Justice

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Ministerial Corrections

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I thought that we had signed up to the all-singing, all-dancing EU prisoner transfer directive, so why, still, are 42% of the 10,000 foreign nationals in our prisons from EU countries? Why do we not send them back to where they came from?

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question —again. I think he asked the same question at the previous justice Question Time. As he is aware, even with prisoner transfer agreements, it is down to the receiving country to take those prisoners. We cannot force them to do so even when we have an agreement in place. The majority of prisoners who we send back to their home countries are sent under the early removal scheme, and 40,000 prisoners have been sent back home since 2010.

[Official Report, 5 December 2017, Vol. 632, c. 891.]



Letter of correction from Mr Gyimah:

An error has been identified in the response I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) during Topical Questions to the Secretary of State for Justice.

The correct response should have been:

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question —again. I think he asked the same question at the previous justice Question Time. As he is aware, even with prisoner transfer agreements, it is down to the receiving country to take those prisoners. We cannot force them to do so even when we have an agreement in place. The majority of prisoners who we send back to their home countries are sent under the early removal scheme, and 40,000 foreign national offenders have been sent back home since 2010.

Prison Reform and Safety

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie), who talked about his experiences of his local prison, and I am pleased to be part of today’s debate. I believe there is general consensus in the Chamber about the fact that our prison system is not perfect, but I acknowledge that the Government have an ambitious programme for reform that will benefit not only offenders, but communities across the country. In particular, I welcome the 2,500 new prison officers who will be appointed and the provision of 5,600 body cameras, not just for prison officers, but for the police—that issue has been raised with me in particular.

I wish to focus my speech on gardening and the environment in the prison system, and I make no excuses for that, because it has a lot of potential to be helpful. We know that imprisoning somebody does not in itself reduce reoffending rates. As a number of Members have said, to do that we must try to give these people skills to increase their employability chances and help them to reintegrate back into the community. That is where environmental and gardening schemes can really help. As I have said before in the Chamber, many prisons are old and outdated, with little green space. There is definite data to show that when people are not in contact with green space and nature, it has a real impact on their mental health. I want to talk about a couple of good schemes that can show how this is useful.

The Eden Project has teamed up with Dartmoor prison to transform a disused exercise yard into a gardening project within the resettlement unit, from which local residents can buy vegetables, flowers and eggs. Such schemes are starting to crop up in many prisons across the country. When I was a television reporter, I went to Leyhill prison, near Bristol, which had a fabulous gardening project. It had state-of-the-art greenhouses and its gardening projects won gold medals at Chelsea. Lots of those projects need to be either reinstated—some have dropped away—or regenerated. The Conservation Foundation is about to start a “Gardening against the odds” project in Wandsworth prison. The project will extend across three exercise yards that are currently just tarmac, and will bring together prisoners, staff, members of the community, leading horticulturists and environmentalists.

Such schemes can stimulate mental and physical health. As I said, they also teach skills and disciplines that can improve employability. I recently met the British Association of Landscape Industries, which represents a £6 billion industry that is crying out for people to work for it, so there are opportunities if we can skill people up in these areas before they get back into the working world. Lots of these projects are not costly—they are cost-effective and highly beneficial—so I hope that the Minister will make reference to them. Earlier in the year, he replied to one of my oral questions by mentioning a prison gardening competition and inviting me to be a judge. I hope he is going to stick to the offer, because I would very much like to do that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I confirm the invitation to my hon. Friend to be a judge in the prison gardening competition, at her convenience—the invitation is open.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the Minister for that. I am of course hoping that I will be allowed out by the Whips, as this is a very important initiative. Once it gets more attention, more people will enter the competition.

The Forestry Commission runs an interesting offenders and nature scheme, with offenders typically working as volunteers on nature conservation and woodland sites. They get out to do tasks such as building footpaths, creating boardwalks and establishing ponds, and learn about conservation and the environment. That, too, is very cost-effective, and at the same time it addresses several of the underlying factors that contribute to reoffending.

The Phoenix Futures recovery charity works with people, both in and out of prison, who struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. We have heard a lot about the drug problem in our prisons today. The charity is supported by the National Lottery, and it runs a recovery through nature programme, which aims to connect those who use the charity’s services with nature to assist their recovery. It has been shown that those who participate in the project have an incredible 41% higher chance of recovery than the national average, so I can tell the Minister that there is mileage in it.

Many of the ideas I have mentioned are included in a Conservative Environment Network pamphlet, to which many Members contributed, which calls for a more holistic and cross-departmental approach to environmental policy. This Government are doing great work on the environment and bringing it into many areas, but let us add an environmental strand to our prison reform.

I do not know how many Members have seen the film “Paddington 2”. Perhaps you have, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Oh, well you should see it; it is fantastic. Paddington used cooking to improve the lives of prisoners, and I am saying, “Let’s use gardening.”

We have a great opportunity. We need change. The situation is challenging. I am not saying that this is the answer to everything, but it is one small tool to add to the box—or the greenhouse—that might help us to address the problem. Ultimately, it will improve the lives of so many people who deserve it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and the Justice Committee on securing the debate. I thank Members for their contributions, and I say genuinely that almost every one of today’s contributions was constructive, made in good faith and had some merit to it. My hon. Friend set out with characteristic clarity many of the issues that our prisons face. As we all know, and as the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) mentioned, nearly all prisoners will one day be released, and our prisons should therefore be places that put offenders on a path that will enable them to turn away from crime after release. That means providing a safe and secure environment, and providing the right interventions and support to help them to turn their lives around.

No one doubts the challenge that we face with prisons or expects the situation to be quick or easy to turn around. I do not shy away from conceding that our prison system faces unprecedented challenges, but I am confident that we have a clear and coherent plan to face them. That plan will secure the safety and security of our estate and staff, empower governors to make decisions that are right for their prisons and ensure that we have the right tools in place to support offenders to rejoin society as productive citizens.

The hon. Members for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands)—the hon. Gentleman is no longer in his place—referred to the motion, and specifically to its mention of our “historically high prison population”. We can all agree that the prison population is too high, and we want it to fall. We have, however, made a considered judgment deliberately not to set an arbitrary target for reduction, because we will not compromise on our responsibility either to the victims of offences or to the safety of the wider public.

We will always hold in prison criminals whose offences are so grave that no other penalty will suffice, or who would pose a genuine threat to the public if they were released. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North mentioned that the Government should have a presumption against prison sentences of less than 12 months. Indeed, in England and Wales there is a presumption against custody at all, and a judge will send someone to prison only if they deem it right to do so.

It is important to remember that our current prison population reflects the number of serious offences—including sexual offences—that are coming before the courts. That has changed the nature of sentencing, with fewer people being sent to prison on short sentences but more people in prison for serious crimes on longer sentences. To give the House one example, there are now 4,000 more sex offenders in prison in England and Wales than there were in 2010.

I can assure the House that we will always have enough prison places for offenders who are sentenced to custody by our courts, and that protection of the public and providing justice to victims will remain our principal concern. Our latest statistics show that we have operational capacity of 87,370, and a current headroom of 1,241 places. The current population is 86,129, which includes 4,048 women prisoners. Of course, we cannot simply build our way out of the situation, but we have a plan for bringing in new capacity to the estate to provide modern, cost-effective, fit-for-purpose accommodation that will deal with the concerns that have been raised about overcrowding in the estate. HMP Berwyn currently has 800 places in use and will, when fully operational, provide 2,100 places. In addition, we have announced plans to build four more modern prisons.

[Robert Neill]

The Minister has talked about capacity, and I understand the work that is being done. A specific point that has been raised with the Select Committee is the slowness of repatriation of foreign national prisoners who are serving sentences in the UK. Repatriation of such prisoners would certainly take some pressure off capacity. Can he help on that point?

[Mr Gyimah]

The Chair of the Select Committee makes an important point about the repatriation of foreign national offenders. He will be aware that the most effective scheme to repatriate foreign offenders is the early release scheme, under which 40,000 foreign national offenders have been moved out of the UK since 2010. Prisoner transfer agreements are also in place but they are a lot more challenging because they require the co-operation of the receiving Government, who do not always seem that keen to receive their own criminals back. A cross-governmental task force is focused on that very point.

To realise our vision for prisons, we must first make sure that they are secure environments that are free from drugs, violence and intimidation. Again, I do not shy away from acknowledging that the use and availability of drugs in our prisons is too high. The House has often discussed how the rise of psychoactive substances in our prisons was a game-changer, but it was when organised criminal groups moved in to take control of supply routes into prisons that the rules changed. Those groups have embedded themselves throughout the prison estate, becoming ever more sophisticated in driving the drug market and making enormous profits from peddling misery to those around them. Their activities have been facilitated by the rise of new technologies, such as phones and drones, which they have used to try to overcome our security. Those things represent an unprecedented threat that we have not faced before.

As our prison officers and law enforcement partners across the country regularly prove, however, we are more than up to that challenge, and our investment in security is bearing fruit. Last year alone, HMPPS officers recovered more than 225 kg of drugs from the prison estate. Our new team of specialist drone investigators has already helped to secure over 50 years of jail time for those involved, and the team is supporting ongoing investigations across the country.

We are providing officers with the tools that they need. We have already introduced drug tests for psychoactive substances across all prisons, provided every prison with signal detection equipment and trained more than 300 sniffer dogs specifically to detect new psychoactive substances. The right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) asked about the availability of sniffer dogs to prisons. The dogs operate on a regional basis and are therefore available for prisons to call on as and when they are needed.

We are investing heavily in security and counter-terror measures, including £25 million to create the new security directorate in HMPPS. This year we will also invest more than £14 million in transforming our intelligence, search and disruption capability at local, national and regional level, to enable us better to identify and root out those who seek to supply drugs to our prisons. That investment includes more than £3 million to establish our serious organised crime units, which will relentlessly disrupt our most subversive offenders.

We are already seeing early successes from the new capability. A recent joint Prison Service and police operation at HMP Hewell, involving our specialist search teams and dogs, recovered 323 items, including 79 mobile phones, 29 improvised weapons, 50 litres of alcohol and a large quantity of drugs.

