Prison Safety

Lee Pitcher Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered safety in prisons.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. Since I was elected nearly two years ago, my office and I have been inundated with letters and calls from staff, prisoners and members of the public about the conditions at HMP Lowdham Grange in my constituency. I have heard repeated reports from prisoners of self-harm, deaths in the prison and instances of discrimination. I have also been contacted by staff sharing the impact of these incidents and the pressures on them, such as staffing and violence. These unsafe conditions are deeply concerning not only in their own right, but as a reflection of the wider challenges facing our justice system.

To truly improve safety in our justice system, we must tackle the drivers of this violence. I thank the Minister for visiting HMP Lowdham Grange recently after I raised concerns with him. As he will be aware, the inspectorate released its report just yesterday, following the most recent inspection. It is reassuring to see some progress in areas such as visible leadership, improving health services and security relating to drugs. However, I remain deeply concerned about ongoing problems relating to self-harm and suicide.

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that prison safety cannot be separated from mental health? When inmates are in crisis, they can self-harm and there is a potential risk of dying through suicide. It can affect the safety of staff and other prisoners, too. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to tackle physical safety and mental health?

[Michelle Welsh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As Members will hear in my speech, mental health and safety need to go hand in hand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Richards]

As I was saying before we were interrupted by votes, I want to put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest, her team, and her neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Michael Payne), who has raised this issue with me. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest intimated in her opening speech, on the back of her representations I visited HMP Lowdham Grange in April. I had an important meeting with the governor and her leadership team where I raised many of the concerns raised by my hon. Friend and was reassured to a large degree. I felt that the leadership team there understood the issues and were working at pace to attempt to address them.

However, I also want to place on record that I challenged the team about the work that needs to be done. We have seen in the report published yesterday that although there have been improvements, there is absolutely no doubt that there is a long way to go. I hope that the governor and the leadership team at HMP Lowdham Grange would agree with that.

There is more work to do there and elsewhere. Poor safety in our prisons fundamentally reflects a system under strain. In the summer of 2024, this Government inherited a prison system that was in crisis—in utter collapse—and very soon to run out of places completely. Too many prisons are still struggling at or near capacity, with an increased risk of violence hampering their efforts to turn offenders’ lives around, as we have heard.

I will go on to address some of the particular issues, but we have taken fundamental action to reduce the risk linked to capacity challenges. Ultimately, we can only do all the good work on reoffending, education and rehabilitation if we have a functioning prison system. That is why we are delivering 14,000 new prison places—the biggest expansion of the estate since the Victorian era. We are investing £4.7 billion in that prison-building programme over the next four years, and we introduced landmark sentencing reforms in the Sentencing Act 2026, which received Royal Assent earlier this year, to finally put the prison system on a sustainable footing for the future. That Act was not easy. Difficult decisions have been made, but that legislation means that we can reassure the British public, for the first time in essentially a generation, that there will always be prison spaces for offenders when we need them.

However, there is much more to be done on rehabilitation, education and mental health support. I accept that absolutely.

[Lee Pitcher]

I know that the Minister is a huge champion of mental health, and of men’s and boys’ mental health in particular. In my constituency, I have the Moorland, Lindholme and Hatfield prisons. Will he join me in celebrating the amazing work being done by the Samaritans in those prisons to support people, and Andy’s Man Club as well?

[Jake Richards]

Absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I am a massive champion of Andy’s Man Club up and down the country, but especially in south Yorkshire. It does really important work with ex-offenders and indeed more generally. We have continued as a Government to fund the Samaritans’ Listener scheme, which trains prisoners to support other prisoners who are in crisis. It is a brilliant initiative and I urge any parliamentarian to engage with it in their area.

I want to touch on what we are doing to try to protect our prison staff, because numerous Members raised that issue. We have invested £15 million in protective equipment, including up to 10,000 units of protective body armour. As I think my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood Forest set out in her opening speech, that is a transformative approach to protecting our prison officers compared with what the previous Government were able to do. Half those units are allocated to the long-term high-security estate, including at HMP Lowdham Grange. So, as we roll out body armour across the LTHSE, HMP Lowdham Grange will benefit.

That is why all staff in the adult male estate now have access to body-worn video cameras, batons, rigid-bar handcuffs and synthetic pepper spray as part of their standard equipment. It is why we have introduced PAVA spray in the Youth Custody Service. Very difficult decisions and considerations about the use of such equipment have to be made, but they are the right decisions to ensure that we protect prison officers, both in the youth estate and in the adult estate.

That is why we have trained and equipped up to 500 additional officers in the use of Tasers and why we are already installing up to 50 ligature-resistant cells, in order to prevent self-harm, and have confirmed funding for the installation of more. Because safety and security are innately intertwined, the Deputy Prime Minister has announced an extra £35 million this year to improve security at 17 of our most at-risk prisons, on top of the £40 million that we have already invested in this area. In addition, up to 13,000 new heavy-duty steel window grilles will be in place by next spring. The picture is getting better—we have stabilised the prison system and we are investing in security measures—but there is a lot more work to be done.

The rate of assaults on staff has decreased under this Government by 4.5%. I accept that that is a modest figure, but it is moving in the right direction. The rate of self-harm among prisoners has also decreased, by 8%, but I absolutely accept that it is far too high. As the Minister who shares responsibility for this area with my noble Friend in the other place, I get regular updates about serious incidents in prisons. They are far too frequent and far too serious, and much more has to be done.