Private Probation Services

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I begin by joining other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) on securing this debate. Hon. Members are absolutely right that this issue does not get the airtime that it deserves. It needs discussion. My hon. Friend made a powerful speech, comprehensively setting out the factual background to the formation of the community rehabilitation companies and setting out the failures with great clarity, as did many other hon. Members. I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this important debate.

It is clear from listening to the contributions that—let us be clear and frank—the state of probation is dire. Although there were problems back in 2015, probation never used to look like this. The Government’s ill-fated reform agenda, “Transforming Rehabilitation”, has been nothing short of a failure. It has failed offender rehabilitation, with many left ill-equipped for life on the outside. It has failed prison officers and governors, who are seeing their prisons pushed to breaking point by overcrowding, and it has failed the public, who are bearing the financial and safety brunt of the failures. The only group that it has not failed, as has quite rightly been pointed out, are the private companies that are lining their pockets.

When reforming probation, the Government had the opportunity to make things better, transform rehabilitation, improve the prospects of offenders and slash reoffending, which is costing the country £15 billion a year. What they delivered was not so much transforming rehabilitation as privatising rehabilitation, weakening rehabilitation and ultimately destroying rehabilitation. By almost every metric and every means by which to measure its effectiveness and its success, it has failed, and some aspects have failed spectacularly.

Hon. Members have quite rightly mentioned the failures of the Through the Gate services, which have been a complete disaster. In 2015, the then Prisons Minister stated that those services would provide

“support to offenders for accommodation needs, employment brokerage and retention, finance and debt advice”.

I have seen very little evidence that that support is being provided and no sign of real, joined-up services to support offender rehabilitation.

The HMIP report and its conclusions on Through the Gate services have been referred to. What it found was startling, particularly in the areas of support the Ministry of Justice identified. Of its sample of short-term prisoners, just 31% had sufficient work done with them to meet their accommodation needs, just 33% their education and training needs, and just 12% their finance, benefit and debt advice needs. Some 10% of the sample found themselves homeless on release. Another report by HMIP found, quite worryingly, that not one offender had been helped by Through the Gate services to enter education, training or employment after release.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. For the benefit of the Chair and for Hansard, it might be better if the shadow Minister swivelled round a little and spoke into the microphone.

[Imran Hussain]

My apologies, Ms McDonagh. End-to-end offender management is vital to stop reoffending, and HMIP has set out a minimum level of requirements for resettlement. However, it is clear that Through the Gate services, when provided by private probation companies, cannot deliver. They cannot support offender rehabilitation and they cannot prepare them for life on the outside after release. It is that inability to support offenders that ensures that a privatised probation system can do nothing to stop reoffending.

Currently, around two in three prisoners serving sentences of less than 12 months reoffend. One in three prisoners on longer sentences reoffend. Stopping reoffending is the very core of a probation company’s goal. It is its purpose, yet 19 out of 21 private probation companies have seen an increase in reoffending because they are treating probation not as an important service but as a box-ticking exercise. There is little to no meaningful engagement, with supervision of offenders taking place over the phone, as has been pointed out. If they do meet face-to-face, it is sometimes in a very public space with no privacy, such as in a library.

The MOJ stated that the “Transforming Rehabilitation” programme would allow providers to focus relentlessly on driving down reoffending, but that has clearly not happened, as if they are not properly supported, offenders cannot be helped in not reoffending. That does not just impact on offender rehabilitation. It has knock-on effects for prisons, as those reoffending are sent back to an overcrowded prison system, which in 2015-16 saw, on average, almost 21,000 prisoners held in overcrowded accommodation. That in turn affects prison safety, as fewer prison officers are dealing with more prisoners. The rampant and increasing violence we are seeing in prisons is just one by-product of overcrowding, putting prison officers and prisoner safety at risk.

Probation failures are not just failing those criminal justice professionals by putting their safety at risk; they are failing the judicial system, which finds itself with fewer options for sentencing. An independent judiciary that can use its discretion to a degree is an important pillar of justice, but as there is increasing distrust of CRCs to deliver community sentences, it finds itself with fewer options.

However far removed all this might be perceived to be from many people’s lives, with many of them never having an interaction with prison and probation services, the Government’s changes to probation have also failed the public. People expect safety and security in the knowledge that we have a criminal justice system that works; they expect judges to have a range of options open to them; they expect offenders to be punished when they go to prison; to be rehabilitated while there; and to be released back into the community as changed persons ready to contribute to society. But prison is not working, with increasing violence and persistent overcrowding, and neither is probation. Offenders are released back into communities without proper reform, as we see from the failure of Through the Gate services, and without proper supervision, as we see with private probation companies supervising them by phone.

The decision to privatise night-waking watch staff and replace them with minimum-wage staff at probation hostels, which house the most dangerous ex-offenders, further threatens safety and shows that the Government have not learned the lessons from privatising justice. Two people have been killed at probation hostels in the past year. The cost of reoffending totals about £15 billion a year, according to the Work and Pensions Committee. The public are footing the bill for overcrowding and reoffending, and their safety is being compromised.