[David Hanson]

The Minister is indicating that those things are all intelligence-led. They should be routine.

[Mr Gyimah]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but we need to know what we are looking for, and we need to identify the prisoners who are most likely to have links with organised crime. We now know that about 6,000 prisoners have links with organised crime on the outside and are conduits for drugs into our prisons, and that allows us to be far more effective in what we are doing to combat those operations. It is still very early days, but the point I am making is that we are beginning to see success. As we go forward, we intend to build on these successes, through our new drugs plan, which he mentioned, and our work on corruption, where it exists—even if it be only among a very few officers. He will be hearing more from me about that shortly.

Of course, this is not just about seizing or intercepting drugs. We should never forget that we have a duty of care to our prisoners—we want to help offenders with drug problems—and more of our prisons now have specialist wings to support them in overcoming their dependencies. We are also working closely with health partners to provide information, guidance and support to prisoners, visitors and staff on the impact and damaging consequences of drugs.

Hon. Members have mentioned the safety of our prisons. Ensuring safety is partly about having the right staffing levels to deliver safe and consistent regimes, and we are making swift progress in recruiting the additional 2,500 staff in the adult estate we promised in 2016: 1,255 extra prison officers have been recruited in the last year, and officer numbers are now at their highest levels since August 2013. In the youth estate, we have likewise expanded frontline staff capacity in public sector youth offender institutions by about 20%.

Preventing suicide and self-harm is also a focus of mine. We are taking decisive action to reduce the levels of self-harm by strengthening the frontline. Each individual incident of suicide or self-harm is one too many and a source of deep tragedy. We have introduced new suicide and self-harm prevention training to give everyone working in prisons, whether officers or staff from other organisations, the confidence and skills they need to support those in their care. So far, more than 10,000 prison staff have started the training, and all new prison officer and prison custody officer recruits now complete the programme as part of their initial training. I am glad to say that the number of self-inflicted deaths in custody is significantly down from last year, although I will be the first to admit that there is still a lot of work to be done.

The Chair of the Select Committee referred to the architecture of the prison system and how we can hold ourselves to account. We are strengthening the ability of the inspectorate to hold the Government and the Prison Service to account and have introduced a new urgent notification process, which had formed part of the original Prisons and Courts Bill, to enable the Secretary of State to be alerted directly where the chief inspector has a significant and urgent concern about the performance of an institution. We launched that process last month. The Secretary of State will be directly alerted by the chief inspector if an urgent issue needs addressing to ensure that recommendations are acted upon immediately. A new team of specialists accountable to Ministers will ensure that immediate action is taken and will respond within 28 days with a more in-depth plan to ensure sustained, long-term improvement for the prison.

[Andy Slaughter]

I hear what the Minister is saying, but a lot of it sounds like firefighting. I quoted from a report on the Scrubs earlier, but tomorrow we have Her Majesty’s inspectorate’s report on the Scrubs—I do not know if he has seen it yet. I have not quoted from it because it is under embargo still, but it shows endemic, long-term problems that need powerful solutions, and I just do not hear that vision coming from the Government.

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman is being unfair. Recruiting more staff, investing in intelligence and technology, rolling out a drugs strategy, introducing an urgent notification process, giving more power to the inspectorate—all these things will solve the issues in our prison. I hear him on the Scrubs—I admit that there are deep-seated challenges there—but prisons are, always have been and always will be difficult places to manage. That said, we are making significant investment in tackling the problems in our prisons. As I have always said, it will not happen overnight, but the actions I am outlining show our determination and will to overcome the problems and make sure that our prisons are places of safety and reform.

Hon. Members have touched on employment and education. We have recently announced the new futures network, which will be a broker between prisons and the employment sector so as to help prisoners to find work on release and get better purposeful activity in prisons. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) mentioned that sometimes drug habits develop because prisoners are bored. Having more and better purposeful activity is important to ensuring that prisoners are purposefully occupied in prison and can gain new skills and improve their chances of finding a job on release.

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) rightly mentioned the estate. Yes, the plan is to create 10,000 additional places. Of course, there have been issues with maintenance, but those are issues for facilities managers, and I am in direct contact with them to ensure that, whatever the future plans for a prison further down the line, we maintain standards of decency in that prison.

In conclusion, reducing reoffending, protecting the public, reforming offenders and ensuring the safety and security of our staff and those in our custody remain my Department’s top priorities.

[Robert Neill]

I appreciate the Minister’s remarks and the spirit of them. Will he confirm that the Government remain committed, when a legislative opportunity occurs, to placing the powers of the inspectorate, the prisons and probation ombudsman and the national prevention mechanism on a statutory basis?

[Mr Gyimah]

I can confirm that we are very alive in looking for legislative opportunities to do exactly what my hon. Friend says. He will be aware that where there are other avenues, such as private Members’ Bills—one to enable us to switch off mobile phones is going through the House now—to make practical progress, we are doing so.

We must break the ongoing cycle of reoffending that has for too long blighted communities the length of our country by helping offenders to turn their lives around and prepare them for a productive and law-abiding life on release. I will end by reiterating some of the remarks I made at the start of the debate. Reforming our prisons to be places of safety and reform will not be easy, but the House should be in no doubt about the energy and resolve with which we will continue to tackle head on the challenges that we face. I welcome many of the points made today. They were constructive. I disagree on a number of issues with the Opposition spokesperson, but I know that we all share the same intention: to make our prisons places of safety and to ensure that when people come out of prison, they do not reoffend.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

4. What recent assessment he has made of the potential effect of self-build and custom house building on reducing prisoner reoffending rates.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

Accommodation is the foundation of preventing reoffending. Currently around 30% of people leave prison without a stable home to go to, and that is why my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary has made employment on release and accommodation for offenders a key priority of our prison reform programme.

[Mr Bacon]

Given that the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015 is now on the statute book, is the Minister aware that probation officers and ex-offenders can now register as associations of individuals under the Act? Will he meet me and the National Custom & Self Build Association’s right to build expert taskforce, so we can brief him on how people building their own dwellings can transform lives and reduce reoffending rates?

[Mr Gyimah]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to listen to whatever creative solutions he can bring to the long-standing problem of accommodation for offenders.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

The joint report of the chief inspectors of prisons and probation looked at through-the-gate services and revealed that 10% of prisoners were homeless on their first night out of prison. Having a home is key to reducing reoffending, so what assessment has the Minister made of reoffending rates?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady makes a very important point. As I said in response to the previous question, this is a priority for us. We are looking at expanding bail accommodation and support services to include lower risk offenders, utilising spare MOJ capacity, expanding our approved premises programme, and working very closely with other Government Departments, such as the Department for Communities and Local Government, to solve this serious problem.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

While strongly supporting the initiative of my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), will the prisons Minister tell the House which construction companies get this and actually offer fair opportunities to ex-offenders in the construction sector? Will he perhaps also tell us which companies need a bit of a nudge in this area?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is pre-empting our employment strategy, which we will announce very soon. He will be aware of the New Futures Network, which the Justice Secretary announced at party conference. This will bring together employers and ex-offenders to help to create employment on release. The construction sector is a key sector and he will be hearing more from us in due course.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

A 2015 Ministry of Justice study found that community orders have a substantially lower rate of reoffending than short prison sentences. What is the Minister doing to reverse the sharp fall in community sentences that has taken place under his Government?

[Mr Gyimah]

Of course we want to reduce reoffending. The presumption in this country is against prison. It is up to the judiciary to sentence how they see fit. We want to make sure that there are appropriate interventions in the community and we are looking at that.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

5. What steps his Department is taking in response to recent trends in the number of people who represent themselves in court.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to prevent the use of drones over prisons.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

The organised criminals who use drones to smuggle drugs and phones are a major threat to the stability and safety of our prisons. We are taking decisive steps to tackle that threat through joint intelligence-led operations with law enforcement agencies to identify and disrupt the individuals involved.

[Luke Hall]

What more can be done to harness the power of intelligence-led work to track drones, not just to stop them coming into prisons but to find the criminals who are seeking to use them to disrupt our prison system?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of not just stopping contraband coming into prisons, but stopping the organised crime networks that are behind that. The specialist staff in our regional and national intelligence teams are transforming the way in which we work with the police to that end. We have launched Operation Trenton, in which a specialist team of police and Prison Service investigators will work together to intercept drones and track down the criminals behind them. So far there have been at least 17 convictions related to drone activity, and those convicted are serving about 50 years in prison.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to prevent the use of mobile telephones in prisons.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

Illicit phones erode the barrier that prison walls used to place between prisoners and the community. They can be used to harass victims and to support the trade in contraband that, as we know, drives violence and self-harm. We are working with law enforcement partners to identify and disrupt the organised crime networks that supply phones and other illicit items to prisons. For example, our recent joint operation at HMP Hewell recovered 323 items, including 79 mobiles and a large quantity of drugs.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we must be constantly alert to the potential for new technology to deter, detect and disrupt the illicit use of mobile phones in prisons? Does he therefore welcome the potential offered by the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), which received its Second Reading last week and which will help to block mobile phone signals around prisons?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The consequence of illicit items in prisons is violence and instability for the regime, and the way to counter that technological threat is through technology. The private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes, which the Government are backing, would give us more power to switch off mobile phones in prisons and therefore deal with the scourge that they present.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

12. What progress he has made on improving safety for prison officers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

I warmly support and welcome the Secretary of State’s and the prisons Minister’s support for and implementation of the Farmer review. How will the Minister ensure that the policy will be implemented across the board to ensure that reoffending is reduced? I would be very happy for the prisons Minister to answer.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

My pleasure. The Farmer review is absolutely key to highlighting the importance of family connections in not only preventing self-harm in prisons but turning around lives. We have accepted all its recommendations and are going through the process of implementing them. I would be happy to update my hon. Friend personally.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

T10. You will know, Mr Speaker, that girls and vulnerable women were subject to horrendous abuse and rape by a sexual exploitation gang in Newcastle. Some of the perpetrators were recently convicted as part of Operation Sanctuary, but there are victims who feel that they have not had justice. I know of at least one who has been denied compensation for horrific abuse, because of time spent in juvenile detention as a consequence of that abuse. Does the Minister think that is just? If not, will he amend the criminal injuries compensation scheme to ensure justice?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I thought that we had signed up to the all-singing, all-dancing EU prisoner transfer directive, so why, still, are 42% of the 10,000 foreign nationals in our prisons from EU countries? Why do we not send them back to where they came from?

