Wellingborough Prison Site

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss the proposed sale of the Wellingborough prison site and for being granted this Adjournment debate so early on by Mr Speaker. I am pleased to be joined by my hon. Friends the Members for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). I thank Eliza Richardson, my researcher, for all her efforts in preparing this speech and for the extra hours she has put in.

I thank the prisons Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), for taking the time to be present this evening. As was said recently in the House of Commons, and as was endorsed by the Secretary of State for Justice,

“we have a most excellent prisons Minister who has many superb qualities… One of the best of his qualities is that when he has made a decision and new facts are put to him, he has the courage to reconsider and change his decision.”—[Official Report, 12 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 799.]

I agree totally with that endorsement.

I shall start by talking about the sorry history of how we have got to this situation. When the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) was Secretary of State for Justice, he had the kindness and respect for Parliament to phone me from Downing street one day at 6 am to state that Wellingborough prison was going to be put out for market testing and that he would be making a statement in the House of Commons later that day. He answered my questions privately and I was in a position to ask a sensible question when he made his statement.

I worked with prison officers, management and members of the public to improve Wellingborough prison and to put in an excellent public sector bid. I would particularly praise the prison officers for going against union advice and co-operating with the project. Wellingborough was so improved that it was the third-cheapest prison in the country and the Ministry of Justice decided not to privatise it. So all was well; the prison operated efficiently and with the support of the local community.

But then, without warning, on 17 July 2012, the last sitting day of Parliament before the summer recess, the then Secretary of State for Justice announced the proposed closure of Wellingborough prison. I was given no warning of the decision and found out about it only during a live BBC radio interview. In my opinion, that was a totally unacceptable divergence from parliamentary protocol and utterly disrespectful to me as a local Member of Parliament, but more importantly it was disrespectful to my constituents.

I immediately applied for an emergency debate under Standing Order No. 24. In turning down my request, Mr Speaker made it clear that it would not be possible to grant it as the House was going into recess the next day. The then Secretary of State kindly wrote me a handwritten letter apologising for what had happened and saying that it should never have occurred. That was followed by a debate in Westminster Hall on 5 September 2012—I think it was the prisons Minister’s first debate—in which I made clear my displeasure at the appalling handling of the situation. He said:

“The way in which he heard about the announcement of the closure is, as he said, profoundly unacceptable. It should not have happened, and I apologise to him for that.”—[Official Report, 5 September 2012; Vol. 549, c. 125WH.]

He was also kind enough to visit the prison and see its potential for growth.

I also presented a petition on 4 September 2012 from many residents of Wellingborough and the surrounding area against the closure of the prison. On 13 March 2013, a press notice from the Cabinet Office announced that HMP Wellingborough had been sold, but after an emergency question the prisons Minister said the site had not been sold and that it had been a clerical error. There were also a number of private meetings with him and the Secretary of State.

Given this history, one would have thought that the Ministry of Justice would be extremely sensitive about making any changes to the Wellingborough prison site without contacting and discussing the matter with me, the local MP. One would have thought there would be huge red flags on both the file and computers saying, “Make sure the local MP knows what’s happening”. That makes the events of the last few weeks completely baffling.

On 3 September, I wrote to the prisons Minister requesting a meeting. I was going to bring along a local prison officer who had some radical ideas on how Wellingborough prison could be reopened. Apparently, that letter was lost in transit. In any event, I received no reply. Next, the Minister told me privately that he was writing to me to say the site of Wellingborough prison was to be sold. At the beginning of November, I received that letter, which was short and gave no indication of why the site was surplus to requirements.

So yet again a decision about Wellingborough prison had been taken without consulting the local Member of Parliament. If the Department was considering selling the site, it should have discussed it with me in private so that at least I could have put my concerns and those of my constituents before a decision was reached. It is also unacceptable that this was done at a time when a request for a meeting was outstanding. In my view, this was yet again disrespectful not only to me, but to Parliament and my constituents.

