Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 1st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am sure that many Members have already noticed that the Bill is in not my name, but that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey). It is a huge honour to take over the Bill from my right hon. Friend following her recent and richly deserved promotion to the Government. I am very grateful to her for having brought this important Bill before the House and for entrusting its further safe passage to me.

The purpose of the Bill is to make our prisons safer and more secure. It would amend the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Act 2012, which was guided through Parliament and brought to the statute book by my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). I am very happy to have an opportunity to build on his previous work.

Let me start with the problem that the Bill is intended to tackle: the presence of mobile phones in our prisons. These illicit phones cause significant harm both inside and outside our prisons, where they are used to co-ordinate the smuggling of drugs and other contraband. Mobile phones are key enablers of the illicit economy in our prisons, which drives a significant amount of violence and self-harm. They also have an impact outside the prison walls. They can often be used to harass victims and witnesses, or to run organised crime gangs outside prison. The high price that mobile phones command in our prisons funds the organised criminals who supply them to carry out other illegal activities.

The 2012 Act recognised the significance of the threat and provided the Secretary of State with the power to authorise governors to interfere with wireless telegraphy in their prisons. Using this authority, governors are currently empowered to carry out interference to prevent, detect or investigate the use of devices capable of transmitting or receiving images, sounds or information by electronic communication such as mobile phones.

Despite the authority provided in the 2012 Act and the considerable use that has been made of its powers, mobile phones continue to cause real and severe problems in prisons throughout the country. In particular, prisons continue to face the challenges posed by the increasing availability of mobile devices. Although governors have been authorised under the Act to interfere with wireless phone signals to combat the use of illicit mobile phones, and although seizure figures show how effective they have been in using the detection equipment available to them, the sheer number of seizures demonstrates that the Act needs to be expanded.

Hard-working prison staff make every effort to detect and confiscate illicit mobile phones and SIM cards, but the figures illustrate the scale of the problem. Only last year, 20,000 phones and SIM cards were found in prisons in England and Wales—approximately 54 each day. That is a significant increase on previous years, with just under 17,000 found in 2015, 10,000 in 2014, and just over 7,000 in 2013. Having met prison officers in my local prison in Lewes and heard at first hand about the problems that mobile phones cause them, I believe that the Bill will significantly improve safety and make their jobs easier.

It is clear that the current ban on mobile phones in prisons is not working, and that the 2012 Act needs to be expanded to combat the increasing problem. The Bill will build on the Act by allowing the Secretary of State to directly authorise public communication providers and mobile phone operators to interfere with wireless telegraphy in prisons, as is set out in clause 1. As a result of the 2012 Act, mobile network operators are already involved in work to combat illicit phones, but because the authority to carry out interference lies with individual governors, the role of the mobile phone operators has so far been limited. Clause 1 provides both the authority and a clear line of accountability in primary legislation for mobile phone network operators to become more actively involved in combating the problem. It is of course important to ensure that such activity is subject to safeguards that are needed to prevent inappropriate use. To that end, further consequential changes are made in the schedule to the Bill, which amends sections 2, 3 and 4 of the 2012 Act.

The schedule amends section 2 of the 2012 Act so that safeguards that already apply to authorised governors will also apply to authorised public communications providers. Like an authorised governor, any authorised public communications provider will have to comply with directions from the Secretary of State which must specify descriptions of the information with which governors are to be provided, the intervals at which it is to be provided, and the circumstances in which the use of equipment authorised for the purposes of interference with a wireless signal must be modified or discontinued. There will also be directions aimed at ensuring that authorised interference does not result in disproportionate interference with wireless technology outside prisons.

Section 3 of the Act governs retention and disclosure of information obtained by means of interference. It provides that information must be destroyed after three months unless the governor of a prison authorises its retention on specific grounds. When the information is retained, the governor must review its retention every three months, and must destroy it if its retention is no longer justified. Under the Bill, responsibility for deciding about retention and disclosure will still rest with the governor of the relevant institution, but because relevant information may now be obtained by a mobile phone operator or public communications provider, who may have been authorised in respect of multiple institutions, the Bill amends section 3 to clarify which governor is responsible for decisions about retention and disclosure in such cases.

