Prison Safety and Reform

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I commend my hon. Friend for the work he did as prisons Minister in promoting employment. I have seen some excellent schemes in prison. For example, Costa Coffee is offering jobs and training people as baristas, and I have mentioned Land Securities looking for scaffolding and dry-lining workers and training them in prison. I completely agree with my hon. Friend that rather than doing work in prisons and then seeing what jobs are available on the outside, we need to look the opposite way round; we need to see what is available on the outside and make sure those are the skills we are training up in prisons, preferably with the employers who are then going to take those offenders on.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Lady have a word with the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) in order to reduce her naive optimism and to recall that no party in the last 45 years has reduced recidivism? On this Government’s watch, a recent report said the number of prisoners who first took drugs in, for example, Bedford jail had risen from 4% to 14%, meaning people were going in as shoplifters and coming out as heroin addicts. What is she going to do about that?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely reject the hon. Gentleman’s counsel of despair. This is the first time we will ever be putting it in statute that reform is the purpose of prisons. At the moment the Secretary of State is merely responsible for housing prisoners, not making sure we improve outcomes. We have not had that systematic approach and I am determined we achieve it.