The Government’s probation privatisation is failing offender rehabilitation, criminal justice professionals and the public, but not private companies, which, in fact, have quite a comfortable life. They have taken on contracts over which the MOJ has little oversight. They have failed in their goal of reducing reoffending, and there have been numerous critical reports from the probation inspector, yet no sanctions have been applied to them. If any other organisation failed in its objectives, its contracts would be wound up, so why not probation companies? They have not received the financial benefits they expected, but all they have to do is cry about falling profits and the Government bail them out. Some £22 million was handed over before any changes were made. No questions were asked, and there was no scrutiny of the private probation companies to prevent future failings. Instead, the Government changed the contracts afterwards to make things easier. The private probation companies are getting away with failure and are frankly being rewarded for it.

The creation of private probation companies has been a disaster, and the reform of probation has been an extraordinary failure. The companies have let down everyone they have come across and are not fit for purpose. I have a number of questions for the Minister. He and I have worked together on other policy areas, and I know that he is quite an amiable, reasonable chap. He has the opportunity today to really listen, to address this issue and to start afresh. Nobody will accept that the privatisation of probation has not been a failure.

My asks of the Minister are these. Will he accept that Through the Gate services have failed, and will he put in place changes in conjunction with other Departments to deliver joined-up services so that offenders are given every opportunity to be rehabilitated on release? What is the contingency plan in the event of the collapse of Interserve, which, as I am sure he will agree, is increasingly likely? Has his Department learned lessons from this disaster, and will it keep people safe by abandoning its plans to privatise the night-waking watch in probation hostels? Finally, will he accept that transforming rehabilitation has been a failure, and will he commit to take probation back in-house to deliver a probation service that works for offender rehabilitation, the criminal justice system and the public, not for private, profit-making companies?

Prisoners: Outdoors Endurance Activities

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I thank the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) for obtaining the debate. He made a convincing and eloquent case, highlighting the benefits and positives of outdoor endurance activities. I join him in thanking all those who work in the prison system, who are doing a very difficult job.

I know that the hon. Gentleman has a keen interest in the prison system, particularly in the challenges faced by prison officers, but also in programmes designed to help young offenders. One of those is of course the Airborne Initiative, which he has spoken highly of, and he displays great passion in supporting it. It is a breath of fresh air to hear success stories from the criminal justice system, and the Airborne Initiative clearly is one. That is not to say that we must not talk about the challenges faced in prisons. The present situation is an emergency, which bleeds through to outdoor endurance activities, including those that the hon. Gentleman promotes.

I thank all the hon. Members who have taken part in the debate on an issue that deserves attention for the clear benefits associated with it. Some Members have mentioned similar schemes with benefits. The hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) talked about someone who went to prison for serious offences and was effectively rehabilitated and experienced positive effects while he was there; when he came out he spoke to warn others of the risks of offending. I have had the benefit of working on a similar scheme in my district, where rehabilitated offenders worked, in partnership with the police, fire service, local authority and others, with young people at risk of falling over the cliff edge into a life of crime. The message was a simple one, from someone who had served time in prison and was telling young people about the risks and dangers, and what prison life is really like. Unfortunately—tragically—a life of crime is sometimes glamorised for young people, and shown in a “blingy” way. That is just one project, and clearly there are massive advantages to be gained.

Being outdoors can have a significant impact on wellbeing. That cannot be overlooked. However, extended and endurance activities can help to improve mental health and reduce reoffending rates. Young offenders have often lacked such opportunities. Many have never have been part of a team on a 50-plus-mile hike over several days, and they feel the benefits even more keenly. Anything that can improve mental health in prisons must be seized with two hands because there is an epidemic of mental health issues within prison walls. Accurate figures do not exist because the Government do not collect them, but even optimistic estimates give the number of prisoners with a mental health issue as one in three—higher than in the general population. Many of them have serious mental illnesses, but many others have milder conditions, where exercise and meaningful activity can have a positive impact. Both the NHS and the Royal College of Psychiatrists endorse that. I do not profess that exercise and outdoor endurance activities are some kind of silver bullet for mental health issues; clearly they are not. They are a useful tool as part of a wider arsenal, as they can help to provide offenders with motivation to get their lives back on track and reduce reoffending.

Poor mental health and low self-esteem among prisoners increase their chances of reoffending, so it is only logical that positive mental health should reduce it. The impact on mental health of outdoor activity reduces reoffending rates, as do the Airborne Initiative and the Duke of Edinburgh Award, which cannot be encouraged enough in young offender institutions. In these programmes, offenders are exposed to a wealth of transferable skills such as manual work, navigation, planning and teamwork, among others that the hon. Member for South Dorset highlighted. All those skills can be used to build a CV and increase employability, or to light and develop a passion for activities that can be pursued through education.