The House had an opportunity to consider similar provisions to those in the Bill during its scrutiny of the Prisons and Courts Bill in the last Parliament. I am pleased to say there was genuine cross-party support for the measures, but two concerns were raised. The first was about prisoners accessing legitimate telephone services to retain contact with family members, friends and their communities outside prison. Multiple pieces of research, including the Farmer review, show that maintaining contact between prisoners and family members is crucial. Ministry of Justice research shows that prisoners who maintain contact with a family member are 39% less likely to reoffend than those who cannot. It is therefore crucial that we enable that to happen, and some Members have stressed that mobile phones are a tool to maintain that contact.

While being able to contact family members using legitimate telephone services while in prison is key, the Ministry of Justice already has a programme of work under way to ensure that prisoners have access to legitimate phone services and do not need to turn to mobile phones. The Department is trialling in-cell handsets and call tariff reductions in the prison estate, starting at HMP Wayland, and the ongoing trials aim to test the impact of this technology further. Conservative Members have already lobbied the Minister about this important issue through “A Manifesto to Strengthen Families”, and if I was not confident about this work, I would not be recommending the Bill.

[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on this important Bill. I have constituents who work for Winchester prison. While they stress the need for family connections, they also have grave concerns about connectivity through illicit mobile phones. The Bill can address both of those points.

[Maria Caulfield]

Absolutely. Existing legislation bans mobile phones, so prisoners should not be accessing them to contact their family. That is not to say that contacting and keeping in touch with family members is not important; it is crucial both for inmates’ welfare and to reduce reoffending.

The second concern raised previously was about the possibility of interference activity in prisons having a detrimental effect on properties close to prisons, perhaps by blocking legitimate signals completely. My constituents in Lewes are worried about this. Under the powers of the 2012 Act, there was a small risk that genuine customers could be disconnected if their phones were incorrectly identified as being used in a prison without authorisation. To counter that, under this Bill, before any system is deployed, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service will calibrate and test its approach, including any technology and infrastructure measures, with mobile network operators and Ofcom to ensure that only those handsets that are being used in a prison without authorisation will be identified and stopped from working.

The increased active involvement of mobile network operators under this Bill should be welcomed as reassurance that genuine mobile phone use near prisons will not be blocked. Mobile operators will be the first to know about any leakage from prisons through spikes in complaints, and I am pretty sure that Members of this House will be contacted by their constituents if mobile phone signals outside prisons are affected.

The Bill is not intended to facilitate any one technical solution. Instead, it gives mobile network operators the authority to become more directly involved. By doing so, it provides the freedom, and perhaps the stimulus, to develop a range of solutions. Authorising operators will also add an element of future-proofing to the process, which has been missing so far. As the experts, they will be aware of new technical developments and will be able to adapt their solutions in response to them.

I hope that Members will support this important Bill and the contribution it can make to improving the safety and security of our prisons. I commend it to the House.

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[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey), who is in the Chamber today, on introducing the Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) on taking it up. I have not yet had the pleasure of taking a Bill through the House, so I am delighted to be part of the process. I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends have been adamant campaigners on this issue. This absolutely matters to my hon. Friend, given the prison in Lewes, and I congratulate her on an excellent speech.

We are in a sphere of new challenges—I see the Minister in his place, and I look at the notes from the MOJ about the challenges in our prisons—and it is vital for the safety of our prisoners, prison officers and visitors that every necessary power be available. I found myself having a strange conversation with some prison governors during the Conservative party conference—they were not at the conference; they were on a walking holiday and found themselves in the same hotel as me. They had started their careers as prison officers and they raised several points with me, as well as highlighting many of the changes they were facing.