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question —again. I think he asked the same question at the previous justice Question Time. As he is aware, even with prisoner transfer agreements, it is down to the receiving country to take those prisoners. We cannot force them to do so even when we have an agreement in place. The majority of prisoners who we send back to their home countries are sent under the early removal scheme, and 40,000 prisoners have been sent back home since 2010.[Official Report, 21 December 2017, Vol. 633, c. 6MC.]

[Mr Speaker]

Members regularly ask the same question again, as I am often wont to observe. Repetition is not a novel phenomenon in the House of Commons.

Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 1st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) for bringing forward this Bill. I note that she is the second Member to be associated with it, the first being the Treasurer of Her Majesty’s Household, our right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey). Recognising my hon. Friend’s considerable talents, I hope from a selfish perspective that she is not elevated as quickly as our right hon. Friend, so that the Bill can proceed through the House quickly.

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend’s assessment that the Bill is an important contribution to making our prisons safe and secure. The Government strongly support it, and I urge Members on both sides of the House to do the same. The reason for our support is clear: the illegal supply and use of mobile phones present real and serious risks not just to the stability of our prisons, but to the safety of the public.

The Bill addresses one of the most serious current threats to the safety and security of our prisons. Illicit phones erode the barrier that prison walls used to place between prisoners and the community. They can be used to harass victims and carry on extremist activity, as well as for organised crime, gang-related activities and commissioning serious violence. This is therefore a serious problem for our prisons.

I note the point made by the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) about the wider issues of prison security and stability, but the Bill focuses on just one aspect of our plans to bring safety and security to our prisons. Mobile phones are key to the illicit economy in prisons, whether they are used for co-ordinating the smuggling in of contraband, or for organising payments for the contraband once it is inside. That in turn drives a devastating cycle of debt, violence and self-harm.

We need to benefit from technological advances. Those involved in organised crime have benefited from the rapid pace of technological change when it comes to smaller, more sophisticated phones becoming available, or new network frequencies being activated. We need to turn the tables on the criminals, and to do so we need to make even greater use of the skills and knowledge of the mobile network operators. We are already working closely with operators to develop groundbreaking technology so that we can block mobile phone signals in prisons. Making mobile phones in prisons ineffective in such a way is the surest means of disrupting the market for those involved in organised crime.

The Bill provides the enabling powers that will enable us to continue such direct partnership working. It will allow us to continue to tap into operators’ expert knowledge and specialist skills to come up with new and creative solutions to address the problem of illicit mobile phone use in prison. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes made clear, the Bill is not tied to any one technical solution. It provides a clear line of accountability in primary legislation to allow mobile network operators to be more directly and independently involved, while retaining appropriate safeguards to regulate activity. That makes the powers in the Bill as future-proofed as they can be.

Members have made several points during this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) rightly raised the link to coercive behaviour, and I welcome her support of the Bill. I confirm that improving the effectiveness of anti-mobile phone activity is intended to minimise opportunities for bullying, harassment and coercive activity behind bars. As I said at the start, public protection is the Government’s No. 1 priority.

The Bill will help governors by providing them with an extra tool to tackle the prison security problems posed by mobile phones. Under the 2012 Act, governors are required to comply with directions from the Secretary of State and to make decisions about the retention and disclosure of data. The amendments that will be made to the Act are not new obligations, and we judge that they will not impose any unimaginable burden on governors.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes mentioned, we should of course make provision for prisoners to contact their families. That is important for prisoner rehabilitation and to help to reduce the incidence of self-harm, as well as to bring stability to our prisons. As we tackle the illicit use of phones, we will continue to provide legitimate ways in which prisoners may contact family and friends. I recognise and endorse my hon. Friend’s powerful point.

In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend for taking on the Bill, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton for her earlier work on it, and my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) for his sterling work in starting all this off in 2012. This Bill is important for prison security, and for protecting victims and the public, and I commend it to the House.

Same Roof Rule: Familial Sexual Abuse Cases

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) for securing the debate. Abuse is a devastating crime, and I know it must have taken great courage for his constituent, Ms Alissa Moore, to share her experiences with him. I am aware that he has previously raised concerns with my Department about how the same roof rule affected an application for compensation from his constituent, and I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss the matter today.

Sexual abuse and exploitation of children is abhorrent, and hon. Friends in the Chamber will know that we are taking action across Government to bring about a step change in the response to it. From my Department’s perspective, we are taking action to ensure that vulnerable and intimidated witnesses, such as those who have suffered abuse, can give their best evidence, and to reduce the stress they face when there is a trial.

A range of measures exist to help reduce anxiety, including giving evidence from behind a screen in the courtroom or away from the courtroom, and the use of an intermediary to help the witness understand and communicate with the court. We are rolling out pre-recorded cross-examination for vulnerable witnesses in the Crown Court, which will enable witnesses to participate in the trial at an early stage. This measure will be tested in three Crown Court centres, initially for intimidated witnesses who are victims of sexual offences and modern slavery offences.

The rule we have been discussing is part of the criminal injuries compensation scheme, as my hon. Friend rightly noted. For more than 50 years, there has been a scheme to compensate victims of violent crime in Britain. In 1996, the first statutory scheme came into force through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995. Subsequent schemes were made under that legislation in 2001, 2008 and, most recently, 2012.

The rules of the scheme and the value of the payments awarded are set by Parliament and administered by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice. The scheme is Government-funded and provides tariff-based awards for physical and mental injury suffered by victims of violent crime. Victims can also apply for loss of earnings and special expenses for things such as home adaptations and care costs. The scheme also provides for awards to dependants and the bereaved in fatal cases. In the financial year 2016-17, £143.3 million was paid out to victims of violent crime.

The same roof rule forms part of the eligibility criteria under the scheme, and has been part of all CICA schemes for victims injured in Great Britain since the first in 1964. From 1964 to 1 October 1979, an award could not be made for a criminal injury if, at the time of the incident giving rise to that injury, the applicant and the assailant were living together as members of the same family. The rule was put in place to ensure that perpetrators did not benefit from any compensation awarded to the victim where they were living together.

An interdepartmental working party reviewed the scheme and in 1978 recommended that the same roof rule be changed. The Labour Government accepted the recommendation of the working group that the changes to the rule should not be retrospective because of the difficulty of estimating the cost. The recommendations of the working party were reflected in a new scheme that came into effect on 1 October 1979. It was from that date that the same roof rule was relaxed, but only in relation to incidents from that date.

Consequently, the effect of the same roof rule is to render ineligible for compensation victims of historical sexual and other abuse that took place between 1964 and 1979 where the victim was living with their perpetrator as a member of the same family at the time of the incident. The change to the scheme in 1979 was not made retrospective. The Labour Government reviewed this approach in 2005 in the consultation paper “Rebuilding Lives: supporting victims of crime”, which proposed major changes to the scheme. It stated:

“We recognise that changes to the scheme mean that some cases would be dealt with differently in the future and that some applicants who have already received their compensation would have received more under a new scheme. However, we do not believe that it would be fair or workable to apply changes retrospectively.”

The most recent scheme was introduced on 27 November 2012 following a consultation exercise called “Getting it right for victims and witnesses”. The Government considered that to open the scheme up in this way could present difficulties for claims officers in establishing a link between the offence and the injuries in individual cases. The rule does not exclude victims who were abused in an institutional or public setting such as a school, hospital or care home prior to 1979. However, the Government understand that the same roof rule may affect some victims of abuse who were children at the time.

Hon. Friends will be aware that the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse is looking closely at the issue of compensation for victims of child sexual abuse, and the Government await its recommendations. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, my officials and interested groups have an ongoing dialogue about the scheme in the context of victims of child sexual abuse. We are determined to ensure that victims get the compensation to which they are entitled under the rules of the scheme. That is why the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has reviewed its staff guidance to ensure that every instance where grooming could be a factor is identified. The authority is also improving staff training to help to get decisions right first time, every time. The compensation scheme will also be looked at as part of the Ministry of Justice’s work to develop a strategy for victims, which we aim to publish next year.

It is vital that constituents such as my hon. Friend’s are supported with the resources that they need in order to cope with and, as far as possible, recover from the effects of crime. This financial year we are providing £96 million for crucial support services for victims of crime, which includes funding for 97 rape support centres across England and Wales: £7 million funds specialist support for victims and survivors of recent and non-recent child sexual abuse; £1.74 million goes to rape support centres; £0.58 million is a fund for national and regional organisations that may find it difficult to apply to police and crime commissioners; and £7 million goes to police and crime commissioners to commission or deliver local support services for victims of child sexual abuse.

My hon. Friend asked about the reallocation of hardship funds. Hardship funds are separate from the funding of awards from the scheme, and we do not consider that they would be sufficient to meet the burden of relaxing the same roof rule. As I said earlier, the Department will be looking into this issue as part of its strategy for victims, which we aim to publish next year. I therefore suggest that he encourage his constituent to contact her local police and crime commissioner support services, especially as in the last financial year, PCCs reported spending an additional £1.6 million from other funding sources or through co-commissioning arrangements. As ever, the Department is available to offer support in any way that it can, and I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), who is responsible for this portfolio, will be willing to engage directly with my hon. Friend on this matter.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

5. What progress the Government have made on the implementation of the Farmer review published on 10 August 2017.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

The family is the most effective resettlement agency that we have. That is a view shared by the prisons inspectorate, the probation service and Ofsted. The time to work on those relationships is from the moment an offender is sentenced to jail. To leave it longer is to leave it too late. That is why I welcome the excellent review by Lord Farmer, and we are working to implement all his recommendations.

