Prisons: HMP Wandsworth

Lord Bach Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I am not quite sure whether the system that the noble Lord refers to is still in action, but I know that Amy Rees, the new governor, has the clear direction to move with all possible speed to implement the action plan. It would be inconceivable if the Secretary of State and Ministers in the Ministry of Justice did not pay the closest attention to making sure that the recommendations made by this report are implemented with all possible speed.

[Lord Bach]

My Lords, this is obviously a significant and worrying report and I am sure that the House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, for raising the issue this afternoon. As I understand it, Wandsworth has a larger number of prisoners than any other prison in Europe—some 1,665 at the date of the report. Can the Minister either tell the House today or perhaps write to me telling us how many of those prisoners are doubled up in cells at present? Perhaps I might briefly broaden my question. Can he confirm that capital investment in the Prison Service is generally going down heavily, year on year, and that in fact there will be no capital investment by 2013-14? In the light of the fact that the largest number of prisoners ever is in prison today—the figure on 5 November was 87,749—and in the light of cuts to prison staff, and particularly to probation staff, can he tell the House how the rehabilitation revolution is going?

[Lord McNally]

We will return to the rehabilitation revolution on 21 November when we discuss the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. I hope that the noble Lord will help me then with the fact that the Ministry of Justice, as part of our deficit reduction programme, has to find £2 billion in cuts. In a department that spends money only on prisons, probation, court services and legal aid, tough decisions have been made. Today it is prison spending cuts that the noble Lord does not like; I suspect that, the next time he gets up, it will be legal aid cuts that he does not like. To govern is to choose, and we have had to make some very tough decisions.

On the question of doubling up, again one of the problems for Wandsworth is that a prison built for just over 1,000 people has 1,600 prisoners. You can work out the number that are doubled up in cells. About the only good thing that I can think of in that circumstance is that they all have in-cell toilet facilities, but even that makes you squirm with horror when you think about sharing a cell containing those facilities.