Prison Reform and Safety

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The English prison system is in crisis. It is failing inmates, prison officers and, fundamentally, society, as the hard-hitting motion tabled by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) makes clear. Building more prison places will not solve the problem. The prison population tends to expand to fill the places available, often even before the places are built.

As the Howard League puts it,

“trying to deal with only the supply of prison resources and prison places will not work. We now need to manage demand and, in the process, ask some fundamental questions about who we send to prison and why.”

It is therefore surprising that the UK Government are pursuing a strategy of building an industrial-scale prison complex in my nation.

With that in mind, I will focus on the UK Government’s decision to outsource the crisis in the English prison system to Wales, rather than fix it. On 27 February 2017, the Ministry of Justice opened the biggest prison in Europe in north Wales—HMP Berwyn. Once fully operational, the prison will have the capacity to hold more than 2,100 male prisoners. I am sure it will not be a revelation to many in this House that piling a few thousand prisoners into a small corner of north Wales is not expected to be conducive to rehabilitation. Whether it is the left-leaning Howard League or the Centre for Social Justice founded by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), there is agreement that these prisons do not rehabilitate.

Even more galling, HMP Berwyn will not meet the demands of the nation in which it is being built. HMP Berwyn alone will have 800 more places than there are inmates in Wales. In March 2017, the UK Government announced plans to build a new super-prison in Baglan, Port Talbot. Yet again, this prison is not being built for our needs. It will be for 1,600 inmates shipped into Port Talbot. A person does not need a Fields medal to work out that adding the 800 surplus places at Berwyn to the 1,600 surplus places at the proposed Baglan prison would mean 2,400 more places than are required in Wales.

The truth of the matter is that Wales is England’s affordable penal colony. Westminster is turning old south Wales into a homage to 19th-century New South Wales. Those are not my words but the comments of Frances Crook, the chief executive officer of the Howard League. Ms Crook went as far as to draw a parallel between the infamous Botany Bay penal colony and Wales—a rather extreme but, none the less, fitting analogy.

Plaid Cymru has always been against the building of these monstrous prisons in Wales. Currently, however, the plans are being taken ahead with the Labour Welsh Government’s blessing. In fact, the Labour Welsh Government in Cardiff could stop the development if they so decided, because the proposed Baglan prison would be built on Welsh Government land, if only they would, for once, put the interests and requirements of Wales first.

Wales does not want or need another super-prison, much as it did not need the first. Because of the lack of distinct legal jurisdiction, Westminster can still impose prisons on Wales. Northern Ireland and Scotland are off limits thanks to their more generous devolution settlements, but not my country. The existing prison estate in Wales is far from perfect, but we need Welsh solutions to Welsh problems.

Welsh young offenders and women offenders are being sent over the border to England, a damning indictment of the policy currently applied to Wales. Devolution of the prison estate and the criminal justice system must be a priority for the sake of offenders, taxpayers and the communities afflicted by the UK Government’s super-prison policies.

Piling thousands of prisoners on top of each other in these titan prisons is not conducive to rehabilitation or safety, be it for those detained or for those doing the detaining. Relying on some modern-day digital panopticon for the safety and operation of our prisons is neither sensible nor appropriate. All the evidence shows that smaller, more human prisons that do not put economies of scale ahead of outcomes are what our prison estates need.

I close with a plea to the UK and Welsh Governments: listen to the 9,000 signatories to the petition against the Port Talbot prison; listen to the experts from every inch of the political spectrum who advise against these behemoth prisons; listen to the former inmates; listen to the residents; and listen to Wales. We will not become England’s penal colony.