Tonight’s debate is not a party political matter, but one that directly affects the lives of many of my constituents. However, it is a debate about something that has national consequences. I will be arguing strongly for the Secretary of State for Justice’s policy on prisons. He recently said:

“My intention is to have more adult male prison capacity available than we had in 2010 but at a much lower unit and overall cost. Our strategy for achieving this is to replace accommodation which is old, inefficient or has limited long-term strategic value with cheaper modern capacity which is designed to better meet the demand for prison places and supports our aim to drive down stubbornly high reoffending rates.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 22WS.]

I could not agree with that policy more: keep open and develop low-cost prisons and close expensive, Victorian prisons. What a splendid policy—one that any Conservative should be able to support, and a significant shift from the previous Secretary of State, whose policy seemed to be: “Close prisons and let’s hope the prison population falls.”

As the Member of Parliament for Wellingborough, I could not be happier, as Wellingborough has the third cheapest prison in the country and the second cheapest in its category. Official Ministry of Justice figures show that the cost of a prison place in 2011-12 at Wellingborough was £17,894—the second cheapest out of all male category C prisons. Not only that, but the prison has significant room for expansion, a local population that supports it and a council that wants to encourage its development. It has a superb location as an overspill prison from London, yet is an easy location for people from the rest of the country to reach. Wellingborough prison absolutely fits the Government’s policy. Terrific: another success story for the Conservative-led coalition. Er, well, no, I am afraid not. Instead of developing Wellingborough prison, the Justice Department first closes it and then, this month, decides to sell it. It flies completely in the face of the Department’s stated policy.

Wellingborough prison lies midway between Bedford and Leicester prisons, 22 miles from Bedford and 45 miles from Leicester. The cost of a prison place in Bedford is £33,679 per person, while in Leicester it is £41,855. Let us compare that with the cost in Wellingborough, at £17,894. It does not take a rocket scientist to say that we should close Bedford and Leicester prisons and keep Wellingborough open. That is what should happen, if the Government policy was implemented. After all, the Secretary of State said we should

“replace accommodation which is old, inefficient…with cheaper modern capacity”.—[Official Report, 10 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 22WS.]

I do not understand why the prisons Minister does not want to support the Secretary of State in implementing this sensible Government policy—it is surely in his career interests to do so, if for no other reason.

We will hear the argument tonight that Wellingborough prison is somehow located in the east midlands, where there is no shortage of prison places, and miles from London, where there is a huge lack of prison capacity. When that was suggested to me, I am sure I saw a fleet of flying pigs doing somersaults and belly laughing. Wellingborough prison has for a long time been an overflow prison for London. It is located 50 minutes from central London by train and has superb road links from the M1. However, it is just over an arbitrary line drawn by the Prison Service to say that it is in the east midlands. Wellingborough looks to London and is the ideal location to take surplus London prisoners.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend not only on securing this debate but on the way he is delivering his excellent speech. I do not think any Member of Parliament could have mounted a better campaign in defence of their local prison than he has. I can confirm exactly what he has just said about the population of the prison largely coming from London. When I visited Wellingborough prison, it was fairly obvious that most of the inmates were from London, and many of his constituents will work in London. Wellingborough is only 70 miles from London, and if anyone goes down the high street in Wellingborough and says, “Where do you live?”, they will be told, “Wellingborough.” People will not say, “The east midlands”.

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention and his support. He is absolutely right: this “east midlands” thing in Wellingborough is a sort of invention.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on making a good speech. He will know that in my Daventry constituency, we have two prisons: Onley and Rye Hill. If we were to draw a line from London as the crow flies, both would be further away than Wellingborough prison, and they, too, are pretty much full of prisoners who originate from the London region.

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning that, which is an issue I shall develop a little later in my speech.

Wellingborough prison also has the huge advantage of being a very cheap area in which to build and develop. If that were not enough, the Wellingborough prison site has a massive amount of land for development, a proposed new road link to the A45, a community that supports and wants the prison, a council that is keen to see the prison develop and many prison officers living just minutes from the site.

