Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report

Debate between Rory Stewart and Ed Davey

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I am happy to continue to update the House on progress. The Worboys case taught us some important lessons about pre-sentence reports and connections between the Ministry of Justice and the Parole Board, and we are conducting an extensive review of that. It is important to remind the House that in the most extreme cases—MAPPA 3 cases—we have very significant protections in place for the public. I can hold forth on that in more detail if Members want to talk about the protection arrangements.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

This report is littered with shocking findings. One of the most shocking is when the inspector writes:

“in 40 per cent of cases there had been no work focused on reducing the risk of sexual offending at all”.

How has that been allowed to happen? When will we have the trained staff to put it right? This is a matter of urgency.

[Rory Stewart]

The specific issue there is around the provision of accredited programmes, and there are two problems. The first is that accredited programmes are not suitable for all sex offenders. At the moment, we do not have programmes that are able to reduce the risk of reoffending significantly. In fact, some of the past sex offender treatment programmes can increase rather than decrease the chance of reoffending if they are delivered to the wrong type of sex offender. We have to distinguish between lower risk and higher risk sex offenders and ensure that we are delivering programmes in the right way. The Horizon and Kaizen programmes, which we have rolled out, are key to that, but they are not the key for everyone. I agree that we can do more to assess and to record, but I politely disagree with the inspector’s implication that we should attempt to deliver accredited programmes to 100% of these cases.

HMP Birmingham

Debate between Rory Stewart and Ed Davey

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

Without getting dragged into an ideological discussion about public versus private, hopefully both sides of the House can agree that, if we are to have privatised systems, the best way for them to operate is by having the right degree of Government regulation and intervention when things go wrong. Whether we are talking about water, utilities or, indeed, prisons, we cannot have a system in which the Government do not have a clear grip. I hope stepping in at Birmingham demonstrates that the Government are prepared to do that when we reach this situation.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

The Minister has rightly decided to solve the shocking problems at HMP Birmingham by reducing its prison population and increasing staff numbers. I congratulate him on this radical policy and on the huge brain power that must have gone into this ingenious solution. When will the rest of Britain’s crisis prisons benefit from more staff and reduced overcrowding?

[Rory Stewart]

The rebuke is taken; of course it is true that, as with any institution, it is easier to run this with more staff and fewer people. But the answer in practice is that we take this remedy to stabilise a prison that has reached a situation that Birmingham has reached. Once the prison is stabilised and functioning well, it is possible to run it with the full population. We can see that being done at Altcourse and Thameside, and at a busy, challenged local prison such as HMP Hull at the moment. But it is necessary to take these steps at Birmingham, and the right hon. Gentleman is right to say that it does not take a massive brain to work out that this is the first thing we need to do.

Privately Financed Prisons

Debate between Rory Stewart and Ed Davey

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

In the spirit of developing a cross-party consensus on prisons, I welcome the Government’s apparent conversion yesterday to the Liberal Democrat policy of axing the vast majority of prison sentences of under a year. When will the policy be implemented? Has the prison building plan that the Minister announced yesterday to the Justice Committee factored in such a policy change?

[Rory Stewart]

The argument that I was making yesterday is that the recent evidence from our Department shows very clearly that people sentenced to short prison terms are more likely to reoffend than somebody with a community sentence—in other words, they pose a greater threat to the public at the moment of release. They also pose a destabilising factor in prisons: they are disproportionately connected to drugs and violence.

At the same time, as has been pointed out, we have an obligation to protect the public and be careful about who exactly we are talking about within this category. An enormous amount more discussion needs to take place. I would be very happy to sit down with the right hon. Gentleman to discuss ideas. This is not an easy one to resolve, but the data is driving us in a particular direction.