Covid-19: Prisons and Offender Rehabilitation

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord German, on asking this important Question and look forward to the Minister’s response.

At Second Reading of the Coronavirus Bill, I raised the point that although 84 of the 121 prisons are overcrowded and a draft operating model for the future of probation services had only just been published, there was no mention of either prisons or probation in the Bill. Summing up, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Bethell—assured me that the Secretary of State for Justice

“has advised that powers exist that are considered sufficient for the needs in prisons and for the probation service at this time.”—[Official Report, 24/3/20; col. 1736.]

Yet only a week later, the emergency release of 4,000 remand and low-risk prisoners was announced—but nothing was said about probation services.

A number of prisoners have fallen victim to the virus, from which some have tragically died. Like the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I ask the Minister whether families are being kept informed of the well-being of relatives who are suffering. Public Health England experts are said to advise single cell occupancy—to achieve which, the chief executive of HMPPS told the Justice Select Committee on 7 April, would require the release of between 10,000 and 15,000 prisoners. My second question to the Minister is whether single cell occupancy is the Government’s intent.