Prisons

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint). She is a highly effective advocate for the causes in which she believes, and she was an outstanding Minister. I hope that when the Labour party comes to its senses, she will be restored to the Front-Bench position that she deserves.

Congratulations are also in order to the shadow Justice Secretary, the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon). It is important for us to have an opportunity to reflect on what is happening in our prisons. The hon. Gentleman has devoted his life to justice, as a distinguished trade union lawyer, and I am grateful to him for securing the debate. It was a pity, however, that while he understandably drew attention to concerns about what is happening on our prison estate, he did not put forward a single positive alternative proposition. The contrast between his speech and that of my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary was striking.

My right hon. Friend has been in office for less than 12 months, but during that time she has unveiled and advanced a series of reforms that I believe have the potential to transform our justice system more powerfully, for the good, than those of any of her predecessors for a generation. The fact that she dealt so skilfully with interventions, and also outlined—not just in policy detail, but with authority and humanity—what needs to be done, underlines how fortunate we are to have a genuine, passionate and humane reformer in such an important role.

It is right to pay tribute to those who work in our prisons, and I expect that nearly every speaker in the debate will do so. I always remember a visit that I made to HMP Manchester, formerly Strangeways prison, during which I talked to a prison officer who was working with the most refractory and difficult prisoners. I asked him why he had chosen deliberately to work with some of the offenders whose cases were the most complex and whose behaviour was the most threatening. He explained that he had been brought up in a part of Manchester that was afflicted by crime, with unique challenges, and that one of the things that he wanted to do was put something back by working with offenders to ensure that their lives were changed and that, as a result, people who had been nothing but trouble—people who had been liabilities to society, people who had brought misery and pain into the lives of others, people who were wasting their own lives—could be turned into assets, and we as a society could ensure that whatever talents they had, long buried in many cases, could at last be put to the service of the community.

I remember being inspired by the fact that this young man from a working-class background had decided that the greatest service he could give to the community that had raised him was to try to turn around the lives of others, and it is that spirit that animates nearly everyone who works in our prison system. Despite the occasional frustrations that I experienced in dealing with members of the Prison Officers Association when I was Justice Secretary, I was never for a moment anything other than grateful for their service, their commitment and their dedication. That is why I am particularly grateful to my right hon. Friend for the steps that she has taken to enhance the way in which the professionals who work in our prisons can do the right thing—not just the reform governors who are changing the way in which prisons work by exercising a greater degree of control and autonomy over the individual prisons that are their responsibility, but those who work on the front line in our wings, particularly, but not only, in our reform prisons, and who are being empowered to play a much more positive role in encouraging and securing rehabilitation.

I pay particular tribute to my right hon. Friend for an initiative that she has unveiled, Unlocked for graduates. As she pointed out, more than 350 undergraduates from some of our very best universities have now applied explicitly to work in prisons. Just as Teach First played a part in transforming the reputation of teaching, so this initiative is helping to recruit more people to our prisons. Alongside the work of Unlocked, the implementation of Sally Coates’s review of prison education is ensuring that those who are in custody finally receive a higher quality of education and the chance to transform their lives for the better. Moreover, the work of Charlie Taylor in reviewing youth justice is being followed up and implemented by my right hon. Friend. In so doing, they are making sure that those whose contact with the criminal justice system occurs relatively early in their lives, and who would otherwise be set on a course of criminality, are diverted from crime and assured of a productive future at the earliest possible stage.

