have existed, with Birmingham.
Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report
Imran Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
I have not had advance sight of the statement, but the Minister, in his courteous manner, explained the reason to me shortly before the statement. I am somewhat astonished that, during his 10-minute deliberation, he failed seriously to consider and concede the true, damning nature of the joint report, which has public protection at its heart. We expect our criminal justice system to keep us safe, to keep our children protected, and to ensure the effective management and supervision of offenders, but it is clear from this damning report into the state of the management and supervision of sex offenders that this is not the case.
The report reads like a catalogue of failures in public protection. All five areas inspected had cases that presented safeguarding concerns, most often in relation to children, and around one in three of the intervention plans made paid insufficient attention to keeping children safe. Almost one in five plans failed to address sufficiently the need to keep the public, known adults and staff safe. Overall, inspectors found that there was poor release planning for sex offenders: many cases failed to present a comprehensive risk management plan and many initial offender assessment systems in prisons were missing. That created a situation in which proper restrictions on the access of sex offenders to children could not be applied, putting those children in real danger. Those are severe failings by the Ministry of Justice, and the public have a right to know that they have been put at risk by the Government.
Can the Minister tell me how many sexual offenders released since the beginning of the transforming rehabilitation programme have gone on to reoffend? How many adults and children have been put at risk by the serious failures identified in the report? Of particular note is the threat to the public posed by the inadequate and unsafe resettlement of sexual offenders after release, which he has today acknowledged.
The report identifies two instances, in the small sample, of offenders being released into budget hotels or other temporary accommodation instead of approved premises. The inspectorates have said that it was hard to see a defence for that decision in relation to protecting the public. How many offenders have been released into non- approved premises, how long did they stay in such premises, and what supervision and monitoring arrangements were in place? Does the Minister believe that such a decision was defensible? Following the Government’s privatisation of night-watch staff at approved premises, despite repeated warnings, what assessment has he made of this privatisation of public safety, and does he agree with the unions that that, too, will put the public at risk?
It is also evident that the failings found in the report have been caused and aggravated by the Government’s ill-judged and poorly delivered transforming rehabilitation programme, and their relentless, ideological cuts to the Prison Service. The transforming rehabilitation programme has dangerously and recklessly fragmented the probation system, creating a vastly increased and distressing workload that many staff find difficult to manage, with one in four NPS staff saying that they were not properly prepared for sexual offender work, and supervisors in both prisons and the probation service receiving little or no training. Without sufficient support, we risk losing committed and experienced staff in the probation system, just as we have seen in the prisons system.
What assessment has the Minister made of the transforming rehabilitation agenda on the ability of probation officers to monitor at-risk sexual offenders effectively and protect the public? What assessment has he made of the loss of experienced probation officers and thousands of experienced prison officers, and the impact of these losses on the MOJ’s ability to manage and supervise offenders? Ultimately, does he agree with the probation inspector that
“the public are not sufficiently protected”
from sexual offenders?
Rory Stewart
I thank the shadow Minister for his questions, which essentially focused on three separate issues: the transforming rehabilitation programme, reoffending rates, and accommodation. On accommodation, I absolutely share his concerns. He asked for the absolute numbers. As I said, the current numbers suggest that across the country, of the more than 10,000 people being released, 56 are being put in emergency accommodation—so a very small number. The number of those going into hotels would be a fraction of that—something in the region of half a dozen. However, as I said, we are doing all we can to eliminate this entirely. One of the ways in which we are aiming to do so is by building over 200 additional places in approved premises, of which half will be delivered next year.
The hon. Gentleman’s second question was on reoffending rates for sex offenders. Any reoffending by any offender is a tragedy; reoffending by a sex offender is a horrifying tragedy. The reality is that reoffending rates among sex offenders are significantly lower than reoffending rates among the population as a whole. At the moment, reoffending rates among short-term prisoners are running at about 60%, while reoffending rates among sex offenders are about eight times lower than that. In the case of low-risk sex offenders, the re-conviction rate is 0.8%. That means that 99.2% of people are not re-convicted. But 0.8% is still too high a figure, and there is much more that we can do to try to drive it down.
Where I would disagree slightly with the hon. Gentleman is in connecting this matter to the transforming rehabilitation programme. The question of the management of sex offenders is not about the community rehabilitation companies. Almost every sex offender is managed by the national probation service—in other words, managed by the Government, by civil servants, by a public agency. It has nothing to do with a move towards the private sector or the decisions that have been made to bring in the charitable sector. The report is absolutely explicit—both inspectors are clear on this all the way through—that it is on the performance of the national probation service, not the CRCs. The CRCs are not engaged with in this report. There has been investment in the national probation service since the beginning of the transforming rehabilitation programme. There have been many challenges for the national probation service in terms of its caseload and the types of offences that are coming forward, but, when all is said and done, there is a 9.7% budget increase in the resource going into the service.