Prisons and Youth Custody Centres: Safety

Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his observations. First, on the safety of the youth estate, since his report was published the inspector has acknowledged that at the institution at Werrington, the standard of safety for both inmates and staff is at a scale of three out of four: that is, at 75%. Of course, the fact that one of these institutions has achieved such a level of safety takes us only so far. We will seek to emulate those standards across the entire estate going forward, but it is not the case that all these institutions have failed. I accept, however, that the failure reported upon by the inspector is unacceptable and has to be addressed.

As the noble Lord may recollect, we have already committed to spending £1.3 billion on the prison estate. In addition, I note that Her Majesty’s Prison Berwyn, which has been completed, now has 430 places in use, and, once fully operational, will have a further new 2,100 prison places. That is but a step but it is a step in the right direction. As for periods of incarceration, I note that the level of sentences imposed for violent and sexual crimes over the past decade has increased. That, of course, has an impact upon the prison estate. That is a feature that we have to take into consideration in looking at the overall operation of the system. But we cannot lose sight in this context of the issue of public safety.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, the chief inspector reports that he is,

“appalled by the conditions in which we hold many prisoners”,

and that far too often he had seen,

“men sharing a cell in which they are locked up for as much as 23 hours a day, in which they are required to eat all their meals, and in which there is an unscreened lavatory”,

while,

“staff shortages make it impossible to provide a decent, rehabilitative environment”.

Do the Government recognise this as a crisis which disgraces Britain? The Minister’s Answer suggests complacency. We are not making significant progress. The chief inspector says that we are having,

“a dramatic and rapid decline”.

We now have a custody system that is redolent of “Midnight Express”. Never mind the nasty party, on prisons we are becoming the nasty country. Will the Government act now to reduce prisoner numbers, renew the prison estate, reduce overcrowding, radically raise staffing and tackle violence of all forms?

Is the MoJ powerless to persuade the Treasury to spend more on reducing reoffending to save offenders’ futures, at the same time saving much of the £13.5 billion annual cost to the public purse of reoffending?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged again to the noble Lord, Lord Marks. Complacency is not a badge that can properly be applied to the Government with regard to the issue of prisons and the prison estate.