I think we can all draw an important lesson from the experience of the youth justice system over recent years. It is the case that youth crime has fallen dramatically in the last few years, and that at the same time the number of young offenders in custody has fallen as well. It is not the case that in order to be tough on crime, we need to maintain the same number of individuals in custody as the number we currently have. There are smarter alternatives to incarceration that we need to contemplate. Let me be clear, however: there will always be some criminals for whom custody is the only appropriate answer, given the seriousness of their crimes and their capacity to reoffend. Sometimes society will be so outraged by particular crimes that incarceration is the only answer.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend may know, I represent an inner-city constituency. A couple of years ago, on a visit to a Salvation Army centre, I came across someone who had been in prison, had become institutionalised by the experience, and therefore wanted to go back fairly soon afterwards.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Some individuals become institutionalised by prison life, and many individuals, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out, are in prison as a result of problems they acquired—mental health problems, substance abuse, or related issues—which mean that their behaviour is such that, for their own health and for society’s safety, they need for a time to be separated from society. But they should not be in prison; they should be receiving appropriate mental health care, because the custody and incarceration environment they face will only harm them and will do nothing either to heal them or to make sure they become positive and contributing members of society.

One thing I would like to see—I know my right hon. Friend is looking closely at this—is the possibility of building on the experience of problem-solving courts, where those charged with sentencing offenders have the option, of course, of custody, but can also say to the offender that if they commit to undertake either an appropriate course of mental health care or to deal with their drug or alcohol addiction or to change their behaviour in a meaningful way, they have the opportunity to serve their sentence out of custody.

I also think that release on temporary licence is the right way to go. There should be the opportunity for people who have shown genuine redemption and a desire to commit to society to be released early under strict terms, so that they can reacquaint themselves with the world of work and learning. I know of one prisoner, C. J. Burge, who has been serving her sentence, after one horrendous mistake, in a women’s prison in Surrey, and who, as a result of the sensitive use of release on temporary licence has not only been able to act as a mentor to young offenders, to steer them away from a life of crime, but is now pursuing training to become a barrister in order to ensure that a life that she herself was responsible for harming can now be turned to good. I think all of us in this House can embrace that example and that path, and for that reason I support the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

If I am honest, I am entering the debate with a certain amount of trepidation, for the simple reason that we seem to have a veritable cricket team of former prisons Ministers and, for that matter, lawyers who have been involved in this area.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), who came with me on a cricket tour to Jamaica, where we visited a very interesting prison. The work he did to make sure there will be a new prison there, so that we can, hopefully, transfer some of the Jamaican prisoners in this country back to Jamaica, was quite helpful.

I am not going to pretend for one moment that I have any prisons in my constituency. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, I worked as the Conservative party agent in Mitcham and Morden for the prisons Minister at the time—one Angela Rumbold—and I learned quite a bit. Indeed, I visited Wandsworth prison, where staff were trying to get Ronnie Biggs to go back. When I asked what was happening, they said that they had his clothes and that they wanted him to go back and collect the stuff in person, which, of course, he eventually did.

In my constituency, I have probably the busiest custody suite in the whole country, and that is the end we have to start from.

We need to make sure that three things happen. First, people must be able to read, write and add up. I commend the Government for producing a league table of prisons that are achieving that. That is very good news. Secondly, we must get people off drugs. The Government are obviously very aware of that issue. Thirdly, we must think about veterans. I represent a naval garrison city with a large and growing Royal Marine population. I pay tribute to Trevor Philpott, who runs an organisation called Veterans Change Partnership that is seeking to change the justice system so that we do not get veterans in it in the first place. I encourage the justice system to make greater use of people who have served in the military as magistrates. That would be incredibly helpful, because at least they have some idea of what happens—

[Jenny Chapman]

rose—

[Oliver Colvile]

I am sorry, but I will not give way because I am very short of time.

I am involved in an organisation called Forward Assist in which the shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson), has also been very involved. When I served on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, we went to Washington, where we learned how veterans are dealt with in veteran treatment courts. I urge the Government to examine at that in no uncertain terms, because it is vital that we get this right. We must also do something about mental health, where I ask the Government to look at better training for prison officers. Prison officers do a brilliantly good job. I have a lot of prison officers in my constituency who work just outside it in Dartmoor. I am really looking forward to visiting Exeter and Dartmoor prisons.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

11. What plans he has to reform education in prisons.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

17. What plans he has to reform education in prisons.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Michael Gove)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for your tender solicitude earlier, but as you can see, I have an amazingly talented team of Ministers. They are the Arteta, the Oxlade-Chamberlain and the Özil of this Parliament, and for that reason I am very happy to be on the subs bench for most of the time. I am also very happy that you have allowed me to group these questions.

