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, 6 months ago)
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Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)
Levels of violence in our youth estate are too high. We are determined to improve safety by investing in staff, education, psychology services and mental health support and by trialling secure schools, with the first to open at Medway. I was pleased to read parts of the inspector’s report after he attended Cookham Wood, Wetherby and Parc young offenders institutions as part of a number of scrutiny visits last month, in which he described all three sites as “calm and well ordered”, and he saw staff interacting with children in a “caring, patient and professional” way.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
In January, inspectors found that children were being confined in their cells for up to 23 hours per day and were subject to restraint techniques that cause injury and serious harm to children. The Government know that, and yet they continue to permit the use of those techniques. This is state-sanctioned child abuse. The Charlie Taylor review was due to report on this last summer. Where is that report?
Lucy Frazer
The hon. Member is right to point out a number of reports in this area. Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons thematic report in January on the separation of children in YOIs made very difficult reading. Because of that, we took a number of immediate actions, including enhancing local and national oversight and establishing standardised monthly data collection on separation. We commissioned Charlie Taylor to conduct a review into the use of pain-inducing techniques, and we will be publishing that report very shortly.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I appreciate that, as the number of young people in the secure estate has reduced, the cohort has become often more difficult to deal with. None the less, during its current inquiry the Select Committee has heard compelling evidence that violence remains too high. One of the concerns about Cookham Wood, which the Minister referred to, is the shortage and regular redeployment of staff—the churn and the inability to build relationships. Will the Minister look again at the need for a serious approach—a proper strategy for staffing in all our prisons but especially in the secure estate, where the building of relationships is particularly important.
Lucy Frazer
My hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee recognises an important point. We are ensuring at the moment that we do not send young people to custody unless they have committed the most serious crimes. As a result, more than 50% of the youth in our estate have committed violent crimes. That leaves us with a challenging cohort. We want to provide more bespoke, individual support with early interventions for those in our care. As my hon. Friend will know, we are committed to establishing secure schools, which would expand our focus on education and individual support.
We have increased staffing in the youth estate by 27% and we are professionalising that service with a new foundation degree to ensure that those who work in our youth custody services deliver the right support.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
As children in the general population continue to return to school, those in youth offender institutions remain locked up in their cells for almost the whole day, without any access to education. An inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons last month found that children in Cookham Wood were spending just 40 minutes out of their cells. Can the Minister confirm that that was immediately rectified? The Children’s Commissioner for England found
“serious consequences for children’s rights, well-being and long-term outcomes”
and said that
“family and professional visits have been severely curtailed.”
As the Government prioritise returning children to school, will the Minister give me a date by which she expects all children in custody to have access to education, activities and family and professional visits?
Lucy Frazer
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions, which are on a very important subject. He is right to say that in the youth estate, as in the adult estate, we took severe measures when we realised that we were facing a pandemic. We took those measures to save lives. We were looking at 2,500 to 3,500 deaths across the estate, so we took drastic action that we considered very carefully, which resulted in a severe lockdown. Although every death is tragic, as a result of the lockdown we have suffered only 23 deaths in our prison estate.
The right hon. Gentleman is right to identify, as the inspector pointed out, that there was a lockdown in the children’s estate, with only a small amount of time out of cell. I am pleased to say that that time has increased as the lockdown has continued, and in YOIs children are now let out for between two and three and a half hours every day. In the secure children’s homes there is almost a normal regime, with 12 to 14 hours out of cell. We have published our national strategy for recovery, and visits and education will be some of the first things that return in the children’s estate.
Mr Lammy
These extra limits on contact must mean that now, more than ever, holding children in custody should be a last resort. One third of all children on the youth estate are being held on remand without a sentence. We know that two thirds of them will not receive a custodial sentence. With criminal trials slowly being restarted, what action is the Minister taking, along with the Lord Chief Justice, to ensure that children held on remand are prioritised for criminal trials?
Lucy Frazer
The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that custody should be a last resort. I am pleased to say that it is a last resort, which is why we have a much smaller number of youth in custody at the moment: just over 700 across our estate. He makes an important point about remand, and I am pleased to say that, certainly in the adult estate, the judiciary have looked at and fast-tracked remand cases. I am also pleased to report that the Youth Justice Board has looked at those who are currently held on remand, and the youth offending teams will be reviewing whether any applications can be made to help those people who are on remand and can be released back into the community.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that it is vital that prison officers have the right skills to manage young people? How are we training prison officers who work on the youth estate to ensure that we cut future offending rates and increase rehabilitation?
Lucy Frazer
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the training of prison officers: it is important that they get the right training to help turn lives around. We have introduced a new youth justice specialist role, with funding for every prison officer in youth custody services to take up a foundation degree in youth justice. Thirty people have completed it and 400 have started the training.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)
In prison, as in the community, there have been restrictions, which have been designed to keep prisoners and staff safe from covid-19. We have taken unprecedented action and we have saved lives. As in the community, it has required the temporary suspension of classroom education. Education providers are working with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service to deliver in-cell packs to support learning. We published our national framework for recovery last week and hope to bring back youth education in the next phase, with the adult estate following in this phase after that.
