Prisons

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon]

My hon. Friend makes a vital point. We have a dangerous cocktail of experienced prisoners in prison, and experienced prison officers leaving prison. That is not good for safety and not good for the service.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

rose—

[Richard Burgon]

I must make some progress, I am afraid.

In the wake of those riots, the Justice Secretary told the House yesterday that more Tornado staff are being trained. Clearly she expects more trouble and expects things to get worse before they get better.

The Ministry has a long list of problems to contend with: overcrowding; understaffing; lack of safety; the quality of delivery from privatised probation services; drugs and drones; and the nearly 4,000 IPP—imprisonment for public protection—prisoners who are still in jail way past their tariffs.

[Maria Caulfield]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Burgon]

I will not give way.

One prison officer told me that the situation in our Prison Service is like a game of Jenga where it feels as though we are on the brink of the final piece being removed and the whole thing coming crashing down around us. He did not say that lightly. The Government’s White Paper has had a mixed reception from those with experience and expertise in the penal system and penal reform.

[Maria Caulfield]

rose—

[Richard Burgon]

I need to make some progress.

Nearly all these problems stem from the axing of a quarter of prison staff since 2010. The Justice Secretary’s colleague, the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), asked her yesterday at Justice questions whether she thought that cut was wise. She did not answer; she has the opportunity to answer today.

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[Richard Burgon]

I certainly did not take offence when the Government Whip was shouting out, “Are there any policies?” because I did not think that that question was directed at the Opposition.

The reality is that prisons are full of people with a range of problems—those with mental health problems, those addicted to drugs and those who are homeless. It is rarely mentioned that support services focused on issues of that kind have also been victims of austerity. Drugs support has been scaled back, and prisoners are leaving prison with nowhere to sleep. There are too many people in prison with serious mental health problems.

[Maria Caulfield]

Will the hon. Gentleman please give way?

[Richard Burgon]

MPs rarely break promises. I promised not to take any more interventions, but I will break that promise and allow another one.

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for eventually giving way; I am most honoured. The Opposition motion mentions Lewes prison—it is in special measures, as was raised during Justice questions yesterday—but he fails to acknowledge the huge amount of work that is going into the prison. This is not just about prison officer numbers; there are other issues, such as the huge rise in the number of sexual offenders in Lewes prison, which has made that old Victorian prison very hard to manage. I have not heard any suggestions by the hon. Gentleman about the way forward in helping places such as Lewes to tackle those problems.

[Richard Burgon]

The increases in the number of prisoners convicted of historical sex offences and in the number of people in prisons obviously have an effect, but does cutting the number of prison officers by a quarter mitigate that situation or make it worse? It seems to me that the answer to that is quite simple.

Before I draw my remarks to a conclusion, I want to turn—[Interruption.] The prisons Minister has an unfortunate habit of heckling at really inappropriate points. He has demonstrated that before and he has demonstrated it again now. I want to talk about the case of Dean Saunders, who tragically committed suicide in Chelmsford prison. An inquest jury found a number of errors in his treatment. Although prison staff recognised that he had mental health problems, they did not follow the procedure under which he might have been moved to hospital. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), has said that he is

“seeking the details of all those cases to see whether there is a pattern”.—[Official Report, 24 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 156.]

Deborah Coles of the charity Inquest, who supported the family, said that Mr Saunders

“should never have been in prison in the first place. His death was entirely preventable.”

The fact is that there is evidence in abundance from the various independent monitoring board reports and inquest jury findings. The Ministry must ensure that the recommendations of such bodies are acted on.

In conclusion, we need to be tough on crime, wherever it is found, and we need to protect the public. At the same time, we need to make prisons places where effective rehabilitation is a living, breathing reality. We want people to leave prison and become productive members of society, having left crime behind. At present, when it comes to the Prison Service, as in relation to so much else, this Government are failing. They are failing prison staff, they are failing prison inmates and their families, and they are failing the public. Ultimately, the mess this Government are making of our prison system means they are failing society. I commend the motion to the House.

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[Elizabeth Truss]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) and then make a bit more progress with my speech.