[Maria Caulfield]

Figures from the Farmer review show that inmates who receive regular family visits are 39% less likely to reoffend. Will the Minister outline what steps the Government are taking to enable more family visits to happen in our prisons?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Reoffending rates among people who have family contact are a lot lower than those for other offenders. We are working to implement all of Lord Farmer’s review over time. I will be meeting her and a number of colleagues to discuss our progress on this later.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Farmer review references prisoner wellbeing. At HMP Nottingham in the past two months alone, four prisoners have killed themselves and one has died of an overdose. Will Ministers say why they think this is happening, and what do they plan to do about it?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Certainly, for a lot of prisoners—whether for their mental wellbeing and issues to do with self-harm, but also violence—family contact can make a difference. There are specific issues relating to HMP Nottingham, and I am willing to write to him about those.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

In Parc Prison outside Bridgend in south Wales, parent teacher evenings take place in the prison so fathers can demonstrate their ongoing responsibility to their children’s education. Will the Minister tell us if any other prisons are going to follow the excellent example set by Parc?

[Mr Gyimah]

The former Prisons Minister makes an excellent point about good practice at Parc Prison. As he is aware, there is good practice dotted around the prison estate. We have Storybook Dads and Mums in some prisons and Our Voice in other prisons. We want to see good practice spread across the entire estate. To enable us to do that, we are devolving budgets to prison governors, and we will also hold them to account when we pilot new family and significant relationship performance measures as of next year.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

6. What recent progress his Department has made on its review of legal aid reforms.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

15. What steps the Government are taking to stop the use of drones over prisons.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

Drones are a threat but also an opportunity for our prisons. Where they are a threat, we are absolutely determined to tackle the organised crime groups who use them. In terms of the opportunities, the prison service is investing in drones to proactively manage large-scale incidents as our eyes and ears to improve our intelligence and allow us to respond more effectively and swiftly.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend will know that technology moves ever faster, day by day. Can he assure me that HMP Guys Marsh in my constituency will have access to the relevant funds to have the technologies in place to combat the use of drones and mobile telephones?

[Mr Gyimah]

Absolutely. Guys Marsh will benefit from the £2 million pot being used to invest in mobile phone detection technology. An additional £3 million is being invested in a national intelligence team to help to tackle serious and organised crime. This will allow us to deal with serious and organised crime in our prisons and in our communities. We will be working with the Home Office on this project to improve prison security and social reform.

[Jim Shannon]

In April 2017, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Prison Service in Northern Ireland set up a special unit to address the delivery of drugs, mobile phones and contraband into prisons using drones. Has the Minister considered setting up such a unit? Has he also considered a radio blocker that would prevent drones entering prison property?

[Mr Gyimah]

Absolutely. As I said, we have an intelligence unit dealing with organised crime in our prisons in a very concerted way across the estate. We are doing that alongside investing in anti-drone and mobile phone detection technology. Bringing this together will mean that we are able to deal with the threat that drones pose across the prison estate and, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), in the community. Organised crime is not just in the prison estate, but often in the community.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Approximately 200 kg of drugs were smuggled into the England and Wales prison estate last year. Exactly what proportion does the Minister believe was smuggled in with the use of drones, and what specific support is he giving to HMP Bristol in Horfield in my constituency to help to deal with it?

[Mr Gyimah]

It is difficult to tell exactly what proportion was brought in by drones. We do not know how many drones are successful; we know only those that are unsuccessful. We know that drones are a very serious and emerging threat because of the load they can carry into our prisons. Dealing with drugs in prisons is not just about our counter-drone strategy, but the overall illicit economy in prisons as a whole: mobile phones, which help to facilitate it; cracking down on corruption, where it exists, in the supply chain; and working with law enforcement. There is no single way to deal with it; we are going to do all those things across the piece to crack down.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

11. What assessment he has made of the effect of overcrowding and staff numbers on recent serious disturbances in prisons.

[Mr Gyimah]

I have seen a number of incidents in prisons. Every incident in any prison has its own unique situation, which is why we always investigate incidents in prisons very thoroughly. Obviously, we hold some of the most challenging individuals in society in our prisons, so incidents do sometimes occur. Our job is to minimise the risk and manage those incidents when they happen.

[Dan Carden]

The chief inspector of prisons has said that staffing levels are simply too low for a decent regime to be run. We need prison officers on the frontline, not filling in for cuts elsewhere. Under this Government, we have lost 6,000 prison officers. Will the Minister take some of the responsibility for the crisis in prisons such as the one in Walton?

[Mr Gyimah]

Obviously, I take a keen interest in the hon. Gentleman’s local prison, where the staff complement is exactly as it should be. It is one of the 10 pathfinder prisons in which we are implementing the new offender management model. I discussed the staffing situation there with the new national chair of the Prison Officers Association, and he commended the fact that staff numbers there are at full strength, but that does not mean that there is not more to do across the estate. We are halfway to our target of 2,500, and I am confident that we will achieve that.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

The chief executive of the Prison Service has stated that, because of overcrowding, the Government will not be able to proceed with planned closures, throwing the financing of their prison building plan into disarray. In the light of concerns that the Ministry of Justice will not be able to build new prisons without selling off the old—the model on which its building plan was based—will the Minister today guarantee that no new prison places will be built from private funds?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten that we have a duty to house those who are sentenced by the courts. The prison population in England and Wales is 86,000; we have a duty to provide accommodation for them to serve their sentence in. We still have a commitment to investing £1.3 billion in the prison estate to create 10,000 additional prison places during this Parliament.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will be aware that one of the main causes of overcrowding in our prisons is the very long delays in our criminal justice system and the number of prisoners on remand. I wrote to him about Cordell Austin’s very long delay on remand; he was first arrested back in May 2016 under a very large joint enterprise case, but was acquitted in August this year. He is still in prison after nearly 18 months, and his oral hearing is not due until December; originally, we were told it would be next year. Are these not the sorts of cases that need attention, and do not hearings need to be prompt?

[Mr Gyimah]

Justice for those going through the system has to be swift. May I correct an assumption in the question? The reason why the prison population has increased in England and Wales is that more people convicted of sex-related offences are serving longer sentences. Given our duty to protect the public, it is right that when these people are convicted by the courts, they serve their time. The hon. Lady mentioned a case in her constituency and what she perceives to be the injustice there, but I would not generalise from that case and say that that is why there is overcrowding in our prisons.

[Eleanor Smith (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)]

12. What recent steps he has taken in response to the finding of the chief inspector of prisons that no young offender institution inspected in the last year was safe to hold juveniles.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

14. What progress the Government has made on improving the safety of prison officers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

We are working to keep our brave prison officers safe by strengthening the frontline. We had 20,000 individual officers in post at the end of August. That is an increase of 1,290 since October last year and the highest level since 2013. We are also giving our prison officers the tools that they need to do their job. We have invested in 5,600 body-worn cameras across the prison estate to protect and deter assaults.

[Vicky Ford]

In Chelmsford Prison, the number of attacks against staff rose to more than 120 last year, but since then it has recruited more staff and installed innovative mobile phone detectors and it will soon roll out a new digital initiative; where that has been piloted, attacks on prison officers have more than halved. Will the Minister join me in welcoming that progress to put staff safety first?

[Mr Gyimah]

I certainly welcome the progress. I would like to visit Chelmsford—I make that offer to my hon. Friend. We want to go further: she will be aware that we are supporting the private member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on emergency workers, which will increase penalties for assaults on prison officers.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

16. What progress he is making on reviewing cases of prisoners serving a sentence of imprisonment for public protection.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

We are making good progress in helping IPP prisoners to progress to eventual release. We have implemented measures such as individual psychology-led case reviews, increased access to offending behaviour programmes and we are increasing places on progression regimes, with an additional three regimes planned to come online at the end of March 2018.

[Ruth Cadbury]

On 18 October, the Select Committee on Justice heard that 760 released IPP prisoners were recalled in the past year, but 60% of those were quickly re-released. Does the Minister agree with the chair of the Parole Board that the threshold for recall is too low and should be reviewed to stop the revolving door for prisoners who have already long served their minimum tariff?

[Mr Gyimah]

I do not agree that the threshold is too low. When an IPP prisoner is recalled, it is not because they were found, for example, hiding under their mother’s bed. It is often because there is a clear causal link to the behaviour exhibited at the time of the index offence. Our duty is to keep the public safe. Where there is any signal or any cause for concern, it is right that such prisoners are recalled into custody. However, the national probation service is working on a programme to help IPPs when they are released into the community to transition into the community and to reduce the incidence of recall in a way that protects the public, but also allows IPPs to rebuild their lives.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

17. What steps the Government are taking to improve the court experience for victims and witnesses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

After last week’s “Panorama” investigation into the dangerous failings of the privatisation of probation, will the Minister halt any plans to outsource night-time supervision in probation hostels?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

Of course we seek to get the best value for money for the taxpayer in all our services. I understand that we are hiring people to cover some night-time shifts in probation hostels. We will ensure that we bear in mind value for the taxpayer while also protecting the public.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

T5. As my hon. Friend the Minister is aware, Kirkham Prison is a category D open prison in my constituency that works to enable prisoners to make the transition to life outside. What steps are the Government are taking to support Kirkham and other prisons to rehabilitate offenders and to improve prisons’ ways of operating?

[Mr Gyimah]

In prisons across the estate, including Kirkham, we are empowering governors by giving them control over their budgets and holding them accountable for training and education outcomes so that we enable them to deliver rehabilitation.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The family courts are full of people representing themselves. The new President of the Supreme Court, Lady Justice Hale, has described the Government’s legal aid reforms as a “false economy”. Does not the Minister agree that restoring early legal aid would not only reduce the number of cases coming to court, but save court time? Will he guarantee that the legal aid review will include an analysis of the cost to the rest of the legal aid system that has resulted from the Government’s abolition of early legal aid?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Full-body scanners that detect drugs that are concealed within the person are successfully used across America. The Ministry of Justice has trialled one scanner. Has there been an evaluation, will we see more trials, and could the scanners be used on a mobile basis?

