Lucy Frazer
Main Page: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)Department Debates - View all Lucy Frazer's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)
Levels of violence in our prisons remain too high, but I am pleased to say that we are on a downward trend in respect of assaults. In January to March this year, assaults on staff decreased by 5% on the three previous quarter, and in the latest quarter the number of assaults on staff decreased by a further 4%. Decreases have been seen across the public and private estate. We have also seen a net rise of almost 4,000 prison officers in bands 3 to 5 since 2016. We do not hold figures for the number of staff at private prisons as we measure performance in a different way.
Grahame Morris
I thank the Minister for that response. I had hoped that even this Government would accept the link between prison understaffing and high levels of violence. Why are the Government building a new generation of private prisons that will have no minimum staffing levels and no requirements for private operators to reveal staff numbers as they will not be subject to freedom of information requests? Frankly, this is an appalling policy of “Don’t ask me any questions and I won’t tell you any lies.”
Lucy Frazer
As I mentioned, we have increased the number of staff in the public sector. We have also introduced the key worker scheme, which is essential for staff to liaise with the prisoners. Private prisons perform well, as do public prisons. Recent reports from this year for HMP Parc and HMP Rye Hill, which are both managed by G4S, judged both to be good. There is not a mantra that public is good, private is bad; both work well.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)
Reoffending rates are too high, resulting in some individuals repeatedly posing a danger to their communities and the undermining of public confidence in the criminal justice system. Last week, we published the sentencing White Paper, which sets out measures to better supervise and support offenders following their release from custody. It includes proposals for changes to the rehabilitation periods set out in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, to improve access to employment and education for those with criminal records.
Rob Butler
I recently visited MTCnovo’s hub for offenders from Aylesbury and was impressed by the dedication and commitment of the staff, as well as of those completing their sentences there. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that a vital element of reducing reoffending is having enough well-trained and skilled probation officers who can thoroughly oversee and supervise sentences?
Lucy Frazer
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I thank all the staff at MTCnovo and Thames Valley community rehabilitation company. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that dedicated prison officers are a key part of reducing reoffending, which is why last month we launched the probation workforce strategy, setting out our commitment to recruit an additional 1,000 probation officers by the end of January next year. It is about not just recruiting staff but how we work with them and invest in their skills. We will be focusing on their skills, recruitment, retention, diversity, leadership and wellbeing.
Mark Fletcher
Communities across the Bolsover constituency are desperate to see serial reoffenders punished, and that requires a level of innovation. What innovative approaches to reoffending is the Department taking?
Lucy Frazer
I welcome my hon. Friend’s question on innovation. Our sentencing White Paper sets out a number of innovative ways of reducing reoffending, and I will mention just two. First, my hon. Friend mentioned prolific offenders, and we would like to deal with prolific burglars by tagging them so that when we release them from prison, we know where they go and prevent them from committing further acquisitive crime. Secondly, we want to help people turn their lives around through community treatment programmes, ensuring that offenders get the support—including the drug addiction treatment and mental health support—they need to enable them to turn their backs on crime.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)
I am very aware of the difficulties that many children in custody have faced over the covid period. I recently had a remote meeting with all the governors of the youth estate to discuss the impact of covid on young people in custody. As a result of that discussion and what we have heard, we have prioritised and focused on ensuring a return to face-to-face education and social visits, which are vital to young people’s mental health. I am pleased to say that we have already recommenced both of those across the youth estate.
Lucy Frazer
The hon. Member is absolutely right to focus on the importance of education. It is something that the Government have prioritised for the community as a whole, and it is absolutely right that we mirror that in our youth custody estate. That is why we have prioritised education in the youth estate as against the adult estate in the first stage of opening up, and it is why all such institutions are now open. We are looking at lessons learned. As we plan for the next phase of restrictions and closures in the community, we will be looking carefully and closely at how we deal with education.
Mrs Lewell-Buck [V]
Despite Ministers’ previous answers to my hon. Friends, throughout the pandemic the Government have actively supported children in prison being locked in their cells for over 23 hours a day, with their education and therapy sessions cancelled and family visits stopped. Does the Minister feel that these criminal measures have helped or hindered their rehabilitation?
Lucy Frazer
I would like to clarify what the hon. Lady has said. We have not actively supported the lockdown; when we went into the pandemic, we were told by Public Health England that we were potentially facing 2,500 deaths in our prisons, and we rightly took action very quickly to stem that. Every death is tragic, but I am very pleased that, through our efforts, we only had 23 deaths. The problems in the youth estate are very different, but, equally, we did not want transmission among users and staff, leading to the NHS becoming overwhelmed and staff getting sick, so we took measures that were appropriate at the time. As I mentioned to the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), we absolutely recognise the importance of education. It is something that we are prioritising and have prioritised, and we will continue to do so.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
It is good news that in the years approaching covid, the number of young people required to attend court fell by 10,000, but the bad news is that the backlog of young people requiring justice—their day in court—stayed the same over the same period. If Ministers lack the competence to end the backlog at a time when demand is falling by a third, what hope is there of the Government getting a grip in the challenging times ahead?
Lucy Frazer
It is vital that we manage the backlog in the courts, and we are doing so across Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. I am looking closely at the youth estate because it is vital that we ensure that the youth—who are particularly vulnerable and who cannot do as many remote hearings as those in the adult estate—get justice and get it swiftly. We have opened up a number of youth courts and are working hard to ensure that youth justice continues.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)
I am very pleased to have spoken regularly to the hon. Lady about residential women’s centres, which are a vital part of the female offender strategy. Her question is about the resettlement of women leaving prison. I hope she is aware that we invested an additional £22 million a year over the remaining life of the community rehabilitation company contracts to deliver an enhanced through-the-gate resettlement service. We also have specific funding for women—we are putting £5 million into community services that help female offenders to address the underlying causes of their criminality—and we recently invested a further £2.5 million to assist in further supporting female offenders. That is currently being distributed via a funding competition, which opened on 6 July.
Carolyn Harris
The independent monitoring board recently reported that almost 60% of female prisoners are leaving prison to homelessness, which overwhelmingly leads to reoffending. To give these women a chance in life we need an effective through-the-gate strategy, including community support and adequate housing, so can we expect the autumn statement to deliver extra resources to allow that to happen?
Lucy Frazer
Our statistics are that 4.2% of the female prison releases were to rough sleeping and 14% were released as “other homeless”, but the numbers, whatever they are, are too high. The hon. Lady rightly identifies that we are talking to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and that a spending review is coming up; Members will have heard the Lord Chancellor talking about our absolute commitment, and we will be looking at a number of things—education, employment and tackling homelessness on release.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)