It does not matter whether work or education is chosen; both reduce dire reoffending rates—almost half of adult and more than half of young offenders reoffend within a year. We also have to tackle the issue of reoffending to address the wider challenge of overcrowding, which leads to prisoners doubling up in single-occupancy cells and being locked up for most of the day. Outdoor endurance activities can have a positive impact on the prison estate as a whole among the offenders who are able to participate. As I mentioned, the effect of these activities on young offenders is even stronger, so programmes such as the Airborne Initiative are best targeted on them.

Young people who go to prison are some of the most vulnerable individuals in the country, and also the most neglected. They experience difficult upbringings and challenging circumstances that crush their self-esteem, sometimes leading to their becoming offenders in the first place. No one is born an offender; there is no genetic predisposition to committing a crime. It is purely down to an individual’s environment lacking support mechanisms or role models, both of which are provided by outdoor endurance activities and similar programmes. Instructors and supervisors give young offenders someone positive who they can look up to, and who can help build their self-confidence.

The positive impacts are there for all to see, but why are they not implemented on a wide scale across the country? Surely the Government recognise their impact. We should be doing everything that we can to improve the life chances of offenders, to prevent them from coming back and costing the Government the £13 billion that reoffending costs. Unfortunately, unless the Government address seriously their underfunding of the prison system, wider adoption of any outdoor endurance activities remains a pipe dream. Their potential is constrained by the consequences of policies that prevent offenders from doing any outdoor activity at all, let alone week-long residential trips. Offenders are locked up for most of the day because of the increasing violence that has become all too common in our prison system, which a number of hon. Members have referenced.

That violence is the consequence of the huge reduction in prison officers towards which the Government have actively contributed, with measly pay offers and pressure piled on remaining officers. The dwindling prison officer numbers are the reason why prisoners cannot be let out of their cells, and why any initiatives to get prisoners into the great outdoors for the Airborne Initiative or other schemes cannot be adopted wholesale and rolled out nationwide. There are not enough prison officers to supervise them while they are away from prison, and there are not enough officers to escort them there in the first place.

The Government clearly do not grasp the benefits that outdoor activities can provide for offenders. If they did, they would not force local authorities to cut the youth services that provide the same development of skills and teamwork as outdoor endurance activities, and that provide the same reduction in reoffending rates among young people. Between 2010 and 2016, almost £400 million was cut from youth services, leading to a loss of nearly 140,000 places and the closure of 600 youth centres. The Government are now being asked to put the cart before the horse: to support services that combat reoffending among young offenders, but they should have been providing those same services that deliver the same benefits to young people before they go on to commit a first offence.

It is all very well and good to put these ideas forward; we should be looking at both new and proven ways to reduce reoffending and increase the wellbeing of offenders, but because of the Government’s policies, that sadly cannot happen to the extent that it needs to. Offenders are locked up for too long even to do basic outdoor activities, and prison officers are not present in the numbers needed to escort and supervise offenders safely. Although the Minister is new, I am very keen to hear his views not only on outdoor activities, but on some of the broader issues that have been raised in the debate.

[Mr George Howarth (in the Chair)]

I am sure that the Minister needs no reminding before I call him to speak, but it is customary to leave time at the end of the debate for the Member moving the motion to briefly respond. I call the Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lee]

The right hon. Gentleman, as a previous Minister responsible for the institution, will acknowledge that the contract is subject to a series of obligations. It was signed in 2004 and lasts for 25 years. I am fully aware of the need to improve standards at Oakhill. I rule absolutely nothing out, and I have already met senior people at G4S to point that out.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Oakhill, which is run by G4S, was found last year to make use of high levels of force, but G4S is not the only private security company using high levels of force against vulnerable groups. Today’s report into the Sodexo-run Peterborough Prison shows that it has become the first women’s prison in years to be deemed not safe enough, with high levels of force and the overuse of strip searching, so is the Minister worried that profit is being put before prisoner safety?

[Dr Lee]

The children being held at Oakhill can sometimes be extremely challenging, and the staff have to be able to control them to protect not only themselves, but other children and staff. With reference to Sodexo and the report into Peterborough Prison, the situation is not acceptable. We have already engaged with Sodexo, particularly around strip searching, and I expect and have demanded improvements.

Parole Board: Transparency and Victim Support

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for prior sight of his statement.

Two weeks ago, it was announced that John Worboys would be released from prison. In those two weeks, it has been absolutely clear that the victims of his vile crimes feel that our criminal justice system has let them down. The criminal justice system must ensure that it has the victims of crime at its core. When it fails in that, it not only affects the direct victims themselves but risks undermining wider public trust in our justice system.

