HMP Birmingham

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Clearly, there are issues across our prison estate. There is not sufficient time out of cell, and that is one of the things we are going to be measuring in our new reform measures. We also do not have sufficient staff to be able to keep our prisons safe and reform offenders, which is what we need to do.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

It took three written parliamentary questions from me to get the Government to confess that only one prison in Britain was free of illegal drug use. It took a fourth question to get the information that that prison had no prisoners because it had closed down. This is symptomatic of the Government being in denial of the corruption and chaos in our prison service. Have not the Government’s policies for the past six years been, like the Minister’s statement today, evidence-free and ignorance-rich?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his assiduousness in asking parliamentary questions, which have elicited an answer. If he reads the “Prison safety and reform” White Paper, he will see there is a whole section on how we deal with the issue of drugs: testing offenders on entry and exit, and making sure that governors are held accountable for getting people off drugs. That is the way we are going to crack this problem.