I mentioned in an intervention the issue of coercive behaviour and the conducting of threatening and dangerous relationships from behind bars—for example, prisoners continuing to coerce and threaten family members or, as we have heard, people going through a court process. Some prisoners, though deprived of their liberty, can still cross the line and threaten individuals. That was of great concern to the prison governors. I also mentioned earlier my surgery work with prison officers at Winchester Prison. In fact, some of my early surgery work involved supporting them in their challenging job. They raised with me, a new Member of Parliament, the fact that new technology was affecting how they worked. They were keen for the MOJ to understand the growing pressures on their security and the issues they had to deal with.

[Maria Caulfield]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Does she not agree that prison officers work under very stressful conditions and that the Bill would enable them to get rid of the curse of mobile phones in prisons, take the pressure off them and make prisons a safer working environment?

[Mims Davies]

I absolutely agree. That was exactly their point—that it was becoming a more dangerous and difficult job, that they could be tracked down, perhaps on the school run or in the community, through connections within the prison, and have their families threatened. It was enlightening to learn about the pressure on our prison officers brought about by the changes in technology to which prison inmates still had access.

Let me put that in context. Winchester Prison was built in 1846. It is a typical Victorian prison. It has a capacity of about 690 inmates and now takes offenders from the age of 18. It does great work on community rehabilitation—it is one of the 10 pathfinder prisons—and is working hard to reduce violence, incidents of self-harm and suicide and is doing as much as is humanly possible to make sure that time spent in prison is practical and useful for the next stage of their lives. If, however, a prisoner is still being hassled from the outside and cannot get away from it, how can they move on?

Hon. Members will recognise the concerns raised in the House over several years about the use of mobile phones in prisons. For every prison in England and Wales, being equipped with technology is vital. We heard earlier the annoyance of a phone going off when it is not wanted, but if someone relies on it and cannot get a signal, it is a disruptive force, and that is simply what the Bill does. It is so important. We heard the figures earlier: 13,000 mobile phones—an increase of over 7,000 in just three years; 7,000 SIM cards, and these all have a value within the prison environment. Some inmates will be digital natives, having grown up with digital technologies, and for them connectivity will be absolutely normal, so being deprived of it could be very helpful.

This is an excellent Bill, and I think it will be very helpful in prisons. The interference we have seen with the court process, and the impact of social media on juries and judges, is highlighted in our courts now, so we need to make sure that prisons are not another place where pressure can be applied.

I commend this Bill and I wish it a safe passage, because it matters to our prison staff, to their families, to visitors and to all the people who rely on our prisons being secure. It will also help our governors, and eventually keep our communities safe. Ultimately, that is what we are looking for: to rehabilitate and help people and to keep our communities safe. I wish the Bill all the speed in the world, and I commend it to the House.

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[Maria Caulfield]

With the leave of the House, I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) asked about the Bill’s impact on prison governors, but it will actually reduce their workload because responsibility will lie firmly in the hands of the mobile phone operators. Governors have tried hard to keep up with technology, but each time that we move from 2G to 3G or 4G, they have to start the process again.

My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) made the excellent point that mobile phones are no longer just phones; they are small computers with a wide range of capabilities. Blocking phone signals will not just block people’s ability to make calls, but stop them from communicating in other ways.

My hon. Friends the Members for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) and for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) highlighted the important work that is being done in HMP Winchester and the fact that prison officers have asked for such legislation to make their lives easier. I welcome the support for the Bill from across the House. The shadow Minister highlighted the wider impact that this Bill will have in our society, because it is not about just reducing crime and problems in our prisons.

The only objection to the Bill seemed to be when mobile phones fought back against it live in the Chamber, so I hope that it has cross-party support. I am grateful for the widespread support for the measures. The Bill is small but important, and it is gratifying that it has been endorsed by Members on both sides of the House. I am not surprised by that endorsement because I believe that there is a shared understanding of the problems in our prisons, and a shared willingness to try to deal with them.

I thank the Bill’s sponsors: my hon. Friends the Members for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), for Angus (Kirstene Hair), for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) and for Christchurch (Mr Chope), the hon. Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), for North Durham (Mr Jones) and for Jarrow (Mr Hepburn), and the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey). The fact that those sponsors include a Member for Wales shows that there is support for the Bill across the United Kingdom. Although the Bill will not apply in Scotland, I understand that the Scottish Government hope to introduce changes.