Dame Sally Coates has been leading a review of education in prisons. Her interim report made clear her view that governors should be able to choose their education provider and hold them to account for the service they give.

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[Oliver Colvile]

I understand that the average reading age of prisoners is just 11. What plans does my right hon. Friend have to ensure that, when they leave prison, people can read, write and be off drugs?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend strikes at the heart of three of the principal problems that prisoners face. It is very often the case that prisoners have had a very poor educational experience. That is one of the reasons—it does not of course absolve them of moral responsibility—why they can often be drawn into criminal activity. As Dame Sally has made clear, we need to screen every prisoner effectively when they arrive in custody so that we can ascertain the level of skills that they have, and we need to judge prisons on the value that they add. As for removing the taint of drugs or substance abuse, that is a huge problem and one to which we will be returning.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

5. What progress his Department is making on plans to ensure that more prisoners obtain employment after release.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

12. What progress his Department is making on plans to ensure that more prisoners obtain employment after release.

[David Mackintosh (Northampton South) (Con)]

13. What progress his Department is making on plans to ensure that more prisoners obtain employment after release.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

I warmly commend the important work that Footprints is doing in Dorset. I want to see greater use of the voluntary sector, and an increased focus on offender employment on the part of CRCs. I made those points to CRC leaders only last week.

[Oliver Colvile]

As a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, I, too, wish to associate myself with the Minister’s initial comments.

How can we ensure that prisoners do not become institutionalised as a result of seeing prisons as “safe havens”, rather than rebuilding their lives once they have been released?

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend has raised an important point. We need to help prisoners to take responsibility for their lives, and that includes helping them to find legal work in order to support their families. I believe that the Prime Minister’s announcement that we will measure employment outcomes for prisoners will drive further progress.

Criminal Legal Aid

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Friday 29th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

I appreciate that the announcement was made a relatively short time ago, and that the hon. Lady has probably not had an opportunity to hear what the profession has said. The profession has wholeheartedly welcomed the proposals, and I think she should note those comments, rather than individual comments.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend write to me, explaining what impact the proposal will have on lawyers in the west country, especially those in my constituency, which contains, at Charles Cross, the busiest police custody suite in England?

[Mr Vara]

I urge my hon. Friend to look at the details of the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary yesterday, wherein the way forward is stated, but I will happily write to my hon. Friend with further details.

State Pension Age (Women)

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

When the latest changes to pensions were made in the Pensions Act 2011, Labour Members objected to them. We had many debates about the issue—I remember speaking in them—and focused especially on the double-whammy effect on women, but the Government went ahead and passed the legislation.

I want to explain to the Minister what my constituents have written to me—I will read some of it out—about how women are being affected by the changes. Every one of the women who has contacted me has said that they agree with state pension age equality, but they object to and have difficulty with the way in which it has been implemented, particularly the acceleration of the increase and the lack of information.

Some of my constituents who are directly affected by the changes have told me that, even now, they have not received any communication or formal notification of the changes from the Department for Work and Pensions. That is utterly unacceptable, given the gravity of the changes. Posting notices in women’s magazines and Sunday supplements is both patronising and ineffective. None of the women I have spoken to are readers of such publications; they found out about the changes through word of mouth.

As the increase in the pension age is literally life-changing, far more notice should have been given ahead of the changes, and the Government should have ensured that everyone affected can plan for their future. One lady I spoke to told me that she has lived at the same address for the past 30 years and has not received anything. There is no excuse for that. To suggest that people somehow knew what was happening is wrong.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I fully recognise that there has been a breakdown in communication from successive Governments, but does the hon. Lady have a practical solution to deal with that?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I will come on to the practical solution later in my speech.

