Prisons: Radicalisation

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, there are essentially three interventions: the theological and ideological interventions programme, the healthy identities programme, and the desistance and disengagement programme. To assist with the delivery of these, we have recruited 22 specially trained imams to engage with such prisoners during their period of custody. In addition, we have recently announced a major investment in counterterrorism resources, including doubling the number of counterterrorism specialist probation staff, to address these issues after release from custody.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister put some flesh on the bones of this? How many prisoners who are subject to these special programmes have in fact been able to attend them? On how many days in the last year have those programmes not taken place because the prisoner has not had an escort in the prison to take them to those services? If he does not have those statistics, can he tell us how on earth any Minister can come to this House or the other place and give us assurances about that without knowing how often those programmes are disrupted because of staff shortages in the prisons?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, it will not surprise the noble Lord that I do not have the precise statistics he has asked for, in particular the number of days when escorts were not available, but I will take steps to secure the relevant statistics—in so far as they are available—and will write to the noble Lord and place a copy of the letter in the Library.