If the Bill receives its Second Reading, I will look forward to it completing all its remaining stages successfully. If and when that happens, I am confident that it will make a significant contribution to improving the safety and security of our prisons.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill (Money)

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[David Hanson]

Well, I am grateful for that. If that is the low millions per site for every prison in the United Kingdom, perhaps the Minister can tell me, as I asked, how much and when.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

rose—

[Rory Stewart]

With your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker—

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[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Government and the Minister for bringing forward the money resolution. I thank the Minister and his predecessor for their support for the Bill. I also thank Opposition Members. The Bill has cross-party support, and the shadow Minister has been extremely supportive as well.

The purpose of the Bill is to make our prisons safer and more secure, and to tackle the ongoing and increasing threat that mobile phones pose to the stability of our prison system. Having met prison officers in my local prison in Lewes and heard at first hand about the problems that illegal mobile phones cause, I believe that the Bill will significantly improve safety and make their jobs easier.

The purpose of sending offenders to prison is not just to punish them but to protect wider society. The illegal use of mobile phones in prisons allows offenders to continue their criminal activities and fuels the illicit economy. Access to the internet, such as social media, can allow them to contact and intimidate victims and witnesses.

Furthermore, the proposed technology will not interfere with any legitimate wireless telegraphy outside the relevant institution. It is also not the only security measure in place to tackle the illegal use of mobile phones. I welcome the Minister’s support and the money resolution, and I look forward to the Bill’s Committee stage.

Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clause 2 stand part.

That the schedule be the schedule to the Bill.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. Your wise guidance to us in our deliberations on the Bill will be much welcomed. I also welcome members of the Committee and thank them for their support in getting the Bill to this stage. It was clear on Second Reading that the Bill has cross-party support, so I hope that we will be able to complete our proceedings relatively swiftly, while still giving the Bill appropriate scrutiny.

As hon. Members know, mobile phone technology in particular is constantly evolving. The Bill is designed to ensure that legislation keeps pace with developments and provides the means to combat the serious problems posed by illicit mobile phones in prisons. Illicit mobile phone use is linked to the supply of drugs and other contraband, serious organised crime and evasion of public protection monitoring, bringing further harm to the victims of crime.

The scale of the issue faced in our prisons is stark. In 2016, nearly 20,000 mobile phone and SIM cards—54 a day—were found in prisons in England and Wales. Although it is not a new problem, the scale of it has been increasing steadily, as in 2013 only about 7,000 mobile phones and SIM cards were found. To help combat this increasing challenge more effectively, clause 1 and its associated schedule make several changes to the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Act 2012.

As technology has developed, public communications providers such as mobile phone operators have been at the forefront of those developments. The changes in this Bill are designed to ensure that their specialist knowledge and expertise can be used to improve the effectiveness of activity to combat the use of illegal mobiles in prisons, young offenders institutions, secure training centres and secure colleges. Importantly, the Bill will ensure that there is a clear line of accountability for the activity set down in primary legislation.

I believe that this change is necessary to ensure that public communications providers can take appropriate direct action to interfere with wireless telegraphy to prevent the illegal use of mobile phones in prisons. Under the 2012 Act, mobile phone operators can act only as agents of the governors of individual institutions, rather than in their own right. Making this change means that the latest technological advances will be available to combat illegal mobile phones, governed by a clear legal framework.

The changes in clause 1 provide for the Secretary of State to authorise a public communications provider to interfere with wireless telegraphy in prisons in England and Wales. That is in addition to the existing authorisation that can be given to governors under the 2012 Act to interfere with wireless telegraphy in their institutions. Of course, it is important to ensure that this activity is subject to the right safeguards to prevent inappropriate use. To that end, consequential changes are made in the schedule to the Bill, which amends sections 2 to 4 of the 2012 Act. Section 2 of that Act is amended so that the safeguards that already apply to authorised governors will also apply to authorised public communications providers.

