Prison Safety and Security

Debate between Richard Arkless and Lord Hanson of Flint

Thursday 1st December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hanson]

The Minister heard me say that I welcomed the additional resource, but if the Government cut 7,000 prison officers over six years and only decide to put something in urgently once the estate starts to creak —all the indicators that I mentioned are now heading in the wrong direction—in a sense, that is backtracking on a problem of the Government’s own making. However, I am saying to the Minister, “Let’s put that to one side.” He has some aspirations, and I am trying to tease out from him what the beef is so that he can build on them.

Some things are costly and cost-effective. Simple things can be done in the prison estate to help support the aspiration of the Secretary of State. We cannot address the issue of reoffending if we do not address the levels of violence or the safety issues that exist in our prisons. For example, what assessment will the Minister make of the lock-up regime, in particular in those prisons with serious levels of violence? If prisoners are locked up for 23 or 24 hours a day, of course they will face frustrations. What if no elements of support are in place for training, employment or drug rehabilitation, or if prisoners are not out of their cells doing things that might punish them, because they are in prison, but help with their reform so that when they leave prison they are in a better place? If such things are not in place, the Minister will again have a kettle that is boiling furiously. That shows the difficulties we face.

[Richard Arkless (Dumfries and Galloway) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a characteristically powerful speech. Does this not cut to the heart of the issue? If a substantial proportion of the prison population is locked up for 22 or 23 hours a day, prisoners’ frustration and the decimation of the relationship with the officers will be causing the tension. The officers are powerless to stop that, and it is directly triggering the increase in violent disorders.

[Mr Hanson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman—or my hon. Friend as I will call him—for his support of that particular assertion of mine, but it is one factor in a range of factors. Fewer officers are dealing with frustrated prisoners who have more and more challenging needs because of drug abuse and mental health problems and cannot participate in any important training, support or even recreation. That is part of the pressure cooker that is the Prison Service.

What strategy does the Minister have for looking at safer custody issues, the risk assessment changes or the prisoners coming in? When I was Minister, I regularly chaired a safer custody group. I do not know whether the Minister does that. Will he tell us whether he does, and if he does not, why? He should focus on what we can do to make custody safer. What assessment has he made of the pressures created by gangs in prisons? Such gangs cause difficulties, which prison officers, given their smaller number, are finding it more difficult to deal with. What innovations will he introduce to tackle prisoners’ mental health problems? We have an ageing prisoner population because of historical sex offences. What impact is that having on the care given by prison officers? Are they unable to deal with other types of prisoner because they have to invest more in that cohort of older prisoners? What assessment has he made of prisoners with sentences of imprisonment for public protection, whom we have talked about? Everyone agrees that those prisoners need to be released if they are over tariff and able to be released into society, but the assessment of support for them is not being carried out to the extent that we want it to be, so there is an element of frustration there as well.

All those things are in a difficult and challenging pot. Prison is never an easy place for the people who are in it, the people who work in it or the people who have policy responsibilities for it, but I want the Minister to put some more meat on the White Paper. I want more discussion—a discourse—with him and I want him to explain where he is heading. The Harris review made wide-ranging and simple recommendations, but the Government have accepted only 29 of those. Will the Minister revisit some of those recommendations to see whether they would help reduce the pressure on prison populations?

Finally—I have had a good run at the time available—as the Minister knows, there are measures that could be taken to help address the problems in prisons but that would be difficult to manage politically. If overcrowding is part of the problem of violence and stress in prisons, there are groups of people that we could look at removing from prison or sentencing to less time in prison. This is not an attack on the Government, who have indicated that they want to look at reducing the number of prison sentences of less than 12 months. There is no point sending someone to prison for 14 days or 30 days when they will come out and find their whole life in a skip in the centre of London, Birmingham or Newcastle; they will reoffend. There is no point giving many of the women my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston is particularly concerned about short prison sentences for not paying their television licences, or for offences linked to their lifestyle, perhaps involving drugs or prostitution, which could be tackled with a firm community sentence. The Lord Chief Justice told the Justice Committee as much last week.

There is a whole cohort of foreign national prisoners, which we talked about on Tuesday. In my experience, ministerial drive is needed to secure the removal of certain foreign national prisoners from the UK to their home nations, so which countries is the Minister focusing on? What efforts is he making to secure the transfer of such prisoners? Every prisoner who goes out to a foreign country leaves a space and allows pressure to be taken off the UK system.

I hope I have not rambled too much. The Minister’s role is difficult and challenging, but every indicator is going in the wrong direction. The Government have responded in part—they have set a series of aspirations. My purpose in securing this debate was to give the Minister a chance to flesh out those aspirations and allow other hon. Members to hold the Minister to account and ask him what he is going to do in the next 12 to 15 months, so that we can see whether there is going to be a change. I say to him in a non-threatening way that if, despite the actions he takes, the indicators continue to go in the wrong direction, the House will hold him and the Secretary of State to account for the actions that they could, should and must take to alleviate those pressures.

Prisoners and people who work in prisons have a right to safety, and the public whom we all represent have a right to see the people who leave prison after their sentences—I remind hon. Members that that is ultimately most prisoners—return to society in a way that does not lead to further reoffending and prison sentences.