Prisons: Violence

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

On the positive side, the female prison population is now under 4,000—the lowest it has ever been. In the speech I referred to earlier, the Prime Minister made a particular point of the importance of finding alternative ways of dealing with women offenders, preferably avoiding sending them to prison altogether, which has been very much the trend with sentencing. Of course, there will be an irreducible number who have to be sent to prison. Although the noble Baroness is quite right that any suicide in prison is a matter of complete regret, and self-harm is equally concerning, we are in the process of modernising the prison estate to ensure that there are the best regimes and that women are held in environments that better meet their gender-specific needs.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister must have read the report in 2015 by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons—a devastating report that talks about violence and poor conditions in our prisons. The most disturbing aspect of the report and the allegation made by the then Chief Inspector, Nick Hardwick was that the Secretary of State tried to influence his report. Will the Minister make sure that that sort of thing does not happen in future? Public confidence will be eroded if independent reports by prison inspectors are interfered with by Ministers.

[Lord Faulks]

The noble Lord is right to suggest that the report by Mr Hardwick was unfavourable in a number of respects. The Government will learn lessons from what he said. It is important that we should take on board an objective analysis of that. It is perhaps an indication of the Secretary of State’s willingness to embrace criticism that he has appointed Mr Hardwick to have continued involvement in the criminal justice system, by his appointment as chair of the Parole Board. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that that is a real sign of somebody getting to grips with a critical friend of the system.