Women have told me that their other major concern is that, even when they have been notified, they have not had enough time to prepare for the major changes in their lives. One of my constituents is 62 years of age and she was due to retire at 62 years and three months. However, she will now have to work until she is 65. Understandably, that has caused a great deal of distress and uncertainty for her, because she had been planning to retire in a few months’ time. Her plan was to co-ordinate her retirement with the birth of her grandchildren so that she could look after them and not have to resort to having the Government pay for their childcare. The changes have thrown her life into turmoil and, of course, the Government will now end up paying for that childcare.

Another constituent has told me that, anticipating retirement at 60, she took voluntary redundancy aged 58 and a half when her company was seeking to downsize. She was later informed that she will not be able to access her state person until she is 66 years of age. She now finds herself unemployed and having difficulty finding another job, because of her age. She has been left in financial hardship as a result of not being notified about the changes to the state pension age until it was too late. She is not the only example; many thousands of women across the United Kingdom are in the same boat.

The discrepancy of two years and two months for women born between April and December 1953 is simply confusing and unfair. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government were told as much in the debates in 2011. It means that, for some constituents, the difference is about £14,000, which is a lot of money. Again, it is not just a few of my constituents who have been affected, but women across the country.

Hundreds of thousands of women have had significant changes imposed on them not just once, but twice, with a lack of appropriate notification, and retirement plans have been shattered, with devastating consequences. The Government seem to have failed to recognise the severe impact that the speed of the implementation of those changes has had on those women. The changes have not affected men to the same extent, as their state pension age has not been increased by such a large amount and they have had much more notice. The pension system has historically discriminated against women, and the new changes are yet another example of that.

I urge the Government to reconsider the provisions and to diminish their impact by making transitional arrangements that are fairer for those women affected.

Police Funding Formula

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I have not yet announced the 2016-17 budget; I shall do so in December. As a former Home Office Minister, the right hon. Gentleman will know that he will have to wait until December for the formula decision.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his candour. May I also encourage him to work with the police and crime commissioners to ensure that efficiencies can be made to enable us to change in a different way?

[Mike Penning]

There are more efficiencies that can be done without affecting front-line policing. Actually, some of the technology that is coming through will aid front-line policing, not least the body-worn video cameras. I intend to work with all 43 police and crime commissioners and their chief constables, and with Devon and Cornwall in particular, as they have some very good statisticians.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

1. When he next plans to announce progress on his legal aid proposals.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

10. What progress he has made on reducing the cost to the public purse of legal aid.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

14. What progress he has made on reducing the cost to the public purse of legal aid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

We will clearly continue to review those matters. The decisions that we are making are of course difficult, but we have to make them because we have to bring down the cost of legal aid to deal with the enormous financial challenges that we face. We would not have wished to take these decisions, but given the inheritance that we received from the last Government, there is no option but to do so.

[Oliver Colvile]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the reforms are designed to impact on those who receive the most in legal aid fees, while protecting those at the lower end of the scale?

[Chris Grayling]

I can confirm that. In taking a range of difficult decisions, we have sought to ensure that the impact is felt most significantly higher up the income scale. I am well aware that people at the junior end of the income scale face considerably more financial pressure than those who are further up. We have sought to put together a package that has a disproportionate impact further up the income scale, for example through our changes to very high cost case fees.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I wish to speak to new clauses 2 and 3. As the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) has just pointed out, the Secretary of State has asked me to lead a review of these matters. I would like to pay huge tribute to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) and the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for the work they have done on that. There has been a very good cross-party focus on the matter over the past few years, and I have a huge amount to learn.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee visited Washington last summer and saw at first hand some of the stuff we are talking about? Is he willing to take evidence from some of the Members who were on that trip to ensure that it is included as well?

[Rory Stewart]

I would be delighted to do that. My hon. Friend’s intervention reminds me just how much expertise there is in the House. I see that there is an enormous amount of expertise on the Opposition side of the House. He has a great deal of expertise on the matter, as do many other Members in the Chamber this afternoon.