As Labour has reiterated since John Worboys’s release was announced, it is important that the Secretary of State does everything in his power to ensure that the victims of Worboys’s crimes, as well as the wider public, have faith in our justice system. Many will be disappointed by today’s news. It is understood that legal advice cannot be shared and that the Secretary of State does not want to prejudice other cases, but today’s news makes the need for changes in the Parole Board even more pressing.

The existing rules permit either the Secretary of State or victims to seek judicial review. Many will have seen that some victims are doing just that, and they have attracted much public support for their fundraising efforts. Judicial review is a key tool for every citizen to be able to challenge unjust or unlawful decisions by the state or other public bodies. Deep cuts to legal aid have undermined the ability of many to pursue judicial review. Will the Government commit today to using their review of legal aid to look again at how it can support judicial reviews?

Any judicial review would look at whether the Parole Board’s decision was taken properly. If it was not, the case would go back to the Parole Board for it to look at again. As it stands, though, the existing rules mean that we still would not know the reasons for any subsequent Parole Board decision.

As the Opposition have said repeatedly both here and elsewhere, there is no need for the review of Parole Board transparency to debate the case for greater transparency. It should be a practical review of how to ensure the public are informed of the reasons behind decisions. Just as the public are clear about court judgments, they must be clear about Parole Board decisions. Greater transparency has widespread support. We therefore welcome the widening of the review announced today, especially the idea of a mechanism to allow Parole Board decisions to be reconsidered, while retaining its independence. People were shocked that some victims found out about the decision to release Mr Worboys through the media.

Labour has said from the outset that it is totally unacceptable and very concerning that some were not given the opportunity to participate in the Parole Board hearing, as was their right. The victim contact scheme is responsible for informing victims of significant changes in a case, including Parole Board hearings. This service is managed by the National Probation Service, which has experienced significant difficulties, especially case overload, since the Government’s reforms to probation services in 2014. Labour has called in the House on the Government to look into the failings in the NPS and victim contact scheme, so it is a step forward that the Secretary of State has now asked Dame Glenys Stacey to conduct a rapid fact-finding exercise into the role of the NPS. He needs to ensure that this answers the question whether his Government’s wholly negative changes to the probation service contributed to any failings in this case and how he plans to address them.

I have listened to the statements of Mr Worboys’s victims in recent weeks, and it is clear that their concerns are not limited to the decisions or functioning of the Parole Board. Labour has repeatedly stated that the Worboys case raises so many serious questions that anything less than an independent end-to-end review into the handling of the case, from the first report to the police of an attack through to the Parole Board hearing, would let down the victims and wider public. Labour has repeatedly called for this wider inquiry, but it is not clear why the Secretary of State has repeatedly refused it. It is a reasonable and rational request and would help to rebuild public trust. I hope that he will take this opportunity to reassure the House that he will undertake this end-to-end review.

[Mr Gauke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. In the context of wanting to support the victims, he was right to focus on the areas that he did, and I am grateful to him for not pressing me further on either the facts or the legal advice.

It is right that the victims be treated with concern and sympathy and that all due processes be followed. We need to understand precisely what happened in this case and whether support was provided as it should have been, which is why I am pleased that Dame Glenys Stacey is undertaking that role. I share the hon. Gentleman’s instincts for greater transparency in Parole Board decisions. It frustrates victims that they do not get to know what is happening or the reasons for a decision. Equally, it can be frustrating for the Parole Board, too, if it cannot articulate its reasons. We need to look carefully at this, but we also need to move swiftly, which is exactly what I intend to do.

On an end-to-end review, my focus has been on transparency and victim support, which are the immediate issues in front of us. I recognise that there is a debate about the original investigation and how these indeterminate sentences for public protection, which we have now abolished, operated, but it is right at this point that our reviews focus on transparency and the victims and that they continue as a priority to look at how these matters are dealt with.

Mental Health in Prisons

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) for securing this important debate on behalf of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). I thank hon. Members from all parties for their informative and well-thought-out contributions.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston articulated the real crisis of mental health in our prisons. Other hon. Members also made some very important points about assessment and recording issues, information-sharing issues, pressures on prison officers, isolation and overcrowding issues, and individual tragic cases that perhaps could have been prevented had the system worked better. Government Members also spoke about some of the much-needed recreational activities that are very important to wellbeing, including cooking and gardening, although they will agree with me that some of the underlying and more pressing issues have to be addressed before we move on to those areas.

[Dr Drew]

One of the most stressful and important issues regarding mental health is women who give birth in prison or have young children. I found, to my shock, that Eastwood Park prison, which has a mother and baby unit, was shut for over a year because of an argument about a flood and who was going to pay for the damage. That meant that all women in the whole of the south west and south Wales had nowhere to go to in the vicinity. That is not acceptable, is it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Imran Hussain]

That is a shocking account. Again, that highlights some of the underlying issues in our prison services that could perhaps be dealt with a lot better.