Like an authorised governor, any authorised public communications provider will have to comply with the directions given to them by the Secretary of State. Those directions must include requirements to pass on information concerning interference activity, as well as circumstances in which the use of equipment must be modified or stopped. That will help to ensure that there will not be disproportionate interference with wireless telegraphy outside the relevant institution.

Section 3 of the 2012 Act governs the retention and disclosure of information obtained following interference. Section 3 provides that information must be destroyed after three months, unless the governor authorises its retention on specific grounds. Where that information is retained, the governor must review its continued retention at three-monthly intervals and must destroy the information if retention is no longer required. Responsibility for deciding about retention and disclosure will continue to rest with the governor of the relevant institution. Because relevant information may have been obtained by a public communications provider, section 3 of the 2012 Act will be amended to clarify which governor will be responsible for decisions about retention and disclosure in such cases.

Clause 2(1) sets out the short title of the Bill, and subsection (2) states:

“This Act comes into force on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by regulations made by statutory instrument.”

That is a standard procedure to provide for commencement by regulations if commencement provisions are not placed in a Bill. Clause 2(3) and (4) mirrors provisions in the 2012 Act concerning the Bill’s territorial extent, and the possibility of extending its provisions to the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man in the future. All those provisions are standard and, I hope, uncontroversial.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I will not detain the Committee long, but I want to add my wholehearted support to my hon. Friend in introducing this important Bill. Having had the privilege of being the Minister responsible for prisons, probation and rehabilitation for two years, I am particularly aware of how necessary these provisions are.

We very much want prisoners to use telephones legitimately, and to stay in touch with their families and children in the approved manner and under the control of the prison authorities. That is a good thing that we want to encourage, and nothing in the Bill will prevent that. However, we must also be aware that prisoners have used mobile phones to carry on a life of crime in a truly shocking and appalling way, to the extent that they may as well not even have been in prison. Murders have been arranged and organised from within prisons, and drugs rings and even arms importation schemes have carried on because prisoners have had the use of illegal mobile phones.

There is also the issue of the intimidation of victims by perpetrators who have been sent to prison. When someone has been sent to prison, at least for that period of time the victim should not be afraid of being confronted by the person who attacked or raped them or whatever. Such intimidation is truly shocking, and the Bill will go a long way towards preventing it.

I remember that there are some prisons—HMP Brixton, for example—where people live right next to the prison wall. If memory serves me right, HMP Cardiff is another example of a built-up area where people live right next to the prison. In the past, mobile phone companies were obviously wary about that, and Members of Parliament would not want their constituents who live lawfully next to a prison to have their mobile phone usage interfered with. I believe the Ministry of Justice and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes have come up with a solution that means that that will not be a problem, and that we will not affect the legal use of mobile phones by law-abiding constituents who happen to live next to but outside a prison. Perhaps my hon. Friend or the Minister will provide clarification on that point.

I offer my wholehearted support to this important Bill. We want phones to be used to help prisoners stay in touch with their families, because we know that that aids rehabilitation and helps to reduce crime, which is a good thing. However, phones are absolutely not to be used for ongoing criminal purposes, and that is why I support the Bill so strongly.

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[Maria Caulfield]

On a point of order, Mrs Moon. Before we finish, I want to place on the record my thanks to you for chairing the Bill Committee, and to the Committee Clerks. This is my first private Member’s Bill, so it has been a steep learning curve, and although the Clerks never said that there is no such thing as a stupid question, I am sure that that is what they meant at heart.

I thank the team at the Ministry of Justice for all their support, and I thank all hon. Members here. This is a great example of cross-party working to make a difference in all our communities; many of us have prisons locally. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his support, and I thank former Ministers as well, because the Bill has taken a little while to reach Committee.

I am sure that all hon. Members would wish to join me in placing on the record our thanks to all prison officers, up and down the country, who each and every day have to deal with the problems that mobile phones cause in prisons. I particularly thank my local prison, HMP Lewes, where prison officers have told me at first hand what a difference the Bill will make. We place on the record our thanks to all prison officers in this country.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill to be reported, without amendment.

Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 6th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), who has done great work on his private Member’s Bill.

I am grateful to Members from across the House for giving clear cross-party support to this Bill, which is small but nevertheless important. There are a number of people I would like to thank. I particularly want to thank the Clerks of the Public Bill Office, who have helped me through every stage of the process to get the Bill to Third Reading. As we know, it can be difficult to get a private Member’s Bill to this stage, and their support has been so helpful. I would also like to thank the Ministry of Justice team for all their support and information, and all Members of the House, particularly those from the Opposition, who have supported the Bill and who recognise the important difference that this will make in prisons up and down the country. In particular, the Bill will make a great difference for prison officers, who do such sterling work under very difficult circumstances.

Members may know that I inherited this Bill, so I want to put on record my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey) for her previous work in championing the Bill and for trusting me with the responsibility of ensuring its safe passage. I hope I have repaid her confidence. I also want to acknowledge the groundbreaking work of my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) in steering the original Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Act 2012 through Parliament. It could be argued that because we are revisiting the 2012 Act only six years later, it was in some way deficient, but nothing could be further from the truth. The 2012 Act was an important and far-sighted contribution to the fight against the scourge of illicit mobile phones in prisons. The reason it has proved necessary to legislate again so soon is the sheer speed of technological change and the sheer scale of the problem posed by illicit mobile phones in our prisons.

Figures provide a stark illustration of the scale of the problem. In 2011, just a year before the 2012 Act was introduced, about 7,000 illicit mobile phones and SIM cards were found in prisons in England and Wales. By 2016, that figure was nearly 20,000. Last year, it had risen to 23,656 mobile phones and SIM cards.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on how far the Bill has progressed so far. Last night I was talking to some mums whose young people had been caught up in crime, and they were horrified to tell me that people are using mobile phones to continue criminal activities in jail, and to continue to hold in their thrall the young people they have groomed. Does the hon. Lady share my concern that that is allowed to continue?

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[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Lady is quite right, and I will go on to explain how mobile phones are used to continue crime in our prison service. To reiterate, last year 23,656 mobile phones were found in our prisons, which is nearly 65 a day. In my constituency, 184 mobile phones and 80 SIM cards were found at HMP Lewes last year, and having visited the prison regularly and met prison officers and the governor, I have heard at first hand the implications of that. As the hon. Lady pointed out, illegal mobile phones present a serious risk to the security of our prisons, as well as to public safety. Mobile phones in prisons are used for a range of criminal purposes, including commissioning serious violence, harassing victims, and continuing involvement in extremist activity and organised crime. Access to mobile phones is strongly associated with drug supplies and violence in our prisons, so it is a serious problem.

It might be argued that the Prison Service should be better at stopping mobiles entering our prisons in the first place, but as the previous Justice Secretary made clear in a speech to Reform in December last year, technological advances have been harnessed by some manufacturers with the clear intention of circumventing prison security measures. Technological advances have made it possible to manufacture phones so small, and containing so little metal, that they can be concealed internally and are difficult to detect with existing screening machines. Phones have been marketed as “beat the BOSS”, which refers to the body orifice security scanner that is in use in our prison receptions.

However, just as technology can be harnessed for illicit ends, we can also enlist its support to improve the effectiveness of our response to the problem. Public communications providers such as mobile phone operators have been at the forefront of rapid technological developments in mobile communications. Only this week, we witnessed a mobile phone make its maiden speech during a Defence statement—there is no end to such possibilities.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

My hon. Friend talks about a mobile phone making its maiden speech during a Defence statement, but does she recall that on Second Reading there was a rather bizarre interruption to my own speech—better known as a mobile phone fighting back against the Bill?

[Maria Caulfield]

My hon. Friend is quite right: mobile phones were trying to fight the Bill on Second Reading.