We need to focus on this for three reasons: first, we have an obligation towards individuals in the criminal justice system as a whole; secondly, we have a huge obligation specifically to those who have served in the armed forces; and thirdly, we have an obligation to society as a whole. The US experience suggests that there is something we can do. It is unusual in such a situation to find that we have concrete levers that might be able to improve our relationship to reoffending.

There already exists enormous expertise, for example in the Howard League for Penal Reform, Combat Stress and the Royal British Legion, and in the work that has been done by all the forces charities—29 different forces charities are currently working on the issue. There is also deep expertise in our universities. For example, King’s College London has done an enormous amount of work on some of the trauma elements, and in the past 24 hours I have been contacted by seven doctoral students doing theses on these issues. I hope not to try to reinvent the wheel, but to learn an enormous amount, including from Opposition Members, to make this as much of a cross-party enterprise as possible and to bring in the expertise that is here.

[Rory Stewart]

That is a very important intervention. First, essentially we need to be looking at the base data. We need to understand what exactly is happening because, as hon. Members have pointed out, we do not yet have enough data on that. Secondly, we need to look at the causes of the incidence of offending and reoffending by people who have formerly been in the armed forces. Thirdly, we need to look at our response. In doing that, we need to be absolutely sure that we are not stigmatising. We must make it absolutely clear that we are not trying somehow to portray people who have been in the armed forces as more likely to offend. In fact, a lot of the data suggest that they might be less likely to offend than those from similar socio-economic backgrounds. We need to get that clear. It is important in terms of the recruitment and employability of people leaving the armed forces.

On the specific issue of causes, most of the research, according to my preliminary reading, suggests that the hon. Lady is absolutely right that there are different elements, one of which may be experiences before people join the military. For example, people who join the infantry tend, comparatively, to come from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. A second element is experiences in the military, such as combat stress, and another is that raised by the hon. Lady, namely the question of what happens when individuals leave the military and go from what for many of them may be a very fulfilling institutional framework in which they feel a strong amount of team work and esprit de corps, to suddenly finding themselves in an environment in which perhaps less support exists.

That said, people coming out of the armed forces already benefit enormously from the forces charities and even from individual regimental associations, so we should not underestimate the amount of support that exists or try to reinvent the wheel.

[Oliver Colvile]

rose—

[Rory Stewart]

I will give way for a final time.

[Oliver Colvile]

Will my hon. Friend also recognise that in the United States of America all veterans are given a mobile phone when they leave the military and receive a couple of telephone calls during the following six months to a year, which means that there is permanent contact?

[Rory Stewart]

That is a good point on which to conclude.

Mental Health (Police Procedures)

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this important debate under your chairmanship, Mr Brady.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). The three of us came together to secure this debate. I also speak in my capacity as chairman of the all-party group on mental health.

As the hon. Member for Bridgend said, the police are often on the front line in dealing with people who are suffering a mental health crisis. As she mentioned, it is estimated that up to 40% of police activity is related to mental health issues. In my region of the west midlands, West Midlands police estimates that 20% of all incidents that it deals with involve individuals with mental health problems.

Police officers are often asked to deal with complex and challenging situations on the ground. As the hon. Lady pointed out, they have specific powers under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, and it might be worth dwelling on that section’s specific wording:

“If a constable finds in a place to which the public have access a person who appears to him to be suffering from mental disorder and to be in immediate need of care or control, the constable may, if he thinks it necessary to do so in the interests of that person or for the protection of other persons, remove that person to a place of safety within the meaning of section 135 above.”

The latest figures show that some 21,814 people were detained using section 136 powers last year. As the Royal College of Psychiatrists has pointed out—the hon. Lady mentioned this—far too many of those individuals are still detained in police custody suites. The Royal College of Psychiatrists talks about 36% of those people being detained in police cells, which are essentially a proxy for a health care place of safety.

There were 15 deaths in police custody last year, of which seven could be attributed to, or were related to, specific mental health concerns. A number of the deaths followed the use of the police’s section 136 powers. A number of the deaths are currently being investigated.