Hon. Members will forgive me if I am unable to cover all the contributions that have been made today, but I know that the Minister, to be fair to him, does listen and will respond. My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) rightly pointed out that the Minister is the last man standing, and perhaps the oldest hand now in the Ministry of Justice. I am sure that he will use his skills to persuade the new Secretary of State that we do have a crisis in our prison service, but I will leave that to him.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I will be quick. Liverpool prison is perhaps in some of the most dire straits of all prisons in this country, as has been mentioned by my colleagues. The Secretary of State for Justice said on 18 December that an action plan would be forthcoming in January. Can I plead with the Minister that that is not forgotten in the midst of the reshuffle, and ask him perhaps to write to me or let me know in today’s debate when that action plan will be forthcoming?

[Imran Hussain]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Obviously, it is an issue that is very close to him, as it relates to his constituency, but it is also of concern to us all, and I hope that the Minister will listen and respond.

As recognition of mental illness in society increases, with a greater understanding of just how damaging it can be, so it does in prison. However, prisoners have a much greater likelihood of suffering from mental illness than the general populace, with one in three prisoners estimated to be suffering from mental illness.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I will also be very brief. One of the causes of concern is the impact on black and Muslim prisoners. Reports from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons and from Dame Anne Owers say that negative outcomes, stereotyping and discriminatory treatment are consistently experienced by Muslim and black prisoners. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister could take a number of steps to help address that? First, religion and ethnicity should be recorded on all clinical records. Secondly, the uptake and outcomes of mental health services in prison should be examined by religion and ethnicity. Thirdly, mental health literacy and religious literacy training should be provided to all prison officers.

[Imran Hussain]

My hon. Friend is right to point out some of the particular issues regarding black, minority ethnic and Muslim prisoners. I will come on to the broader recording issues, but he makes some very important and sensible suggestions.

Unfortunately, most evidence suggests that the estimate that one in three prisoners suffers from mental illness is wildly conservative, demonstrating that it is a real problem, which manifests itself in the self-harm that has risen dramatically in recent years. Many of those self-harming and taking their own life are suffering from a mental illness, representing yet another crisis in our prison system that is spiralling out of control. The Government cannot get to grips with the crisis and are not doing enough to address it. I mentioned one of the reasons for that earlier, when I stated that the number of prisoners suffering from mental illness is just an estimate. There is no accurate record, clear marker, or identifiable way to determine who is suffering from a mental illness in prison; there is just an estimation of the scale of the problem—close to sheer guesswork on the part of the MOJ.

Even when prisoners are screened for mental illness, it is done poorly. Rather than a thorough assessment from a qualified mental health professional, most prisoners are briefly assessed, and given 120 questions to complete in often as little as 10 to 20 minutes. When thrown in with the increasingly toxic nature of prisons, the answers that come back are less than truthful. When the MOJ does not even centrally collect the basic number of prisoners in the prison estate who are suffering from mental illness, and when prisoners are not properly assessed, prisons simply do not know who is vulnerable and who is not, so how can they possibly be expected to provide care for them? The MOJ is failing at the first hurdle—being able to treat mental illness—even before we get on to the treatment itself. That is simply not good enough.

Unfortunately, the conditions after a prisoner has entered are little better, which means that even if they are identified as having a mental illness, they are not always properly treated. The commissioning of healthcare means that mental health provision is disjointed and varied across prison estates, with HM Inspectorate of Prisons finding gaps in primary care, professional counselling and therapies across estates, as well as failings in access to services, gaps in those services, and a failure to follow up on mental health concerns. That is bad, and is certainly not improved by the fact that the partnership agreement between the Prison Service and NHS England, setting out the objectives in providing healthcare to prisoners actually expired in April. There has been a transfer of responsibilities from the National Offender Management Service to the new Prison Service during that time, but I do not buy that as an excuse.

Prisoners with serious mental illnesses are treated even worse as they face extended waits for transfer to secure hospitals. NHS England set a target of 14 days from identification to transfer, but the reality is that prisoners awaiting transfer were reviewed in October 2016, with findings showing that prisoners waited an average of 47 days for their first assessment, a further 36 days for their second assessment, and a further 13 days for the Secretary of State to sign a warrant. That is clearly unacceptable.

All of that demonstrates that the Government are just not getting to grips with the crisis and are not moving to address it. To add to that, Government policy is making it worse. Substantial budget cuts to the Ministry of Justice have been passed on to the Prison Service, with the funding that NOMS received significantly falling. That translates to a reduction of around 30% in operational staff, meaning fewer staff on the wings and on the balconies, and crucially fewer staff who are able to understand individual prisoners and recognise when they are vulnerable. Furthermore, staff shortages and safety concerns have resulted in prisoners being forced to spend longer periods of time locked up in cells. Isolation and confinement are bad enough for those without mental health issues, but they can be devastating for those with mental health issues.