[Mr Gyimah]

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in his party conference speech, one scanner was trialled in Wandsworth and we are looking at doing that across the entire estate. There has been an evaluation. Full-body scanners are not the only way to combat drugs and to prevent drugs from getting into prisons, as using intelligence, going after organised crime and working with law enforcement are also ways of dealing with drugs. We will use every measure possible to make sure that we stop the epidemic of drugs in our prisons and the flow of drugs into them.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

The Minister will now be aware that there is a covenant on the land on the Baglan industrial park, in my constituency, where he wishes to build a prison. That covenant states that the land should not be used

“other than as an industrial park”,

or for

“any offensive, noisy or dangerous trade business manufacture or occupation or for any purpose or in any manner which may be a nuisance to the Agency or the occupiers of neighbouring or adjacent premises.”

Does he agree that the covenant is the final nail in the coffin of the Ministry’s plans to build a prison on the Baglan industrial park?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman is incredibly persistent and tenacious in fighting for his constituents. Before moving ahead with any building project, we will of course carry out all the necessary legal and local authority searches. If they turn up any objections, we will take those into account accordingly.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

With a population of more than 80,000, our prisons are bursting at the seams, yet according to the Ministry of Justice’s own figures, we transferred a pathetic 110 foreign national prisoners to prison in their own country last year, and this year’s number is 56. Surely we can do better than that.

[Mr Gyimah]

I think my hon. Friend is referring to the numbers transferred under prisoner transfer agreements. Last year, the overall number of prisoners deported from this country was a record high. We continue to work consistently with foreign Governments, and there is an inter-ministerial group that links not only the Department for International Development, the Foreign Office and the MOJ, but the Home Office, to make sure that we iron out all the issues that can be impediments to transferring prisoners to serve their sentence abroad. I assure him that this is a key focus that we will continue to pursue.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is in typically bashful mood, but I still congratulate him on coming top of the private Member’s Bill ballot and on using that coveted position to introduce a Bill on such an important topic. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) on her tireless work in championing the “Protect the Protectors” campaign. The public voted in an online poll to support this Bill, and it is therefore important that we deliver it.

As the son of a midwife, I know of the commitment and hard work shown every day by people working in the public sector. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), I know how it feels to grow up knowing that a parent could be attacked in the line of work, doing something they care about and to which they are committed.

Every day, emergency workers across the country show remarkable courage simply in carrying out their duties. They save lives, protect communities and uphold the law. We owe each and every one of them a debt of gratitude, and they deserve the full protection of the law. Introducing tougher sentences for such despicable attacks on emergency workers sends the clearest possible message that this cowardly behaviour will not be tolerated. That is why the Government support the Bill.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I know my hon. Friend has looked at the issue carefully, and he heard my intervention on the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). Sentences seem to be the same for summary offences as for indictable offences, so will he consider whether it is necessary to increase sentences for indictable offences?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point, as did my hon. Friends the Members for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) and for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) and the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick). We will work through the detail in Committee, but the Bill deserves its Second Reading today.

I am humbled by the stories of bravery we have heard today. This year our emergency services have faced the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, as well as horrific terrorist attacks. The murder of Police Constable Keith Palmer, outside this very building, is a shocking and tragic reminder to us all of how much our emergency workers do to protect us.

We must not forget that, as well as responding to major incidents, our frontline emergency workers—be they police or prison officers, firefighters, paramedics or other health workers—deal with challenging and unpredictable situations as part of their everyday working lives.

I was asked whether civil nuclear constabulary and Army personnel working in Operation Temperer will be covered by the Bill, and the answer is yes. They are engaged to provide services for police purposes, so the Bill will apply to them.

Although public attention often focuses on paramedics being abused by drunks in city centres, or on heroic police officers tackling violent criminals, behind prison walls our governors and frontline prison officers work daily with some of society’s most dangerous and troubled individuals. I have seen at first hand the courage shown by those committed men and women as they protect society. As with all emergency workers responding to critical situations, prison staff must be able to carry out their duties without fear of assault. They carry out their duties with incredible calmness and professionalism. I often pay tribute to them in this House, and I do so again today. I am pleased that the Bill will apply to them, too.

For some time now, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice have been working together, building an evidence base on what is happening on the ground and looking at what more we can do to protect our emergency workers. For the past two years, the Home Office has published provisional statistics on assaults on police officers, and sadly, as has been mentioned, they show that the numbers are increasing. In 2016-17, there were an estimated 24,000 assaults on police officers, which is a 7% increase on the 2015-16 figure. Assaults on prison officers also rose by a third last year and, in the acute hospital and ambulance sectors, physical assaults on staff, where no medical factors are involved, have risen by more than 34% since 2009-10. So the Government could not be clearer: this high number of assaults will not be tolerated, and those who are violent towards our emergency workers must face the full force of the law.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), who has responsibility for courts and justice, and the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service have met the hon. Member for Rhondda several times since July to discuss the contents of this important Bill, and Government officials have assisted in its drafting. We are pleased that we have been able to work collaboratively with him on a Bill that will help to provide the police and courts with the powers they need to punish those who use violence against our emergency workers.

The hon. Gentleman has given an overview of the Bill’s provisions, but I want briefly to mention its specifics. Before doing so, I must stress that, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) made clear, we are not starting from a position where there is no protection for emergency workers or for public sector workers as a whole. Judges can already impose tough sentences for those attacking public sector workers and our courts, rightly, already consider an offence directed against those serving the public as more serious. What this Bill does is focus on supplementing those existing provisions with additional safeguards for emergency workers facing violence, often on a daily basis, simply as a result of carrying out their duties.

Clause 1 creates, in effect, a new form of common assault where the assault is on an emergency worker. An offence committed in these circumstances will have, on indictment, a maximum penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment, which is double the current maximum penalty. That will give the courts the power to sentence in a way that reflects the seriousness of the assault. I have to stress though, for those who may think even this new penalty is not sufficient, that we are talking here about common assault, the lowest level of assault, which may not involve any injury and can include as little as a single push. If the assault is more serious, it is likely to become actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm, and those offences already have a five-year maximum penalty. So we are focused here on the lower-level offences, and the maximum penalty has to reflect that.

Clause 2 deals with other more serious assaults: those not covered by the new aggravated version of common assault. For those offences, actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm or even manslaughter, the Bill places a duty on the court to consider such an assault committed against an emergency worker as an aggravating factor in sentencing—that means to consider it as more serious, meriting an increased sentence within the maximum for the offence. The Bill also requires the court to make a finding that the offence was aggravated and to state this in open court. This puts on a statutory basis what we already see in sentencing guidelines. It is, however, a clear and unequivocal requirement on the court to take these offences seriously and to make clear to all concerned that it has done so.

I want briefly to mention the application of the Bill to emergency workers. The Bill, as the hon. Gentleman has said and as its title make clear, is about emergency workers and assaults on them while they are trying to carry out their daily duties. The Bill focuses on providing increased protection for emergency workers. These are people who have routinely to deal with difficult people and difficult situations simply as part of their job. That job exposes them to a degree of risk, and it is only right that we are seeking to strengthen their protection under the law. As we debate the Bill, we must keep our central objective—ensuring that emergency workers can carry out those critically important duties—firmly in mind.

It is important that we retain a focus on emergency workers, but this does not mean that the Government think other assaults are not serious. Our courts already consider the context for offences, and specifically when offences are committed against those serving the public. The current sentencing guidelines used by the courts make it clear that if any offence is

“committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public”,

that should be considered as a factor increasing seriousness, indicating the need for a higher sentence within the maximum penalty. I welcome the work that the Sentencing Council has done and continues to do to make that consideration explicit in sentencing guidelines.

The third provision in the Bill relates to the testing of those who assault emergency workers. During the Committee stage of the Prisons and Courts Bill in the last Parliament, the hon. Member for Halifax raised this important matter. I said at the time that the Government were interested in looking at the issue but had to address some important practical and legal questions. I am happy to say that this Bill provides an opportunity to return to that commitment.

Unfortunately, those emergency workers who are bitten or spat at have to deal not only with the initial disgust and pain; in some cases, there might also be a concern that they have contracted a serious infectious disease. This can cause great distress and worry to the individuals and their families. It is simply not fair that the onus is currently on the emergency worker to have their own blood tested and to then potentially undergo further tests to help medical practitioners to assess whether they will develop a disease.

We therefore support the creation of a specific power for police officers to request blood and saliva samples from offenders in these cases. This will ensure that emergency workers are provided with better information regarding the likelihood that they have caught a disease. It will therefore reduce the number of occasions on which emergency workers themselves have to be tested and subsequently take medicines and endure periods of uncertainty about whether they have a disease. A blood sample will be taken only with consent. However, we agree that creating an offence of refusing to provide a blood sample for this purpose without good reason will help to ensure that offenders comply with these requests.

We want to continue to work with the hon. Member for Rhondda and with the police and other emergency services to ensure that the Bill’s proposals are both practical and affordable. I thank the Police Federation for the work that it has done in this context. We also want to work with our Welsh counterparts as the Bill progresses through Parliament, to ensure that this legislation works effectively in Wales.

Let me conclude by again thanking the hon. Member for Rhondda—he does not get thanks from me very often, so he should accept it on this occasion—for ensuring that this first Friday sitting considering private Members’ Bills has been so well spent. This is not a party political issue; it is an issue that affects us all. We have heard constituency cases from across the House today reflecting that fact. That is why I am pleased that we are working together to protect these key public servants. Introducing tougher sentences for despicable attacks on emergency workers sends the clearest possible message that those attacks will not be tolerated. I commend the many staff associations that have worked hard to push the issues in the Bill to the fore. We look forward to debating the provisions further as the Bill progresses through the House.

