Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

1. What steps her Department is taking to improve safety in prisons.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

12. What steps her Department is taking to improve safety in prisons.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

16. What steps her Department is taking to improve safety in prisons.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am extremely concerned about the level of self-harm, which is particularly high in the women’s estate. We know that the first 24 hours are absolutely vital, and we are already taking steps to provide vulnerable prisoners with immediate mental health support. Next year, we will bring out a strategy on women offenders.

[Maria Caulfield]

Given the level of violence in Lewes prison over the weekend, will the Secretary of State update the House on what progress has been made to secure the prison, and what steps are being taken to increase staffing levels to prevent this from happening again?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The incident at HMP Lewes has been resolved and the prison remains secure with no threat to the public. The prisons Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), spoke to the governor, Jim Bourke, offering support for him and all his staff. We are going to make sure that we have sufficient staff in that prison. I shall have more to say about staffing when we launch the White Paper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

T7. Given that 20% of the prison population have spent some time in care, what steps are the Government taking to prevent children in care from ending up in the prison system?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are working very closely with the Department for Education, and we will shortly produce our paper on youth offenders, which will talk about how we intervene earlier before people end up with custodial sentences.