Fewer staff also leads to a rise in the number of drugs getting into prisons, as fewer prison officers results in fewer searches and reduced intelligence gathering and awareness. Drugs, both those of which we have an understanding, such as cannabis and cocaine, and those classed as new psychoactive substances, such as spice, are having a major impact on our prison estates and on the mental health of prisoners. Although the Government are introducing powers to stop the use of mobile phones and are training more dogs to combat smuggling, that is simply not enough without more prison officers.

I will conclude there, as I know the Minister has a number of points to come back on. In summing up, I would say that we have seen mental health care in prisons degrade on the Government’s watch. They must prove that they are serious about addressing it, because right now we see no such evidence. They need to record just how big a problem mental health in prisons is, screen prisoners properly and conduct an immediate review, for without that knowledge, they cannot begin to get to grips with the issue. They need to properly invest in getting prison officers back on the wings and the balconies—but not at the expense of support staff.

Prisoners: Parental Rights

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing this important debate. I know she has a keen interest in it through her work. Sometimes the importance of this subject is lost because it does not get as much coverage as it should, so I am pleased that we are debating it today.

My hon. Friend made a powerful and passionate case that the paramount issue must always be the safeguarding of children. She is absolutely right, and the horrendous case she referred to shows that those considerations must come first, along with where children are abused and the element of domestic violence. She is right that some of those safeguards are not in place as they should be in the system. Without repeating what she said, I look forward to the Minister’s response to some of the important questions she asked, particularly on the safeguarding of children.

I am grateful to other hon. Members who made speeches about the broader debate, which I would like to concentrate on. In particular, references were made to the Farmer review. These issues date back to the early 1990s, when we had the Woolf report after the disturbances in Strangeways. Both those reports, and many other recommendations, have proved not only that parents have a right to see their children and that prisoners have a right to see their families, but that there are massive benefits. I will concentrate my remarks on some of the obstacles that children face during visitation, and the impact on both parents and children.

My first point was alluded to earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy)—parents are not recorded in the current system. In 2009, the Ministry of Justice estimated that 200,000 children had a parent in prison. That is an estimate—there is no accurate figure, because the Government do not record which prisoners are parents. What we know is that female prisoners are more affected because they are more likely to be sole parents. Without records, there is no capability to give children better visitation access to parents, no capability to treat children better and no capability to improve parental rights. Indeed, there is no capability to deal with some of the safeguarding issues to which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East referred.

Hon. Members have mentioned the cost and distance involved in visiting. Across England and Wales, many prisoners are imprisoned far from home, which means expensive journeys and long travelling distances. The Government’s new prison building plan and the super-sized prisons that they seem set on will make that challenge worse not better, because reducing the number of prison locations will force many families to journey even further. Children face even greater difficulty visiting their mothers. They are often located much further away owing to the lower number of female prisons. Children living in Wales whose mothers are in prison have to leave the country to visit them. It is disappointing that the Ministry of Justice has brushed over that in its building plans by not addressing the lack of female prisons in Wales.

Cost and distance are not the only challenges. Once families have overcome them, children and carers have to deal with prison rules and the prison environment. As has been pointed out, visiting times mean that, even if a prison is close to a child’s home, it is necessary to take them out of school, which many parents may be reluctant to do on a frequent basis, thereby limiting the child’s time with the parent in prison. While inside prison, children are subject to searches and an unwelcoming environment that can put them off. It does not get any better when a child is with their parent because the rules prevent meaningful social interactions between them.

The biggest impact for parents is on reoffending rates—the odds of reoffending are 39% lower for prisoners who receive family visits than for those who do not. The recent Farmer review was very clear that better interaction between offenders and their families improves reoffending rates and rehabilitation. If an offender does not see their family, they will often lose them. Once they have lost their family, there is often little left for them to lose by reoffending—they will have missed out on their child’s key development and defining moments, and on memories. A parent who has a stake in their child’s life can endeavour to serve as a positive role model and can turn their own life around.

A lack of access to children has been shown to have an impact on prison disturbances. As I stated earlier, that was found as far back as the Woolf report in the 1990s.

The impact is particularly strong for female offenders, the majority of whom commit non-violent offences and crimes of poverty that often warrant better support rather than imprisonment. One in three female prisoners are mothers of children under 18, and one in five are lone parents who face their children being taken away from them following their imprisonment.

Some 70% of female prisoners are serving sentences of less than six months, but that is all that is needed for them to lose their job, their home and their children, not just for those six months but forever. Without a secure job or home after release, they face an uphill struggle to get their children back from care, so it makes sense for parents in prison to have better parental rights and better contact with their children. Surely our desire to rehabilitate an offender and to help them turn their life around for the better, and to give a child a parent they can look up to, is greater than our desire to punish them and therefore to punish an innocent child in the process.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East is absolutely right that this has to be looked at in a broader context, with the rights of children having absolutely equal value. Having a parent in prison means that a child is three times more likely to turn to crime themselves—65% of boys with a convicted father go on to offend themselves. Having a parent in prison means that a child is much more likely to be uprooted from their home, with just one in 20 staying in their own home while one in 10 go into care, or are fostered or adopted. Having a parent in prison means that a child’s development is much more likely to be hampered, with additional pressure piled upon them such as disorientation from moving and stigmas that result in bullying.