The changes in the Bill are designed directly to enlist the specialist knowledge, support and expertise of mobile phone operators to combat the use of illegal mobiles in our prisons, young offenders institutions, secure training centres and secure colleges. Importantly, and as I made clear at earlier stages of the Bill, it will ensure that a line of accountability for an operator’s activity is clearly set down in primary legislation.

Under the 2012 Act, public communications providers can become involved in interference activity in our prisons, but only when acting as agents of the governor or director who has been authorised to carry out that interference activity by the Secretary of State. By providing for them to be authorised directly, the Bill will enable them to bring their expertise directly to bear, at all times governed by a clear, legal framework. Existing safeguards in the 2012 Act will apply to authorised public communications providers, just as they already apply to authorised governors. Like an authorised governor, any public communications provider must comply with the directions given to them by the Secretary of State. Responsibility for deciding on the retention and disclosure of information obtained following interference activity conducted in a prison will continue to rest with the governor or director of that institution. That will apply even if the information has been obtained following interference activity conducted by an authorised public communications provider.

Two main questions have been raised during the progress of the Bill. The first came from residents in Lewes who were concerned that they might live so close to the prison that their mobile phones could be interfered with. I understand the fear that genuine customers could be erroneously disconnected from mobile phone networks if a phone is incorrectly identified as being used in a prison without authorisation. However, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service will calibrate and test its approach, including any technological process and infrastructure, with mobile phone network operators and Ofcom, to ensure that only those handsets that are used in a prison without authorisation are identified and stopped from working.

The second concern raised by Members concerns the lack of genuine contact between prisoners and their families. Conservative Members who are part of the Strengthening Families programme have identified through the Lord Farmer review that maintaining contact between prisoners and their family members is crucial to reducing reoffending. Indeed, by maintaining family contact, reoffending rates can be reduced by something like 38%. It is important that genuine contact with their families is maintained for prisoners, but that does not mean that they need mobile phones. The Government have made great efforts to tackle this issue, and increasing legitimate access to phones, and encouraging prisoners to have more contact with their families, is important and part of the Government’s overall objective to improve rehabilitation.

The deployment of in-cell telephony to 14 prisons has been completed, and will make more calls accessible. Tariffs have also been reduced at those sites to make calls more affordable, and six more prisons will have in-cell telephony deployed by the end of July. In-cell telephony gives prisoners much greater opportunity to maintain contact with their families, as it is not affected by time out of cell, or a lack of privacy.

I have one final point before I invite the House to give the Bill a Third Reading. This Bill is not tied to any one technical solution, but instead it sets out the legal framework to enable more direct and independent involvement by authorised public communications providers. That approach should provide an element of cover against further and rapid technological advances in the mobile phone communications sphere—advances that are almost certain to happen, given the speed with which this high-tech field has developed. With that, I commend the Bill to the House.

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[Maria Caulfield]

The offer was made to the Scottish Government to apply the Bill to Scotland. They have not taken it up, but the hope is that they may well do so in future.

[Maggie Throup]

I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. The absence today of Scottish National party Members is notable and might suggest they are not as concerned as we are about the security of our prison officers and of prisoners who want to be rehabilitated.

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[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to talk on this Bill, which I fully support. This issue first came to my attention when I was working at the Centre for Social Justice, where I was director of policy from 2012 to 2016. We wrote a report while I was there called “Drugs in Prison”, which looked at how we might remove these toxic and addictive substances from the prison estate. We wanted to examine how prisons could protect the public and punish offenders through the deprivation of their liberty, but could also help prisoners to rebuild their lives. This Bill contributes to all three of those work-streams. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) on introducing it and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey) on having started the whole process. It was also good to hear the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) supporting the Bill; it is always a pleasure to be in the House when there is cross-party support for something that, as I believe to be the case here, contributes to the cause of social justice.

This is a series of measures that can protect the public. It is utterly unacceptable that people in prison should be able to continue their criminal operations from behind bars. At an earlier stage of the Bill, the Minister referred in true literary form to the passing of messages scribbled on silver through the bars of a prison in “The Man in the Iron Mask”. These days, it is possible not only to pass messages but to take orders on the internet, control our banking activities and really run our lives from our mobile phones. How many of us do not do that? We are failing to protect the public by failing to disrupt criminal activity in this way, and failing to deprive people of their liberty. So much activity can be conducted through mobile phones, and we will not be fulfilling what the public expect of a prison sentence if we continue to allow people unfettered access to the internet while in prison.