Section 136 is part of the 1983 Act, which built on the Mental Health Act 1959. In 1959, there were still a considerable number of asylums in Britain; the whole complexion of our approach to mental health care was completely different from today’s. Thankfully, we do not have asylums and we are making huge efforts to treat people in appropriate settings and in the community.

The reason for section 136 is essentially to give the police powers when someone has absconded from an asylum-based setting. There is a strong argument, which I put to the Minister, that we should consider reviewing the section 136 power in the context of how we approach the treatment of crisis care in mental-health settings in the 21st century. I am not saying that the police should not have the power, in certain circumstances, to detain people, but we should have a full review of how that power is used.

The relationship raises a number of important issues, not just about how the police are using the power but about how they interact with the health service when dealing with people detained under section 136. As the hon. Lady said, we should work towards ensuring that places of safety are located in appropriate health care settings.

As the hon. Lady also said, we must ensure that the police have adequate training to deal with the often difficult and challenging situations that they face. However we reform the system, there will always be circumstances in which the police have to deal with people suffering from severe mental anguish and difficulty. The police need the appropriate intensive training necessary to deal with such difficult and challenging circumstances, but it is also true that other agencies and public bodies, such as the national health service and the ambulance service, have a responsibility to work with the police. We must ensure that all those agencies are working in alignment.

In the west midlands, for example, West Midlands police has developed a good working relationship with the West Midlands ambulance service such that, when West Midlands police is dealing with people suffering from severe mental issues under section 136, an ambulance, rather than a police car, should take that person to a place of safety, thereby not creating the context of criminalisation. There is a good working relationship in my area, but I know there are many examples across the country of where that is not the case and of where there are barriers that prevent such important co-ordinated working, which supports people who are suffering from severe mental health crisis.

Michael Brown is a particularly interesting police inspector in the west midlands; he tweets under the name MentalHealthCop. He has been writing on his award-winning blog about some of the police’s difficulties when interacting with the national health service and about some of the blockages in the system. As the hon. Lady pointed out, one of those difficulties is often the reluctance of local NHS staff, particularly in A and E, to play a role in the section 136 pathway, if I may use that phrase. Staff are reluctant to take responsibility, and there are often confused lines of responsibility between the police and the NHS about who will take responsibility for the care of an individual.

The hon. Lady alluded to the assumption in certain parts of the NHS that the most clinically complex patients, who are often suffering from a mental health problem related to the overuse of drugs and alcohol, should somehow be left in a police cell until they sober up or recover. That situation is not acceptable in any circumstances—no one suffering from a complex mental health condition should normally be placed in police cells.

Police cells are simply not the right environment for such people to end up in. I am not saying that there are no circumstances in which such a person should be held in police cells—there may be particular circumstances in which they should—but we should move to a situation in which we do not, in a civilised and compassionate society, house people in police cells when they are suffering some of the most desperate moments in their life.

Like the hon. Lady, I welcome the street triage pilots that the Government have been running across the country. Police and community psychiatric nurses are working together to resolve issues on the ground, and I look forward to the Minister’s view on how those pilots have been working and when we can expect a coherent evaluation of their success. We need to move quickly to roll out those pilots across the country.

There is a broader point on our approach to mental health crisis care in general. This is ongoing work about which many Members are concerned, but we must ensure that there is better integration between the health service, the police and local crisis care teams, often with the involvement of social services. I understand that the Government are working on a crisis care concordat, which will outline the roles and responsibilities of all agencies in relation to crisis care. One way of reducing the police’s use of section 136 is to ensure that we have a coherent and integrated approach to dealing with mental health crisis care in Britain. We need to tackle the problem head on. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has said that we

“need to focus on reducing the need for section 136 by ensuring that patients, their families have ready access to appropriate and timely crisis care.”

I want to dwell for a moment on the role of police and crime commissioners. Although they have come in for some criticism, some incredibly good work has been done on this issue by PCCs over the past few months. In Staffordshire, the PCC has been able to take a strategic view of the relationship between the police and local health services and has put in place processes to start tackling the problems.