All of that means that those children do less well at school than their peers. However, the impact is much deeper, because lack of parental rights mean that a child’s mum or dad has been ripped out of their life for what seems to the child like an eternity. Proper parental rights and visitation mean that the whole experience will not be as daunting for a child, and that the adverse impacts are not as great.

The Government must address a number of issues. First, they must address safeguarding measures and the questions raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East. Secondly, they have to record whether offenders have children, to better understand the impact of imprisonment and cater for their children. With that information, the Government have to look seriously at the merits of Barnardo’s recommendation of allowing children better access to their parents.

Thirdly, the Government must look seriously at the sentencing of mothers, who are disproportionately affected. There is a debate to be had on whether some women would be better served by smaller, more local women’s centres. Finally, they need to take another look at their prison building programme, because there is a question over whether super-sized prisons are the answer to everything.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is pre-empting our employment strategy, which we will announce very soon. He will be aware of the New Futures Network, which the Justice Secretary announced at party conference. This will bring together employers and ex-offenders to help to create employment on release. The construction sector is a key sector and he will be hearing more from us in due course.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

A 2015 Ministry of Justice study found that community orders have a substantially lower rate of reoffending than short prison sentences. What is the Minister doing to reverse the sharp fall in community sentences that has taken place under his Government?

[Mr Gyimah]

Of course we want to reduce reoffending. The presumption in this country is against prison. It is up to the judiciary to sentence how they see fit. We want to make sure that there are appropriate interventions in the community and we are looking at that.

Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill

Imran Hussain Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 1st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) on bringing this sensible and important private Member’s Bill to the House today. She set out very eloquently and persuasively a strong case for the need for the Bill. In particular, she highlighted the fact that it extends powers in the 2012 Act, and is very necessary. There was no need to go to the trouble of placing a mobile phone in the Chamber; Labour Members readily support and agree with the Bill.

I do not really disagree with anything that Government Members have said. All hon. Members have made very persuasive arguments for and cases in support of the Bill. A key thing that was mentioned several times is that in recent years the number of illegal mobile phones confiscated has rocketed, with 7,000 confiscations in 2013 rising to 13,000 in 2016. That makes it clear that further action does need to be taken to curb their use. Those behind bars are not just using phones to call friends and family; they are using them for a range of criminal purposes, from arranging criminal activities on the outside to arranging contraband to be smuggled in.

While we support the Bill, the wider intention to cut down smuggling and contraband and the Bill’s role in broader prison reform are also important. Although restricting the operation of phones may reduce their use and complicate smuggling, that alone will not stop it. This is not a silver bullet. The Bill will not stop the demand for contraband, as there will always be a demand for banned items, specifically drugs and new psychoactive substances, which are among the most dangerous of the items smuggled into prisons that we must crack down on. Indeed, the demand for NPS has risen dramatically, just as their dangers have increased, with a serious impact on offenders’ mental health and rates of violence and even deaths in prison.

The Bill will not stop that, despite its good intentions, because there are technical challenges in achieving 100% success in blocking mobile phones. Indeed, phones are just part of the wider problem that makes substance smuggling in prisons possible. Many factors make it easier, such as the decreased number of prison officers. The number of band 2 to 4 officers fell from 31,000 in 2010 to 22,000 in 2017, substantially reducing the ability of prisons to restrict the flow of contraband. Without prison officers, we cannot hope to stem the flow of contraband, because we will not have staff on the balconies and the wings, inspecting incoming and outgoing packages and even getting to know prisoners to effectively gather intelligence.

The Government supported the 2012 Act as a means to tackle substance misuse in prison, but they failed to back it up with other measures to tackle contraband, such as ensuring that we have a fully staffed and trained prison officer workforce. Instead, they are choosing to make the prison officers’ jobs even harder, leaving them overworked and underpaid. Blocking mobile phones is just one strand of the efforts to tackle contraband, but it requires other approaches, too. The Government should remember that if the Bill moves forward. This Bill should be just one part of prison reform, not all of it.

As other hon. Members have pointed out, the Bill originally appeared as clause 21 of the Prisons and Courts Bill, but that Bill was dropped at the election and the prison aspects were not taken up in the courts Bill. It is worrying that the Government now have to rely on private Members’ Bills to legislate for such important reforms. That calls into serious doubt the Government’s ability to progress with other much needed reforms. We are concerned that efforts to improve prisons will rely on handout Bills and Back Benchers’ good will.

