King’s Speech

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. I await with some expectation, as he does, the answers to the relevant questions he asked.

I congratulate my noble friend Lord Timpson on an excellent maiden speech and, before that, an excellent maiden Statement. I can pay him no higher a compliment than to say that he clearly has the ear of your Lordships’ House. Mind you, from my conversations and reading since his appointment was announced, it seems that he has the ear of quite a large proportion of the population in this country as well.

Attempting to describe even a small percentage of the challenges bequeathed to this Government would more than exhaust my allotted time. Among them, I suggest that nowhere, perhaps, have the new Government been saddled with a more unenviable inheritance than in the sphere of justice and, more specifically, prisons. Of course, I acknowledge that it is common practice for Governments to take office bemoaning the parlous state to which their opponents have reduced the country. Indeed, your Lordships will recall the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, and his Sancho Panza, George Osborne, carrying around and flourishing copies of Liam Byrne’s valedictory note for years afterwards.

What the last election and the public mood demonstrate is that not only is Labour in step with the country, but there is no need for such spurious props today. The electorate has grown tired of living in a country in which so many critical services simply do not work. The failure of the last 14 years is as observable as it is evident. Our prisons are in crisis. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, that there is no ticking time-bomb. The ticking stopped before the election took place and we are in a much worse situation than that. Ten prisons are operating at over 140% capacity; Leeds, designed safely to accommodate 641 inmates, currently houses over 1,100; Durham, designed to accommodate 573, currently houses 970. This means that prisons are more unsanitary, violence is more common and disease can spread more easily.

Equally, when hard-pressed staff are seeking to achieve safety and order, the things that are sacrificed or neglected are those elements of incarceration that are most conducive to rehabilitation. The prison library and opportunities for prisoners to learn skills or simply to pursue knowledge for its own sake are the first casualties in a system that has been asked to do far too much with far too little.

Wandsworth is the subject of an urgent notification from the Chief Inspector of Prisons. Only a couple of months ago, many of its inmates began to be locked in their cells 24 hours a day and 80% of inmates were sharing cells designed for one. The inspectors found vermin, failing security, drugs and rising rates of self-harm. It is just one prison, but that description shames the entire country.

A quarter of prisoners across the prison estate are held in Victorian facilities with no in-cell sanitation, forced to use bins as makeshift toilets. More than half report feeling unsafe. More than a quarter have received threats or intimidation, 13% of which have escalated into physical assaults. This is the inheritance of my noble friend the Minister, the Secretary of State and the wider ministerial team, and it is against that context that their future performance should be judged.

My strong belief is that, while prisons remove people from society, the welfare of prisoners and their successful rehabilitation should be a matter of universal interest. I believe it is equally true that an improvement in the prison education system is a necessary precondition for any substantial fall in recidivism. Over 50% of the prison population have a literacy level below that of the average 11 year-old. This fact, perhaps more than any other, allows us to understand the cycle of poverty and alienation that too often ends in jail.

Churchill, in his Edwardian incarnation, was a reforming Liberal Home Secretary. In his autobiography My Early Life, he describes his approach to prison reform by saying that

“when I was Home Secretary … I did my utmost consistent with public policy to introduce some sort of variety and indulgence into the life of their inmates, to give to educated minds books to feed on … and to mitigate as far as is reasonable the hard lot which, if they have deserved, they must none the less endure”.

This strikes me as a pretty useful starting point for any determined programme of prison reform.

I know I am not alone in your Lordships’ House in greeting the appointment of my noble friend Lord Timpson with great enthusiasm and optimism. I have confidence in him and the wider ministerial team effecting a real and lasting change to our prison system, as well as widening access to justice. This will have my full support in this House and outside as they engage with these challenges.