Prisons Policy/HMP Long Lartin

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will make a statement on prisons policy and the recent disturbance in Her Majesty’s Prison Long Lartin.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I can confirm that there was an incident at HMP Long Lartin last night and that it has now been resolved without injury to staff or prisoners. The incident is of course of concern, and we will need to investigate properly what drove the actions of a relatively small number of individuals. It will take a number of weeks to ensure that all the intelligence is properly examined and that we learn lessons and apply them to prevent any reoccurrence.

We cannot speculate on the cause of this incident, but we know that the prison was running a full regime and that this was not linked to any shortfalls in prison officer staffing levels. Its last inspection report found the prison to be “calm and controlled” and that, although there were improvements to be made, it was “both competent and effective.”

The incident remained contained on a single wing of the prison, and it involved 81 prisoners. I want to commend the actions of the staff, who acted swiftly in response to the incident. They locked down the wing, ensured the rest of prison remained settled and prevented any public protection issues or escalation. Our specialist staff were deployed to the prison from across the country. They swiftly resolved the incident in just over an hour, securing all prisoners without injury. Once again, they demonstrated their bravery and professionalism, for which we should all be very grateful.

We do not tolerate violence in our prisons, and we are clear that those responsible will be referred to the police and could spend longer behind bars.

[Richard Burgon]

I thank the Minister for his remarks. It is unfortunate that the Secretary of State has more pressing problems than prison disturbances and the axing of Conservative manifesto prisons policy, which I shall come on to shortly.

Last night’s disturbance at HMP Long Lartin marks another low point in the prisons policy of this Government. The House will no doubt recall the frightening scenes on our televisions from HMP Birmingham last year. That was no one-off, with many other disturbances in recent months, but when it involves a high-security prison housing some of our most dangerous prisoners, it is especially concerning. Does the Minister believe that forcing through hundreds of millions of pounds of budget cuts to our prisons in recent years has left our prisons more safe or less safe?

Seven in 10 of our prisons are now overcrowded, and the situation is getting worse. The former director general of the Prison Service has warned that the recent surge in numbers is adding to the pressures on a prison system that he says is

“already woefully short of space”.

Does the Minister believe that prisoners spending more and more time locked in their cells is making our prisons more safe or less safe?

Government cuts have seen over 6,000 frontline prison officers cut. Despite recent Government boasting about new recruits, one in three of our prisons has lost frontline staff this year alone. Does the Minister believe that fewer and fewer staff dealing with more and more dangerous prisoners leaves prisons more safe or less safe?

Yesterday, the head of the Prison Service ruled out shutting down and selling off dilapidated Victorian jails across England and Wales. This amounts to shelving a 2017 Conservative general election manifesto promise. Does the Minister believe that housing more and more people in Victorian conditions will leave our prisons more safe or less safe? Finally, will the Government apologise to the country for yet another broken manifesto promise?

[Mr Gyimah]

Let us be clear about what happened yesterday and remind ourselves that we are dealing with category A prisoners in Long Lartin, which contains some of the most challenging and difficult prisoners within the estate. Prison staff work incredibly hard to deal with these prisoners—many of them are extremely difficult individuals—and to manage them successfully on a day-to-day basis.

Last night’s disturbance was an incredibly rare occurrence, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Inevitably, the nature of our business is such that the situation can become volatile. This situation was isolated—isolated to one wing—and, as I have said, the prison was running a full regime. When situations become volatile, staff in prisons sometimes need extra support, and in this situation our specialist trained prison staff were needed to support the staff in the prison to resolve the incident. They did that very quickly, without harm to staff or prisoners.

In response to the questions about staffing, the shadow spokesperson will be aware that we are investing in our staff in prisons. We are investing £100 million to add 2,500 prison officers by the end of next year. We are on track to deliver that commitment. This year alone we have added a net 868 new prison officers.

The hon. Gentleman is very aware, from his conversations with the chief inspector of prisons and a number of prison governors, that the long-standing challenges facing our prisons are not just about staffing, but new psychoactive substances that the prison ombudsman himself has described as a game-changer for the security and stability of our prisons. We know that staffing would make a huge difference, which is why we are making huge efforts to increase not just the number of staff but the ratio of staff to prisoners, so that one prison officer has a caseload of six prisoners to help with rehabilitation.

The hon. Gentleman asked about our commitment to close old Victorian prisons and add new prison places within the course of this Parliament. Our first priority is to ensure public protection and provide accommodation for all those sentenced by the courts, but that commitment very much remains.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

Long Lartin prison is in my constituency. I thank the prisons Minister for keeping me up to date on developments throughout the night and for his comments about the professionalism of prison staff. I am relieved that nobody appears to have been seriously injured in this incident and I am very pleased by the speed at which the incident was dealt with. May I ask the Minister for reassurance that the incident will be properly investigated and that any appropriate action will be taken?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

I can give my hon. Friend an assurance that there will be a full and proper investigation. There is no point in speculating today on the exact causes of the incident, but there will be a full investigation and lessons learnt. When incidents happen, it is important that we not only deal with them but learn lessons for the future, and we will be doing that.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

This is not the first time in recent years that the Government have been called to account in this Chamber for trouble in prisons in England. I note that the Prison Governors Association expressed concern about the fact that this trouble took place in a high security prison and reminded the Government that it had called for an independent public inquiry into the state of prisons in England due to cuts.

In Scotland, we have been fortunate to avoid such problems due to record investment in modernising and improving the prison estate, with the Scottish National party Government spending almost twice as much as the previous Labour-Liberal Democrat Administration on modernising the prison estate. Will the Minister accept an invitation to visit prisons in Scotland to see the good work being done there to avoid this sort of trouble?

[Mr Gyimah]

I will almost certainly accept the invitation to visit prisons in Scotland. We should always learn from best practice, wherever it is. That is not to say that what is happening in Scotland is necessarily best practice, but I have an open mind. I reiterate that we have a £1.3 billion commitment to modernise our prison estate in England and Wales over the course of this Parliament.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is good to see twice as many Ministers on the Treasury Bench as there are spokesmen on the Opposition Front Bench. I thank the Minister for his statement and observe that this is a prison that was described by Her Majesty’s chief inspector as calm and well-controlled. That indicates an underlying issue about the volatility of the prison population. Will the Minister confirm that he is prepared to revisit some of the recommendations made in the Justice Committee’s report on prison safety in the previous Parliament? Will he look again at the way we handle security and mental health, and how we sentence and treat vulnerable offenders who go into the prison population?

[Mr Gyimah]

I hold the recommendations of the Justice Committee very dearly to my heart. We will of course look at all its recommendations. The Chair of the Select Committee makes a very important point about the prison population. We not only hold some very difficult individuals, but some very troubled individuals. Dealing with issues such as mental health is a key part of dealing with the security and stability of our prisons. It is not just about security solutions.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Two of the three murders in the prison system last year were at Long Lartin. Last week, two individuals were convicted of the murder of a prisoner committed in June in Long Lartin. In the last four years, there have been four murders in Long Lartin. Why does Long Lartin seem to have more murders than any other prison in the country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

The right hon. Gentleman, a former Prisons Minister, will be aware that Long Lartin holds some of the most difficult individuals. It is a category A prison holding some of the most notorious prisoners this country has ever incarcerated. The prisons ombudsman investigates every death, and referring to its report will be the best way to understand what has occurred.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I am sure the whole House will want to thank the Tornado team that restored order at Long Lartin last night. I think there is considerable support on both sides of the House and among the public for our taking yet further action on returning foreign national offenders. If the Minister did that, he would create headroom to allow that extra calm that the prison system needs at the moment. I know the numbers have improved, but will he say what further action we can take in that area?

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend, a former Prisons Minister, for his question. Yes, the number of foreign national offenders returned to their home countries has increased. I think the number is about 6,000, but I will confirm the exact number in writing. It is the highest figure in recent years, but we continue to redouble our efforts. A cross-Government group comprising the Policing Minister and the Immigration Minister, as well as Ministers from the Home Office and the Foreign Office, is working actively with foreign Governments to increase the rate at which foreign national offenders are returned to their home country.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

While it is reassuring to hear the Minister say that no staff were physically hurt during the disturbance, these events are not supposed to happen and can be terrifying for the staff present. Will he make sure that staff receive the support they might need in the coming weeks to deal with what happened and that no staff member is forced to come back to work before they are ready?

[Mr Gyimah]

The staff were brilliant last night and are brilliant today. We also have an excellent governor, to whom I have conveyed my full support. Yes, we need to give them all the support they need, and I will put it on the record again that we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for managing on a day-to-day basis not just isolated incidences such as last night’s, but a very difficult and challenging situation in our prisons.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I am grateful for the Minister’s confirmation that this was an isolated incident confined to one section of the prison and that the public were not at risk. Will he also confirm that the staffing level in that section of the prison was as normal?

[Mr Gyimah]

I can confirm not only that there was a full regime but that the number of prison officer staff on the wing was as normal.

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

Andrea Albutt, president of the Prison Governors Association, said this week that our prisons were full to bursting. In the lowest-category prisons, will the Minister consider trying to deal with this overcrowding and reduce prison numbers safely and sensibly by introducing a presumption against short sentences, as has been successively implemented in Scotland?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

That is a very interesting question. As a former Minister, the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that it is not for the Minister to pronounce on sentencing policy at the Dispatch Box. Of course, we want to reduce the prison population, but one of the best ways to do that is to reduce reoffending rates and to end the conveyor belt into crime by intervening before people end up in custody. That is more effective than arbitrarily letting people out of prison.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

If the Minister wants a zero-tolerance approach, may I suggest he change the law so that anybody involved in riots in prisons or assaults or attacks on prison officers is no longer eligible for early release but has to serve the full sentence handed down by the courts? That would give prison officers some of the support they deserve and would perhaps act as a deterrent to these appalling kinds of behaviour.

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend has asked this question of me a number of times. He will be aware that a prisoner who is a perpetrator of a crime in prison will be prosecuted for that specific crime and, if convicted, will serve that sentence, and that has certainly happened in the case of the perpetrators of the Birmingham riots last year. That is a fair and just way to deal with this kind of situation.

