Prisons: Self-harm Among Women Prisoners

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend raises an important point. We are working to improve the availability of social work in prisons. She will be aware, of course, that at the moment all prisons are hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic in what they can provide. However, for example, we have been able to reintroduce chaplaincy into prisons at a very significant level, and the relevant authorities are trying to ensure that all services, including social workers, can be reintroduced as well.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the levels of reported self-harm are extremely concerning. Five and half years ago my review, Changing Prisons, Saving Lives, found that the despair that led to self-harm and suicide was exacerbated by prisoners being isolated without access to purposeful activity and sufficient contact with their families. Over the last year, what proportion of time have women prisoners been on regimes that meant that they were locked in their cells for 23 hours or more a day? What has been the impact of Covid on the number of face-to-face contacts they have had with their families?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

The noble Lord asked two questions. On the first point, during the Covid pandemic, prison estates have tried to put in regimes which are as generous as possible given the surrounding circumstances. He will be aware, like everybody in this House, that those circumstances have changed rapidly from time to time, so the figures are not available because the data cannot accurately capture that constantly changing picture. So far as contact with family members is concerned, we have doubled the amount of phone credit given to prisoners, and we have introduced “purple visits”—video calls—so that prisoners can see their families and loved ones as well.