We need suitably staffed hospital-based places of safety. That is an absolutely critical and crucial part of the picture. A police station should be used in exceptional circumstances only. I ask the Minister to consider reviewing the section 136 powers and updating the definition of an appropriate place of safety, which is set out in the 1983 Act.

I want to mention a particular case that is tangentially related to today’s debate and illustrates the importance of all agencies—police, probation, social services and prisons—in dealing with mental health. Members may remember the tragic case of Christina Edkins, who was brutally killed on her way to school from Birmingham to Halesowen earlier this year. It was a particularly tragic and brutal killing, which shocked the whole community in my constituency.

It turns out that the killer, Phillip Simelane, who had been in prison several times and had a history of disturbed and violent behaviour, had been given a psychiatric assessment in prison. That assessment had raised some serious issues about his mental condition, but, following a breakdown in the process, when Simelane was released from prison he somehow got lost in the system. The relationship between mental health services—I think it was the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust—police, probation and social services was not close enough and Simelane was lost to the system. That loss resulted in an absolute tragedy for a totally innocent young girl on her way to school.

I raise that case in the context of this debate only because the importance of all those who deal with people with severe mental heath issues can be seen in the story. The consequences of failure can be devastating for individuals and families. Each agency has an absolute responsibility to ensure that we avoid such tragedies, which can have a devastating impact on communities.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that this is about not only the police and the national health service, but the courts? Better training must be available to the courts, so that they are better able to deal with such issues.

[James Morris]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Mental health training and awareness need to exist throughout the criminal justice system, because, although I am not going to discuss this in my speech, I think that victims of crime have disproportionate levels of mental health problems and other issues.

In a compassionate and civilised society, we owe it to the most vulnerable and those suffering from acute mental distress, anguish and confusion, who get picked up by the police and are subject to section 136, to treat them with the dignity they deserve at a time when they may be experiencing some of the most difficult situations of their lives. It is incumbent on the police, mental health services, social workers and the Government to be responsible for ensuring that we achieve that goal of health-based places of safety where people can be treated in a compassionate and civilised way and can get back on a path to recovery. It is incumbent on us all to work together, both in government and in local communities, to ensure that that happens.

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[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I welcome the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship in this debate, Mr Brady, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who I am delighted to count as a friend, although she is unfortunately an Opposition Member, and my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris). I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), and I pay tribute to him for his work as a Health Minister.

Let me put what I want to talk about in a little context. As I think most Members know, I am Member of Parliament for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. My constituency contains a naval garrison that is the base for 3 Commando Brigade, Royal Marines, as well as a base for the Royal Navy. Members may be interested to know that Charles Cross police station, in Plymouth city centre, is the busiest police station in the whole of England, so I do quite a bit of work with the police station and go to talk to the police there.

The reason for how busy the station is may well be the size of its catchment area—it goes over to Tavistock and also to Torpoint and Saltash—or it may be because Plymouth is a military garrison city, as there are certainly significant cultural issues that go with that. We also have more licensed premises in Plymouth than there are in the whole of Liverpool—in fact, it is nearly double the number. There are several really big issues crowding in on the police in Plymouth. I pay real tribute to the police officers who work at the custody suite in the Charles Cross police station, who find themselves under a fair amount of pressure.

My right hon. Friend the Minister will find a number of themes going through the debate today, reflecting the great concerns we have across the House on this issue. Since the previous time we discussed this matter, real progress has been made and I pay tribute to him and his colleagues, including those in the Department of Health, for that progress.

The last time I talked in a debate on a similar subject, I told the story of a 17-year-old girl who was highly autistic, and who had kicked off, for reasons of mental ill health, in one of the retail centres in my constituency. She was taken to Charles Cross police station. I have to say that the police found the situation very difficult, and were rather challenged by what happened. I want to talk a little about what we can try to do about that sort of situation. When the girl’s mother arrived to pick up her child and help her, she found that the girl was banging her head against a wall and having real difficulty with the situation she was in. To my mind, that shows that we need to make sure not only that there is better training for our police but, much more importantly, that community health nurses are located in our police stations, to help the police identify situations such as that one.