In addition, there is another difficulty for the Ministry of Justice in trying to sell the site. If the sale of land were to go ahead, there would be serious questions about whether the Government would remain financially responsible for the prison-owned sewerage system on the site, which is used by the local housing estate. We could end up having to fork out more money for a site of which we are not even making use. I cannot see how that is cost-effective on any level. Much more than that, most of the prison is very modern and has, in fact, won prizes for its design. In the five-year period from 2004-05, an incredible £22.4 million was spent on the prison—all to be thrown away if the site is to be sold.

Clearly, we have a golden opportunity to knock down the 1960s old prison blocks, to extend the existing modern blocks and facilities and to build new blocks within the existing boundaries. We should then implement new prison operational procedures, mix both state and private employees on the same site, allow prison officers to do the essential running of the prison, while allowing private contractors to carry out other functions. We would then have the cheapest prison in the country per prisoner place and a model new prison, which could be the basis for the rest of the prison estate and provide additional overflow capacity for London.

[Mr Hollobone]

Would my hon. Friend advise us on how many prisoners there were in Wellingborough prison?

[Mr Bone]

At the time, it had a capacity of 600, of which the overwhelming majority were from London.

[Mr Hollobone]

What, then, is my hon. Friend’s understanding of the extra investment that the Ministry said it needed to bring the prison up to what it regards as modern standards?

[Mr Bone]

That is a very good question. The figure of £50 million has been bandied around; I always think that when something is around the sum of £50 million, it cannot really be based on anything. That was for revamping the existing prison, but I am arguing for something different. I say we should knock down the old bit, which is the minority of the prison, and build new blocks to make a much bigger, cheaper prison, with a capacity of more like 1,000 prisoners.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am very interested to hear my hon. Friend’s answers. Earlier today, in the statement from the Secretary of State for Wales, it was confirmed that the Ministry of Justice is about to build a new prison in Wales for 1,000 prisoners at a capital cost of £250 million. My hon. Friend is telling us tonight, however, that the Government could have provided modern accommodation for 600 prisoners at a fraction of that cost.

[Mr Bone]

I thank my hon. Friend again. I would argue even further that for that investment, we could actually get 1,000 prisoners accommodated. Let me correct my hon. Friend on one issue, because I believe that the proposed prison in Wrexham is going to be for 2,000 prisoners. I shall comment on that later in my speech.

Just for a moment, let us look at the London problem. The Ministry of Justice’s own figures say that it needs 18,000 prison places and has capacity for 11,000. The prisons Minister will say that he is going to build a 2,500-place prison at Feltham. Well, even if that is possible, there will still be a shortage of 4,500 prison places. The prisons Minister may say that he is going to extend other London prisons, but—hand on heart—he knows that thousands of prisoners from London will have to be imprisoned outside London. That is why the Wellingborough solution is such a sensible option. I hope that some of the extremely expensive Victorian London prisons will be closed, because that would make Wellingborough even more important.

The Minister may have been sold the idea of super-duper prisons with places for 2,500 prisoners. That may be the whizz-bang new policy at the moment, but I believe that the strategy involves a great deal of risk. I think that there will be considerable management diseconomies of scale which would make such huge establishments exceptionally difficult to run. I also think it extremely unlikely that they would be opened on time. Indeed, I think that there would be much opposition to them, and that they might never be built.

My argument, in a nutshell, is that Wellingborough prison is the right size for future development because of its location, because expanding it would be cheap, and because its running costs are very low. The Minister may say that his other plans render it surplus to requirements, but can he be sure of that? I do not think that he can, and I suggest that the prison site should remain on the Ministry of Justice estate for at least another 12 months. If by then the Minister is sure that all his plans are working and there is no need for the site to be retained, then let him go ahead and sell it; but if, as I believe, there are likely to be significant problems, let us look again at the possibility of opening and expanding Wellingborough.

