Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[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.