Since I last spoke on the issue, Glenbourne unit, up at Derriford hospital in my constituency, has been refitted and reopened. I am delighted that that work has happened and that there is now much better co-ordination across the divide. However, the story I have told is not unique. I suspect that it happens in every single town and city up and down the country. Local progress has been made, but we have further to go.

I want to make another brief point. Plymouth is a naval military city, so we need to ensure that we have a much better understanding of how military veterans are treated. They have been through some pretty difficult times in Afghanistan and Iraq. My right hon. Friend the Minister will know that I have been pressing him to consider the use of military courts, not to put veterans in front of a court martial or anything like that—they have of course retired from the military—but because we need to act with much more sympathy when dealing with veterans who find themselves in the justice system.

I learned about that matter when I went to the United States of America with the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. There we saw at first hand how the US deals with veterans. There is a specific Department of Veterans Affairs, which is able to assess people and keep in much closer touch with them. The Department gives all veterans a mobile telephone, so it can ring them up at least two or three times during the course of the year to make sure that they are getting on well. The US also has specific courts for veterans that are staffed by people who have military experience. I urge my right hon. Friend to consider whether, in a similar way, we could use those of our magistrates who have experience in the military and will have much better understanding of what can happen to veterans. We visited a court in Little Rock, Arkansas, that has been highly successful and has found that veterans do not reoffend once they have been through that process. There are mechanisms in place in the US to ensure that veterans are looked after.

My final point is that we need places of refuge and safety. In my constituency, there is a brilliant organisation called Twelves Company—if my right hon. Friend is interested, I would be very willing to bring up members of that organisation to have a conversation with him—that deals with sexual health. One of my constituents was raped by her husband and had real mental health problems; I hope that I played a small role for her by taking her to see Twelves Company. Since then I have not noticed her tweeting quite so much on the issue, so I hope some balance has been found for her and that we have helped her.

I call for a more joined-up approach to this matter. We need to ensure that the police have alternatives signposted to them, and that the health services and the courts and justice system recognise that mental health is an issue to consider. Frankly, it is not rocket science, it is mental health.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on one of the big design challenges with which we have had to wrestle in designing this system. It is, of course, important that those providing rehabilitation services should be rewarded for a complete stop in someone’s offending. That is what the public are looking for here. However, we also want to make sure that there are no perverse incentives and that providers will continue to work with those who are difficult to manage and those whose lives are difficult to turn around. We will have a mechanism for payment by results that reflects not just a binary “did they stop offending altogether or did they not” measurement, but one of progress in respect of the number of times someone offends. By combining those two, we think we will get to the right measurement.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

5. What plans he has to assist ex-offenders into employment.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

8. What plans he has to assist ex-offenders into employment.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

We have already ensured that prison leavers aged over 18 who claim jobseeker’s allowance on release or shortly afterwards are referred to the Work programme immediately. We have also introduced work in prisons on a much larger scale than before, providing offenders with the real work experiences. Our transforming rehabilitation reforms will see new rehabilitation providers working to tackle the root causes of offending by using innovative approaches such as mentoring and by helping ex-offenders to find housing, training and employment.

[Oliver Colvile]

Will my hon. Friend tell me what happens to those offenders who are foreign nationals once they have completed their period in prison? Do we deport them and, if not, why not?

[Jeremy Wright]

We most certainly do seek to deport foreign national offenders, and my hon. Friend will be encouraged to learn that 4,500 or so were deported during the last year for which we have figures. However, we also think it important to remove such offenders while they are still serving their sentences if that is possible, which is why we seek to negotiate compulsory prisoner transfer agreements such as the one that we signed with Albania in January. We are working towards a similar arrangement with Nigeria. We want offenders to leave our shores, during the currency of their sentences if possible but otherwise immediately thereafter, because the right place for foreign criminals is not in our country but back in their own.