In short, keeping the Wellingborough option open is simply a sensible insurance policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

It is our conclusion that it is best to separate the building and the running of a prison. That gives us more options when we consider the contracts for the running of the prison. I can assure my hon. Friend, however, that private sector bids will certainly be actively considered for the building of the prison, which is the first decision that we will take. We will then mount a separate competition for the running of the prison and I can again assure him that we will consider carefully all the bids that we receive.

Let me return to the issue of Wellingborough as an alternative London prison. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough has said that large numbers of London prisoners find themselves in Wellingborough. Indeed, they also find themselves in Onley and in other prisons. That is due to the significant deficit of prison places in the London area for London prisoners. As he knows, I firmly believe that the best solution to the shortage of places in London is to build a new prison in London. That is why we are considering the development of the Feltham site.

My hon. Friend is correct, however, to say that we need alternatives to the Feltham site, and we have other potential locations that fall within the designated site search area. Unfortunately for Wellingborough, that designated area does not stretch into Northamptonshire. It is my expectation that we will find a suitable location for a new London prison on one of these sites.

My hon. Friend’s advocacy and passion, with which you are well familiar, Mr Speaker, command respect. He has asked me to look again specifically at the alternative sites that may be considered for a new London prison. He knows of my scepticism that Wellingborough could be the right candidate for that role, and I make absolutely no promises about the outcome of that further consideration, nor do I undertake to postpone the disposal of the site for as long as 12 months. However, in view of the fact that our conversation on this matter took place only this morning, I will take time to consider properly what he has said before making a final disposal of the Wellingborough site.

As my hon. Friend knows, however, we cannot hold on to the site indefinitely. The level of security, utilities and maintenance has been reduced to one appropriate for a site that has been closed, but it does not come cheap, none the less. We estimate that about £237,000 will be spent in this financial year on holding costs alone. It is therefore in the taxpayer’s best interest to avoid unnecessary holding costs and to seek to dispose of the site expeditiously, in accordance with central Government guidelines governing the disposal of surplus property assets.

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful to the Minister for doing what I said he might consider doing right at the beginning, and the Secretary of State was right to say that when there are new facts, the situation will be looked at again—I very much appreciate it. I have one thing I wish to take up with the Minister. He rightly talks of a number of prison closures, but they have been undertaken under the new Secretary of State for very sound reasons. I believe that Wellingborough’s closure was done under the old Secretary of State, when we did not have the policy in place that we now have.

[Jeremy Wright]

I would say two things on that to my hon. Friend. First, he must always remember to complete his quotes. When the Secretary of State did endorse his generous assessment of me, he also said, equally generously, that I was prepared to follow through on difficult decisions where I believe them to be in the national interest— I hope he is right about that, too.

The second point relates to the closure of Wellingborough prison and the comparison with other prisons. My hon. Friend knows my view, and I do not think we are ever likely to agree on this. Having looked again at that decision, I believe it was the right decision to close Wellingborough prison in the circumstances. We are now considering a different question: what to do with the site and what prospects it may have for future use. I repeat that he knows where my scepticism lies, but he asked me to consider the matter again, specifically whether Wellingborough might form a suitable site for another London prison. I said to him this morning, and I am happy to repeat it, that he may have some task persuading me that it is better to build a London prison in Northamptonshire than in London.

[Mr Bone]

rose—

[Jeremy Wright]

I have provoked my hon. Friend again, and I am happy to give way.

[Mr Bone]

This afternoon, I had the fun of looking up the travel times to Feltham and to Wellingborough, and I found that there was not a lot of difference.

[Jeremy Wright]

I am not sure what method of travel my hon. Friend was looking at. As I have explained to him, there are a number of factors to consider: the transfer time between the relevant prison site and the local courts it would serve; and the relevant travel time for those who may be visiting inmates at the prison. Given that the majority of prisoners we would be looking to accommodate will come from the London area, it, again, seems logical that where we can, we look at a site within the London area. I say again to my hon. Friend that given what he has said to me, I think it only right that I should take the opportunity to look at this matter again, and I will do so.