Oral Answers to Questions

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

As my hon. Friend will appreciate, there will be a variety of different futures for those leaving Northallerton. She knows already that the decision to close that establishment is no reflection whatever on the efforts of the staff who were based there. I can tell her that 34 staff have taken up the option of voluntary early departure.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Prison numbers have been going up and prison staff going down. The Department’s own figures show that the national tactical response squad, the prison riot squad, was called out 72% more times last year than in 2010, more prisoners and prison staff are being assaulted and deaths in custody were the highest for a decade. To state the obvious, none of that is conducive to rehabilitation. Is any of this the responsibility of this Government, and what does the Minister intend to do about it?

[Jeremy Wright]

Of course management of the prison estate is the responsibility of this Government, as indeed when the last Government were in power it was theirs. There is a variety of reasons why the tornado teams attend, and the serious incidents that they attend are at roughly half the level they were under the last Government, so the right hon. Gentleman needs to be clear about the statistics he uses. Frankly, if he spent a bit more time doing the job he has and a bit less time chasing the Mayor of London’s job, he might get those things right. But let us get something else very clear. It is important that we maintain a safe, secure and decent estate, and that is exactly what we will do. Where there are increased levels of assault, which I agree are a matter of concern, we need to address that in a number of ways, and that is exactly what we are doing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

I think that we have an excellent Victims Commissioner, who does the job extremely well.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Part-time.

[Damian Green]

One of the most ironic heckles I have ever heard is the shadow Justice Secretary shouting “Part-time”, when that is the method that he adopts to his job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I am looking forward to visiting Northumberland shortly and seeing some of the work that is being done. This is enormously important. It is particularly important that we have really close links between the efforts provided to help people into employment and the efforts put into helping them to sort their lives out once they have left prison. Those two areas are integrally linked, and that work is immensely important.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Does the Justice Secretary think there is a problem with young men in particular being radicalised in our prisons? If so, what is he doing about it?

[Chris Grayling]

There is certainly a real issue. We have seen over the years the radicalisation of young men in prisons. We now have a first-rate team of imams in our prisons who are carefully selected and I have met a number of them. They are putting together carefully constructed programmes to help steer people away from radicalisation. I pay tribute to the work they do in often difficult circumstances and I believe they can really make a difference.

[Sadiq Khan]

The sorts of things that the Prime Minister’s extremism taskforce, experts, governors and staff are saying are required are enhanced monitoring, better intelligence gathering, staff trained to recognise and deal with the issue, a dedicated expert unit within the Prison Service, a specialist programme to target prisoners and spare capacity for governors. What resources and how much personal attention is the Justice Secretary giving to that?

[Chris Grayling]

Let me assure the right hon. Gentleman that all of those things are, in fact, currently happening. The last meeting I had to discuss those issues took place in the past two weeks. It is a matter of great concern to my colleagues on the Front Bench and to me, and we will continue to work at it. I again pay the greatest of tributes to the staff involved in this work on the front line and the imams who are doing such good work in shaping the education programmes that can make a real difference. I think that there is agreement across the House that we need to ensure that the work is effective and delivers real results for us. I am very confident in the team who are doing it.