[Mr Speaker]

There is of course no procedural barrier to repeat questions, which many people regard as an example of dogged and insistent campaigning.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

That was a really interesting answer, because the heroin dealer Ian Paul Manuel beat up prison officer Adam Jackson at Kirklevington prison in Stockton, and the courts gave him a conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £20 compensation to the officer. Does the Minister agree that such a slap on the wrist is totally inadequate, that it offers no deterrent at all to the thugs who turn on prison officers and that it is time the courts were given clear advice that they, too, have a responsibility to protect prison officers?

[Mr Gyimah]

Absolutely: our prison officers do a very difficult and challenging job, and when they are assaulted or threatened at work, we should follow the course of the law to its full extent. To do that—[Interruption]—if the hon. Gentleman would listen—there are a number of things we need to get right, such as collecting evidence, making sure that the local police force is on hand to investigate the crime, and then getting the courts to prosecute it as they should. We are working to ensure that those procedures are followed, so that when a prison officer is assaulted in their line of work, the full force of the law is brought to bear on whoever the perpetrator is.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

Clearly, the background to this disturbance will be investigated, but can the Minister outline what the Government are doing to prevent the use of drones to bring contraband into prisons?

[Mr Gyimah]

Drones are an emerging and serious threat to our prisons, especially as they carry an increasing payload as they develop. We are working with a number of drone manufacturers to use technology to stop drones, but we are also focusing on the law enforcement aspect. Before I became the Prisons Minister, there had been only one conviction of a person flying a drone into a prison. This year alone there have been 11 convictions of people flying drones into prison. That is because we are working with the Home Office forensics team, examining drones that fail, going after the perpetrators through the forensic work we are doing and ensuring that they face the full force of the law. It has become apparent that those involved in serious and organised crime are often behind such activity, and we are sending a signal that we will go after them.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister visit Amsterdam for a relaxing weekend, to study the special prison crisis they have in Holland, which is a lack of prisoners to fill their prisons? They have had to close 19 of them down. Will he examine the contrast between the intelligent, pragmatic policies on drugs of the Dutch over the last 50 years and the harsh, unintelligent policies that we have had in this country? The Government there have shown a welcome desire to reflect on the failed drug policies here and introduce new measures that reflect the reality of the situation, in having drug houses that can be used and possibly looking again at imprisoning people for using the medicine of their choice. Is it not time we decided who has got it right over the last five years: the Netherlands or us?

[Mr Gyimah]

I think the Government Whips would be slightly concerned if I accepted another invitation to go abroad to visit prisons, but the substance of the hon. Gentleman’s point is very interesting when it comes to dealing with people who are on drugs in prison. It is about dealing with the supply side and the demand side, but also getting people off drugs. Holland clearly has a very different approach to its prison system. As I have said in relation to Scotland, I am willing to learn from all different jurisdictions to see how we can improve what we are doing here.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

Does the Minister intend to make extra resources or help available to prison governors at high-security prisons, to ensure that our prisons are calm and well controlled?

[Mr Gyimah]

Our high-security estate does not lack the resources that it needs for the purposes of security or maintaining a regime. In fact, such prisons have higher staffing ratios because of the difficult people with whom they deal. Of course, if situations change and they need more staff or any other resources to cope with that, such resources will always be available.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

The Minister simply cannot pretend that we will not see further outbreaks of this kind of rioting in our prisons, and he cannot pretend that prisons are not in any case regularly very violent places. As long as we have overcrowded prisons and too few staff, these events will continue to take place. The Minister must look seriously at non-custodial options for the courts when it comes to low-level criminals for whom such options would be more effective, as well as being cheaper. Why is that not already being done?

[Mr Gyimah]

I am not suggesting for a second that such incidents will not be repeated. We try to mitigate and manage risk, but there is always a chance that something like this could happen again. As I have said, what is happening in the high-security estate is a rare occurrence. Of course, as I have also said, the level of violence in our prisons is too high, but dealing with the issues that have led to the current situation—drones, drugs and illegal mobile phones—will take time. We are investing in staff and our intelligence network; we are working on drone detection equipment; and we are working on mobile-phone blockers, but there is no silver bullet to deal with the issue in our prisons, and doing so will take time.

No one here is saying that this will not happen again. We must all be frank with ourselves: prisons are difficult places with some very difficult people to manage, and because of the particular set of circumstances that we face, it will take time to resolve the situation.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Of course it is of concern that an event like this should take place at a high-security prison. However, if there is one conclusion we can draw, surely it is that the method of dealing with such events that is available to the Minister through the Tornado team is effective when tested, which, in itself, should give the public some reassurance.

[Mr Gyimah]

That is an excellent point. The Tornado teams are the bravest of the brave. As we saw last night, they deal with some of the most difficult situations, and the fact that they can be mobilised relatively quickly to arrive at a prison and offer support to its frontline staff is testimony to their effectiveness and professionalism. Of course we would prefer not to have to deploy them, but when there are problems and a need to protect the public and prison officers and maintain stability and order in our prisons, they are second to none.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

The Minister says that the Government are investing in increasing prison officer numbers, but they are only doing so after slashing funding and causing the problem in the first place. They are only 868 officers into their 2,500 target, but in any event, given an increase of more than 1,300 in the prison population in England and Wales, is 2,500 enough?

[Mr Gyimah]

The 2,500 target is obviously based on careful analysis of what we need to deliver the offender management model, which means one prison officer having a six-prisoner caseload, and it should be capable of allowing us to do so.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for mentioning the measures that have been taken to tackle drugs in prisons, which are of particular concern. Will he update the House on the measures that are being taken to deal with new psychoactive substances, which have added an extra layer to the problem?

[Mr Gyimah]

New psychoactive substances are a game-changer. They are particularly difficult to detect. There have been instances of letters to prisoners being impregnated with them: looking at such a letter makes it possible to inhale the drug and to suffer the adverse consequences.

We have trained 300 sniffer dogs to help us with detection, and the UK is the first jurisdiction to develop a test for such drugs. We are redoubling our efforts to deal with the supply side by increasing investment in intelligence. We are investing £3 million, not just at establishment level but across the prison estate, so that we can deal with what is essentially a product of serious and organised crime. People want to get drugs into our prisons because they sell at a higher mark-up: 10 times the price outside.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I fear the Minister might have misunderstood the situation described earlier by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey), because the main difference in Scottish Government policy has not been to suddenly release prisoners early; it has been to give the courts a way of sentencing and punishing low-level offenders without sending them to prison in the first place. Every Member in this House representing a Scottish constituency has seen significant community benefit work carried out in the local area by people who would otherwise have been in prison. I hope the Minister accepts the invitation to meet Scottish Ministers to talk about the investment programme, and I urge him to also speak to others involved in the justice and prison system in Scotland and find out that—although I appreciate this would be a difficult decision for a Conservative Government to take—moving to a presumption against short sentences reduces offending.

[Mr Speaker]

No one could accuse the hon. Gentleman of excluding any consideration that might in any way at any time to any degree be judged material in his question.

[Mr Gyimah]

I fully understood the question posed by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey). Would we rather have a situation in which interventions in the community work and people do not end up in custody? Of course, yes. Would we rather invest there before people ended up in custody? Of course, yes. In this country we have a presumption against custody, but after several repeat offences, judges have no choice but to send a person into custody. That means we have obviously got to improve the work that happens in our community, but we cannot arbitrarily let people out of prison, which is what I assume the question of the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) to be about.

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend update the House not on his aim but on the actual latest recruitment figures for prison officers and explain how that will help improve safety and security in these troublesome areas?

[Mr Gyimah]

The 868 net new prison officers is not an aim: these are people who have been trained, who are on the payroll and who are being deployed on wings as we speak. We are on track to deliver the target of 2,500; the commitment is do that by the end of next year. We are making rapid progress, but there is still a long way to go in bringing stability and order to our prisons overall.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I rise as co-chair of the justice unions cross-party group. We all know that the numbers of assaults on prison staff have reached an all-time high in recent months. The Minister has sung the praises of the recruitment drive for new prison officers, but will he explain how new raw recruits are being prepared to cope with the frankly lethal results of long-term cuts in English and Welsh prisons?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

We have some excellent trainees coming into the Prison Service. For example, one trainee I met had spent seven years in the NHS and was being deployed in HMP Woodhill, a prison where there have been high rates of self-harm and also self-inflicted deaths. That person is more experienced in dealing with the problems that prison is facing today than many who have been in the Prison Service for a long time. These are not raw recruits; in some cases, they are bringing new experience to the Prison Service. In the second world war, someone could be a bomber pilot at the age of 20, so I think someone can serve in the Prison Service at the age of 21 as well.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

If we want to significantly reduce the number of foreign nationals in our prisons, we need compulsory prisoner transfer agreements in place with countries around the world, so that these people are sent back to serve their sentence in prison in their own country—rather than being sent back when they have served the sentence already in this country.

I understand that about half the foreign nationals in our prisons are EU nationals. While we are a member of the EU, we are meant to be under the prisoner transfer directive. How many EU national prisoners have been sent back to the EU countries they came from?

[Mr Gyimah]

I do not have that exact figure to hand but am willing to write to my hon. Friend with the answer.

[Mr Paul J. Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

This month the inspectorate reported that there was a major under-prescription of methadone at Low Moss prison near my constituency and also of the anti-overdose drug naloxone. Will the Minister consider the impact that the under-prescribing of these critical drugs may have on the safety of the prison population?

[Mr Gyimah]

If the hon. Gentleman is willing to write to me, I will be happy to look at that specific situation; it sounds as though it is a situation specific to that prison.

Proposed Prison: Port Talbot

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

To give some context, we are investing £1.3 billion to create an additional 10,000 “new for old” prison places with better education facilities and other rehabilitative services to help prisoners turn their lives around. In Wales, as has been mentioned, in February we opened HMP Berwyn to provide 2,000 uncrowded and efficient prison places. We have also begun work on building a new houseblock at HMP Stocken, re-roled HMP Durham and HMP Holme House, announced our plans to redevelop HMP Glen Parva and former HMP Wellingborough, and announced a programme of four further builds, which includes Port Talbot in south Wales.