[Maria Caulfield]

HMP Lewes is mentioned in the Opposition motion, but I have not heard that the shadow Secretary of State has visited it, unlike the prisons Minister. The shadow Secretary of State dismissed the effect of having a high number of sexual offenders in the prison, but that affects the retention of prison staff. To dismiss it out of hand shows a lack of experience and knowledge about what is happening in our prisons.

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to the prison population later in my speech and address the specific issue of sex offenders.

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[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I am pleased to say that a record number of foreign national offenders were deported in the last year. We are making progress, therefore, but there is more work to do. My hon. Friend the prisons Minister is leading a cross-Government taskforce on this issue.

I return now to our work in recruiting 2,500 new prison officers and changing the role of prison officers. By recruiting these new staff, we want every prison officer to have a caseload of no more than six offenders whom they can challenge and support. Our staffing model aims to ensure that we have enough prison officers to do that. One-to-one support from a dedicated officer is at the heart of how we change our reoffending rates and keep our prisons and prison officers safe.

The hon. Member for Leeds East talked about the prison population, although I was none the wiser about Labour’s policy after he had spoken. The prison population has been stable since 2010, having risen by 25,000 under Labour. As was mentioned earlier, fewer people are in prison for shorter sentences—9,000 fewer shorter sentences are given out every year—but more people are in prison for crimes such as sex offences. Not only are we prosecuting more sexual offenders, but sentences for sexual offences have increased considerably, which is absolutely right and reflects the serious damage those individuals do to their victims.

[Maria Caulfield]

It is much more difficult for prison officers to look after sex offenders than an average prison inmate—they often need to be segregated, but old Victorian prisons do not easily enable that—and that only adds to the pressure on officers.

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are doing important work on how better to deal with sex offenders and how to ensure they are on treatment programmes that will stop them committing such crimes in the future.

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[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I start by paying tribute to all prison officers in this country, who do a fantastic, difficult and often dangerous job, and particularly to those at HMP Lewes in my constituency, which has seen disturbances in recent months and was put into special measures just before Christmas. I am not sure whether the shadow Minister has visited Lewes prison—I know that the prisons Minister has—but I encourage him to do so if he has not. Having visited the prison on a number of occasions, I know that one cannot fail to be moved by the dedication of the prison officers who work there so tirelessly.

I am disappointed by the Opposition’s motion—I note that no more Opposition Members wish to speak—because it fails to demonstrate any understanding of the issues facing prison officers day in, day out. This is not just about staffing levels. In Lewes prison, for example, there have been a number of vacancies for some time, but the prison has not been able to fill them. I take on board the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) because it is hard to fill such vacancies in a rural constituency in the south-east of England. I welcome the Secretary of State’s moves towards local recruitment, whereby a governor can manage people leaving and have replacements ready at hand, as well as managing the skills mix and experience of their prison officers to make the transition much easier.

Lewes prison is difficult to manage because its old buildings make it difficult to see what is going on, particularly with reduced staff numbers. It is also a depressing prison inside—there is hardly any lighting—which makes it a tough place not only for inmates, but for the prison officers who work there day in, day out. The inmates are changing. While there are the usual faces who keep coming through the revolving door, there are also now sexual offenders. That type of prisoner was never there 10 or 15 years ago, so that has increased pressure on the prison officers and prisoners.

In the minute and a half remaining, I want to support what my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) said about the Opposition. Labour Members have not even touched on what motivates people to commit crime, and therefore enter prison, in the first place. We know that a quarter of prisoners have been in care at some point in their lives, that 59% of those entering prison are reoffenders who have been in prison before, and that about three quarters of prisoners have problems reading or writing.

[Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Maria Caulfield]

I will not because there is so little time.

We absolutely have to deal with the way in which people enter prisons. I have talked to young people in Newhaven Foyer in my constituency, many of whom have come from the care sector. Many of them deliberately committed crime to get into prison, because they were not confident about getting housing or care, and many of their friends are in prison already. Until we address issues relating to life chances, the same people will be going through the prison system.

I know that the Ministry of Justice is not working in isolation. It is working with the children’s Minister, with the relevant Health Minister on mental health problems, and with the Housing Minister to deal with housing problems. That is why I am so disappointed with the Opposition motion, which fails to tackle any of the factors that contribute to prisoner numbers and shows no understanding of them at all.