Dawn Butler
Education is key if we are to curb reoffending. The Government have talked about schools restarting, some last week and some on Monday. It is vital that we have education in prisons, so when will the Minister ensure that that happens? In addition, when will the Minister ensure that testing is available in prisons?
Lucy Frazer
Those are two important points. On education, I completely agree with the hon. Lady that education is important to the reduction of reoffending. As I mentioned, we have set out in our national framework what provision we can bring back safely, and in the first phase we will bring back education in the youth estate. On testing, we already have some testing of prisoners in prisons, and testing is available to our staff. We will roll out increased testing in prisons as matters progress.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
In Kent, Surrey and Sussex, the rehabilitation and education of offenders continues once they are released from prison, thanks to our excellent community rehabilitation company, which has also altered its practices to ensure that it can maintain some level of contact throughout the covid pandemic. In May, the CRC contacted the Ministry of Justice contract managers to ask whether a temporary change to unpaid work rules could be implemented in order to deploy people sentenced to community payback with small farmers and help with the Pick for Britain initiative. Such a change could provide an estimated 190,000 hours of work. Has the Minister had the opportunity to talk to colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about that suggestion, which would not only help offenders to complete their rehabilitation but benefit our farmers, who are desperate for workers?
Lucy Frazer
My hon. Friend and other Members who represent Kent, Surrey and Sussex work closely with their CRC. We are looking carefully at how we can support the farming industry and other key sectors at this time. In particular, we want to encourage ex-offenders into permanent agricultural employment. The Secretary of State and I have had discussions on the issue with our counterparts at the Department for Work and Pensions. The New Futures Network, which organises links between prisoners, prisons and employers, is in active discussions with the National Farmers Union.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab) [V]
May I thank you, Mr Speaker, for all the work you have done to ensure that I once again have the opportunity to represent my constituents virtually? Thank you.
Worryingly, prisoners are getting less than 30 minutes out of their cells each day during the current covid-19 crisis. What is the Minister doing to ensure that all prisoners have access to specialist mental health support and can continue to learn vital skills for future employment, thus helping to break the cycle of reoffending?
Lucy Frazer
I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. It is right to point out that, when the crisis first hit, we did significantly reduce our regimes in prisons, but prisoners should have access to the basic needs and should continue to do so, including in relation to food, showers and exercise. They will have access to healthcare in a number of ways. We have introduced in-cell telephony, which helps support the healthcare they get and to support their mental health through the Samaritans helpline and the Listener scheme that we operate in prisons. We are also able to continue some of our offender management programmes on a one-to-one basis. We set out our national framework for recovery last week, and we are very much looking forward to reintroducing those aspects that are most vital to prisoners to help them get on with their lives.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
There are some great examples of rehabilitation programmes. One is at HMP Onley, where the charity Futures Unlocked and Rugby rotary club are collecting unwanted bicycles left at Rugby railway station, which are taken to the prison for refurbishment to provide purposeful work. Unfortunately, that project is temporarily suspended, as there has been the challenge of being able to collect the bicycles under the current measures. Will the Minister join me in hoping that steps can be taken to get that project up and running again at the earliest opportunity?
Lucy Frazer
I am aware of the scheme, which is a great example of joint working between HMP Onley, Virgin Trains and Halfords. HMPPS has partnerships with over 300 such organisations, which provide daily work in prisons in normal times, and we value these partnerships enormously. Workshops have been closed in response to the pandemic, but last week, as I have mentioned, we published a national framework setting out how we will ease the restrictions, which we will do as soon as it is safe to do so.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)
Mr Speaker, I know the subject of court reopenings is very close to your heart.
To support the Prime Minister’s commitment to crack down on crime, we are investing up to £2.5 billion to provide 10,000 additional prison places. Construction for our prison at Wellingborough has continued safely since restrictions were imposed in March, and in May we started on early works for our prison in Glen Parva.
Sarah Atherton
Will my hon. and learned Friend please provide an update on the women’s residential centre pilot scheme, which is due to be located in Wales?
Lucy Frazer
As my hon. Friend will know, on 5 May I announced our commitment to locate the first residential women’s centre in Wales, and we are now working closely with our Welsh partners to develop a detailed proposal for the site in Wales. Our intention is for that to open by the end of 2021. I am grateful for her continued interest, and I look forward to meeting her to discuss it next week.
Sir Desmond Swayne
No additional capacity will be had by increasing early release, will it?
Lucy Frazer
As my right hon. Friend will know, we have tried to increase headroom in the estate through a variety of mechanisms, and our early release scheme is one of those. We are continuing to operate that scheme.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)