To sum up, there is a wider substance misuse and smuggling problem in our prison estate, which is having a damaging effect on prison safety. We support the Bill and the powers to tackle the use of mobile phones and the supply of contraband to prisons. The wider intentions of the Bill are to restrict the use of phones to arrange criminal activities and organised contraband smuggling, but it will not solve the contraband problem. Instead, the Government have to get their act together and commit to real changes and real reform.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

Obviously, I take a keen interest in the hon. Gentleman’s local prison, where the staff complement is exactly as it should be. It is one of the 10 pathfinder prisons in which we are implementing the new offender management model. I discussed the staffing situation there with the new national chair of the Prison Officers Association, and he commended the fact that staff numbers there are at full strength, but that does not mean that there is not more to do across the estate. We are halfway to our target of 2,500, and I am confident that we will achieve that.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

The chief executive of the Prison Service has stated that, because of overcrowding, the Government will not be able to proceed with planned closures, throwing the financing of their prison building plan into disarray. In the light of concerns that the Ministry of Justice will not be able to build new prisons without selling off the old—the model on which its building plan was based—will the Minister today guarantee that no new prison places will be built from private funds?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten that we have a duty to house those who are sentenced by the courts. The prison population in England and Wales is 86,000; we have a duty to provide accommodation for them to serve their sentence in. We still have a commitment to investing £1.3 billion in the prison estate to create 10,000 additional prison places during this Parliament.

Women Released from Prison

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) for securing this very important debate. I understand that time is short, so I will get straight to the point.

After release, six out of 10 women have no home to return to, nine out of 10 women have no job, and one in two women sentenced to less than 12 months reoffends within a year. That is an appalling record, but, looking at the Government’s policies and decisions, it is clear why women released from prison are let down so badly.

The clearest of the policies affecting women after release is the privatisation of the probation system and the formation of community rehabilitation companies. CRCs have not simplified the provision of services and have done nothing more than reduce the effectiveness of the probation system in preventing reoffending. That has led them to be criticised, rightly, across the political spectrum, including by the Justice Secretary, as not fit for purpose.

The impact of CRCs is specifically felt by female offenders as probation has lost the vital one-to-one support that the Women in Prison campaign sees as crucial to reducing reoffending and securing better services and employment. Instead, the focus is on cheaper group work, which simply fails to provide the same benefits and leaves women without the tailored support that they need. However, rather than address the concerns raised about CRCs, the Government are rewarding failure by awarding them a further £277 million in funding. The decision to privatise probation has also meant an end to the ring-fenced funding for women offenders who leave prison, leaving provision dependent on local commissioning arrangements and creating a postcode lottery of post-release support.

Women are also being let down by the penal system before release, with a shameful lack of support in prisons, which makes it no easier to find homes or employment on the outside. Between prisons, there is significant variation in the quality of training courses, with many failing to offer wide-ranging vocational courses, and many that do nothing to overcome gender stereotypes. Many do not provide enough IT-related courses to teach skills that are vital to obtain employment in the 21st-century marketplace. That provision may be bad, but 70% of women in prison—those serving less than six months—have little to no access to courses at all, leaving them without enough support to find secure employment.

Although recent changes have led to all women’s prisons being labelled as resettlement prisons, progress on shifting the focus is slow and there is no overarching system to help offenders into employment. The housing support provided to offenders after release also varies dramatically between prisons. Although some women may have somewhere to go, the rules surrounding housing, the lack of provision and the absence of joined-up services mean that some do not. Some women may try to get into approved premises, but they are only available for specific offenders and are limited in number. Others may try to secure council housing, but there are shortages and specific criteria. More may attempt to find accommodation in the private rented sector, which is unaffordable, with landlords often unwilling to rent to ex-offenders. More worryingly, women who have suffered domestic or sexual violence may return to their abusive partners. The lack of support for housing is putting those women in grave danger.

What runs through the heart of the rules is a failure to take on board the Select Committee on Justice’s acceptance that women face very different hurdles from men. The Government are doing nothing to provide a distinct approach to the specific needs of female offenders, and are instead continuing with badly managed programmes that are often not fit for purpose in the first place, let alone fit to meet specific needs.

The Government say that they will produce a long-overdue strategy for female offenders. It must be specifically tailored to women’s needs, and not just be a rehash of existing policies with a female spin. It has to look seriously at whether prison is the right place for some women. The many cases in which women reoffend because of the appalling lack of support do not serve the best interests of women or of society.

I want to hear from the Minister what he is doing to ensure that women have access to a greater range of employment courses and that those serving short sentences have access to them, so that they can get a job; what he is doing with colleagues to overturn some of the ridiculous housing rules and biases against female offenders, so that after release they will have a roof over their head; why the follow-up report to the Corston report has been so damning; and what the Government are doing to fully implement the report’s recommendations to prevent women from reoffending. When will the Minister or his colleagues publish their strategy for female offenders? Crucially, what will that strategy entail? Can he assure me that it will look seriously at the range of sentencing options available for female offenders?