That said, I firmly take on board what my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) said about the Farmer review and the importance of allowing people to stay in touch with their families. That is unquestionably important. I have a number of young people in my constituency with parents in prison and, having spoken to their teachers, I know how important it is for them to be able to stay in touch with their fathers. However, this cannot be used as an excuse to give people in prison 24-hour access to the internet. The public would not expect that, and I am sure that people who have been sent to prison would not expect it either. There is a balance to be struck, and I believe that the powers in the Bill will give us the potential to do that.

That is of course only one part of the picture. Our research into drugs in prison at the Centre for Social Justice was headed up by a former prison governor from Liverpool, Alan Brown. He showed us an extraordinary number of ingenious ways in which people could bring illicit substances into prison, sometimes using mobile technology and sometimes not. I remember him describing how one prisoner had been found building a catapult out of rubber gloves. He had tied many yellow rubber gloves together and then propelled a heavy object connected to a fishing line from his cell window over a tree branch. It landed on the ground, and one of his counterparts out on the street attached a parcel of drugs to the fishing line, which was then reeled in. We also saw examples of drone activity, and I remember one former prisoner describing how he had cut a hole in the side of his mouth in order to create a pocket in which to smuggle drugs into prison. All these examples remind us just how ingenious our prison population is.

[Maria Caulfield]

I am hearing from prison officers that one of the most ingenious ways of smuggling drugs into prisons at the moment is to soak the pages of books and letters in drugs. The prisoners lick the drugs off later when they are back in their cells.

[Alex Burghart]

Edible books! That is extraordinary. I have not heard that example before.

There are many ingenious ways of bringing drugs into prisons, and we know how extraordinarily disruptive they are to prisoners’ lives. A large number of people take drugs for the first time in prison, and the amount of Spice—the recently criminalised new psychoactive substance—in prisons has rocketed in the past few years. That is damaging not only prisoners but prison officers, who often inhale the odourless fumes as they go around on their watch. These substances actively destroy people’s chances of rehabilitating when they are in prison. In many cases, they create or cement addictive behaviours, which then carry on when the person leaves prison, destroying their chances of being able to move into work. Being able to tackle telephony in prisons is one important way in which we can start to disrupt this trade and so give people in prison more hope that they will be able to turn their lives around on release.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield]

With the leave of the House, I would like to put on record my thanks to everyone as we reach this stage of the Bill. I thank particularly the Clerks in the Public Bill Office, the team at the Ministry of Justice and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey), who instigated the Bill. I also thank the Minister for his support throughout the Bill’s progress and all hon. Members who have given up their Fridays and vital constituency work to be here and make sure that the Bill goes through.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) has three prisons in his constituency, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) would like the Bill extended to teenagers in her house, and my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) was also interested in that idea. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) gave some shocking examples of how the technology is being used in prisons right now to commit crime. My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) spoke in a Friday private Member’s Bill debate for the first time, and I am honoured that he chose this Bill.

Like me, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) remembers her first mobile phone being the size of a brick—it would not have been easily concealed. My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) made the point that mobile phones are now for more than just making calls. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) brought in his experience of working at the Centre for Social Justice. My hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Alan Mak), with his technological experience, was able to highlight some of the significant purposes to which mobile phones have been put. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) reminded us that he was interrupted on Second Reading by a mobile phone. My hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) brought his experience of the criminal Bar and reminded us that prison is now just an inconvenience to many criminals: the Bill will change that. My hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) continued the battle between Horsham and Lewes, although Lewes thankfully won in 1845 to retain the county prison. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) gave a great overview of the Bill and said that this small piece of legislation will make a big difference, proving that size is not everything.

I thank hon. Members and I look forward to the Bill making progress in the other place.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.