Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

3. What plans his Department has to improve training for people working with perinatal women in custodial settings.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

I, too, welcome to your place, Mr Speaker.

I know that the hon. Lady is very interested in this very important area and chaired a roundtable that a former Justice Minister attended. It is absolutely right that pregnant women in custody should get the care that they deserve. I hope she will be reassured to know that there is a two-day programme that prison officers can attend to ensure that they get the appropriate training to deal with women in custody who are pregnant. However, we recognise that there are more things that we can do, and before the election was called we had already started a fundamental review of pregnant women in custody and the operation of our mother and baby units.

[Carolyn Harris]

The current review of the operational guidance for the mother and baby units is welcome, but guidance is not enough. Will the Minister agree to meet me and the charity Birth Companions to discuss the recommendations in its new birth charter toolkit and the need for mandatory standards, so that prisons are scrutinised and indeed held to account for perinatal care?

[Lucy Frazer]

I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady, who is very experienced in this issue. Last week I visited HMP Bronzefield where I spoke to people on the mother and baby unit. Birth Companions operates from that prison, but I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady and take advantage of her expertise.

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

The Liberal Democrats would scrap all sentences for women apart from the most serious offences. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that that creates double standards in the justice system?

[Lucy Frazer]

We have to recognise that the treatment of women in prison, their sentences and the treatment once they are sentenced might be different from men and if they are victims of crime. In our female offenders strategy, we recognise different treatment; but of course people who commit crimes must be punished for them.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I listened carefully to the Minister when she said that prison officers can access training. Does she agree that it should be mandatory for prison officers who are working with pregnant women to have such training, and can she confirm what proportion of prison officers have already accessed that training?

[Lucy Frazer]

At least one prison officer in each establishment has already undertaken the training, so there is specialist support, and more women than that have done it; I would be very happy to provide the figures in due course.

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[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome you to your place, Mr Speaker. Let me also align myself with the comments of both the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State about staff at HMP Whitemoor.

Our probation service should keep us all safe, but this morning another damning report said that understaffing in a national probation service that is dealing with the most serious offenders is putting public safety at risk. Those shortages leave staff overworked and unable to conduct due diligence, force them to take on too many cases, and are a direct consequence of the Government’s decision to break up the probation service, so will the Minister commit herself to returning staffing across the service to safe levels in order to undo the serious damage they have caused?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

I welcome this morning’s report from the inspectorate of probation. Its publication is timely, given the changes that we are making to create a more unified probation service. That transition has already taken place in Wales.

Having read the report, I am pleased to note that it says that leadership is good throughout the service. Of course we need to recruit more probation officers, and we are doing that—800 officers who are currently being trained will come on board imminently—but we also recognise that as we recruit more police officers, we need to recruit more prison and probation officers as well, and we are taking steps to do so.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

T4. I am delighted that Finn’s law has received Royal Assent, but can the Minister update us on when the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill, also known as Finn’s law part 2, will return to the House?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

T5. Does the Minister agree that the successful unification of offender supervision services in Wales under the national probation service is a positive change that will benefit victims and the wider public?

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend—whom I welcome to his place—is absolutely right. We have looked at the system and recognised that it could be improved, and we have made those changes in Wales, where the national probation service has taken responsibility for supervising all offenders. I look forward very much to visiting Wales on Thursday to see how those changes have been implemented. I understand that the transition has proceeded very smoothly, and I look forward to speaking to staff there in order to ensure that when the same transition takes place in England, it too will proceed smoothly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

T6. One of the ways of preventing people leaving prison from reoffending is to ensure that they have a secure roof over their head when they leave. Under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, prison governors have a statutory duty to ensure that those leaving prison do indeed have that secure home. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the progress being made on ensuring that prison governors carry out their statutory duty?

[Lucy Frazer]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that he did on the Homelessness Reduction Act, which has been very effective. I am pleased to be able to tell him that the latest statistics show that more than a quarter of the referrals to local authorities under the duty to refer were made by either prison or probation services. However, we need to work more broadly as well to ensure that when offenders come out of prison they have somewhere to go. We have a pilot with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that involves a two-year wraparound service. When an ex-offender comes out, they are helped to find a home and to understand the duties of their tenancy so that they can stay in their home and manage it over the two-year period.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

T7. Vauxhall Law Centre in Liverpool is one of only 42 law centres still in existence. It enables working-class people to defend their fundamental right of access to justice, a right that is currently under attack from Government cuts. What urgent action are the Government taking to guarantee the future of law centres in Liverpool and across the country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Reading jail is a hugely important historical site. It is the burial place of King Henry I of England and also where Oscar Wilde was incarcerated. The building is currently up for sale by the Ministry of Justice. Will the Secretary of State or the prisons Minister agree to meet me before any decision is made on the sale and also to meet local campaigners and representatives?

[Lucy Frazer]

I am pleased to have already spoken to the hon. Gentleman and my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) about this matter. As the hon. Gentleman knows, bids are already in, and they are commercially sensitive. If it is appropriate for me to meet him, I will be happy to do so, together with his neighbour.

[Mr Speaker]

Before we move on, I advise the House that we will have 45 minutes for the urgent question and 45 minutes for the statement, so please let us help each other out.