Prison Reform and Safety

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I should say that there is a time limit on speeches of five minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the Rochester issue. He might like to know that we found on one wing that some 22 showers had been out of operation for months. When we spoke to people there, they said that the nub of the problem was that the facilities management contractors do not see the governors as their client. They see their client relationship being with MOJ’s commercial arm. That needs to be got right, because it means that the efforts of governors get nowhere—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Can I be honest? We need shorter interventions. The hon. Gentleman was hoping to get two minutes at the end of the debate; he is eating into those two minutes, and he will understand if he does not get them.

[John Howell]

I fully accept the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), which goes back to what I said about the prison having given up on trying to invest any money in refurbishment or in replacing its ageing facilities. I have already quoted the chief inspector of prisons, who said that the shower and lavatory facilities in many prisons are filthy and dilapidated.

What will the Government do to address our concerns about the quality of the ageing estate? What are they doing about the current programme of reform and estate modernisation? What impact is the uncertainty about closures having both on the prisons themselves and on the lives of prisoners? Those are the three most relevant questions.