The prisons being built in Wales are therefore part of a much broader context, which is about improving our prison estate throughout the entire country. As well as creating modern prisons that are fit for the 21st century, the proposed new builds will act as a boost to regional economies across the country. They will create up to 2,000 jobs in the construction and manufacturing industries, and new opportunities for local businesses.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

The figures show that last Friday the prison population stood at 86,235, which is up 1,268 on September last year. Alongside building new prisons, surely this Government should be prioritising a reduction in the prison population per se.

[Mr Gyimah]

Of course. We would all like the prison population not to be as high as it is, but punishment must fit the crime, and if people commit offences, they should be sentenced to prison. Of the two best ways to reduce the prison population, the first is to cut reoffending so that the one in two people who leave our prisons and reoffend are stopped from doing so, which means that we need modern, purpose-built prisons that can deliver education and employment training. Secondly, we must stop the conveyor belt from low-level crime to custody, which means reforming our probation services. We are working on those things in the Department.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I am grateful to the Minister for mentioning the probation service. I understand that a review of probation is ongoing, in particular the transformation of rehabilitation, but I have not had the opportunity to ask whether there is a date for it to be published.

[Mr Gyimah]

The probation service review is ongoing. As the hon. Lady may know, the results of the first part were published in a written ministerial statement just before the summer recess, outlining the additional investment that has gone into the probation companies. We will be publishing the next set of results as and when they are ready. I cannot give her a firm date, but it will be shortly.

The substance of the debate is the Port Talbot location of the proposed prison, as discussed by the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). When assessing where to build new prisons, the Ministry of Justice worked closely with the Welsh Government to identify suitable sites for a new prison build in Wales. We undertook a comprehensive evaluation of more than 20 sites in south Wales, ensuring that various factors were taken into consideration, such as preference for sites located along the M4 corridor because of their accessibility and the travel time benefits they would bring.

After careful consideration, Port Talbot was selected as the best potential site for a new category C prison build in Wales. That was for a number of reasons, including the capacity of local infrastructure to support the prison and the potential to maximise the benefits of investment in the local community. In addition, the site is owned by the Welsh Government, who are supportive of our work to progress these plans. As I mentioned, supply and demand for prison places are misaligned. For example, we do not have enough category C prison places in south Wales; the proposed prison at Port Talbot would address that shortfall.

[Stephen Kinnock]

The Minister began to explain the infrastructure decision and why the Baglan site was considered to have better infrastructure than the Felindre site, but he did not give any more detail. As I said, junction 46 gives far easier access than junction 41, so why was Felindre considered to have poorer infrastructure than Baglan?

[Mr Gyimah]

Infrastructure is not just motorway access but the local infrastructure of the area. For a category C prison, which would effectively be a resettlement prison, ease of access to employment is important, so that prisoners can be released on temporary licence and come back easily. It is also important that local people can work in the prison without having to commute long distances, not to mention ease of access for prisoners’ families to visit them. All those things are taken into account when we look at local infrastructure.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

Order. I should make it clear that the rules of procedure do not allow for Opposition spokespeople to participate in half-hour debates—they are exactly the same as the rules that apply to Adjournment debates in the main Chamber.

[Mr Gyimah]

Thank you, Mr Brady—as ever, you are hot on procedure.

A modern prison at Port Talbot will support the rehabilitative culture that is essential to making communities safer. A fit-for-purpose establishment will ensure that families can visit inmates in a relaxed atmosphere, which is particularly important for children. We will ensure, as far as possible, that local labour is sought from Port Talbot and the surrounding area and that local businesses benefit. As a guide, in the design and build of HMP Berwyn, around £83 million was spent with small and medium-sized enterprises in addition to the £38.2 million that was spent on local businesses. The construction of HMP Berwyn provided jobs for unemployed people, apprenticeships and more than 2,000 days of educational work experience for local young people.

Based on the success of HMP Berwyn, where we estimate that up to 1,000 jobs will be created, the new prison at Port Talbot could generate up to 500 jobs and contribute £11 million a year to the regional economy. Some 66% of HMP Berwyn’s staff came from the local area.

[Stephen Kinnock]

We are talking about job creation and enterprise. What does the Minister advise me to say to local businesses in the Baglan area that have already said that they will shut up shop if the prison goes ahead, which would mean the loss of hundreds of local jobs?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman passionately represents the views of his constituents. As he is aware, there is a statutory consultation process. We have extended the time available for that consultation, which will give us the opportunity to listen to the concerns of residents and respond appropriately. When a change of this scale is proposed, it is not unusual to get the kind of reaction that he has received. The onus is on the Ministry of Justice to explain to local residents what is happening and what the benefits are, and we will do that as we go through this process.

I know that the hon. Gentleman would like me to personally engage in this process, but the Prisons Minister does not have expertise in taking residents through a consultation—no MP does. However, experts in the Department have been through this process in other parts of the country, including Berwyn, and they will take his constituents through their understandable concerns.

[Stephen Kinnock]

The Minister is being generous with his time. We have invited him to a public meeting in Port Talbot on 20 September, but he has said he is unable to attend. Can he confirm that someone from his team can attend that meeting?

[Mr Gyimah]

There will definitely be officials from the Ministry of Justice there. I want us to go through this process, as we do with every other prison in the country. The Minister cannot just start popping around the country running consultations for all the new prisons we are building, but the hon. Gentleman has exchanged letters with me all summer and my door is always open for him to come and represent the views of his constituents, as he has done by raising the issues here. I promise that I will take everything he raises on board. Contrary to what he said about having to winkle out answers from the Department, he has used all the formal channels available to a Member of Parliament, and I dare say that he has received a response every time he has made an inquiry about this prison.

We are obviously focused on infrastructure and the benefits for the community. We are working with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority to develop innovation in the construction and delivery of new prison buildings. That is in line with the UK industrial strategy and will create new job sectors in the industry.

We have touched on stakeholder engagement, which is important. As I said, we are engaging with the Welsh Government and Members of Parliament, and with Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council to develop its plans for the Port Talbot site. We are pleased to have had the support of the leader of the council, Councillor Rob Jones, and the Welsh Government throughout the process.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

What consideration has the Minister’s Department given to technical advice note 15 and the fact that the site is on a C1 floodplain?

[Mr Gyimah]

All those issues will be flushed out during the consultation process. It is not in the Department’s interest to build a prison on a floodplain if that is a serious technical constraint. We should leave that to the experts to decide; I am not an expert and neither is the hon. Lady. The consultation and all the analysis will have to run their course, as they would in the build of any prison.

We value the contributions of local stakeholders in helping to shape the site’s development. As I have said, we will have two days of public engagement. The first event will focus on the statutory planning processes and will be a key avenue for residents to make representations about our proposals and for the Ministry to help residents to understand our plans for the site. In addition, the statutory process requires a 28-day public consultation prior to the planning application being submitted, after which the development proposals will be subject to the standard 13-week planning process. We have not even got to the planning application stage yet; there will be many opportunities for residents to contribute, to help shape the proposals and raise objections to the process.

I know that the hon. Member for Aberavon, who is an assiduous constituency MP, will hold his own public engagement event on 20 September. I welcome the interest in his plans, and I will speak to my officials to ensure that he gets the support that he needs for that event. I appreciate that some in the community are concerned about the creation of a prison at Port Talbot. We will work with the community as the project progresses, using the lessons we learned from the prison we built at Berwyn, to mitigate those concerns. We will continue to work with the Welsh Government, who remain committed to the project on the Port Talbot site, and we will work closely with them when developing the planning event to address the local community’s key concerns.

Although it is too early to give an estimate of the cost of designing and building the new prison, we will ensure best value for money for taxpayers. Funding arrangements for health and police services were mentioned; we will engage with relevant public sector partners to ensure that they are able to develop suitable plans for the new prison.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) on securing the debate, and the hon. Member for Aberavon on bringing up important issues that need to be aired with projects of this kind. I certainly do not see that as a nuisance; we need to go through this process and listen to residents. I hope that as we do, the work that is already under way to make our prisons true places of reform and rehabilitation will become apparent and show what this site can deliver for both prisoners and the wider community.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

16. What steps the Government are taking to improve offenders’ access to education and employment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

Education and employment opportunities are crucial to help offenders to turn around their lives. In line with our reforms, every prisoner will have a personal learning plan linked to their sentence plan. To make this reform effective, we are giving governors control over their education budgets to organise courses that fit prisoners’ needs.

[Rebecca Pow]

Gardening and horticultural schemes for growing edible crops are increasingly being incorporated into prison programmes and programmes for those on remand up and down the country, giving offenders transferrable skills and offering them future employment opportunities, as well as encouraging self-confidence and, quite often, transforming unattractive concrete yards into much more pleasant green spaces. Has a formal assessment been made of some of those programmes, with a view to rolling out the best of the models even more widely?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is right. I remember visiting Rye Hill prison near Daventry and seeing the pride with which prisoners tended their gardens; they spent hours doing so. She may be aware of the Royal Horticultural Society Windlesham trophy award, which is judged by an independent panel that looks at the best gardening schemes across the prison estate. If she does not mind, I should be delighted to put her name forward to be a judge.

[Matt Warman]

Category D prisons often have the very best examples of rehabilitation as they prepare to let their prisoners back into the community. North Sea Camp in my constituency has worked with the council not only on that rehabilitative work to prepare prisoners for work but, for example, on fly-tipping, saving the taxpayer £300,000. Does the Minister agree that the other prisons in the sector can learn from category D’s rehabilitative practices, and will he come to North Sea Camp and have a look at how well they can work?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend has lighted on an important principle. Work in prison is vital to preparing prisoners for life after release—North Sea Camp has an excellent example—which is why I am supporting the New Futures Network to develop relationships between employers, governors and the world of work. I would be delighted to visit North Sea Camp in due course.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have never heard such complacency from the Government. The Prison Service is a shambles, and at the heart of that shambles is the lack of education, the lack of literacy, the lack of numeracy and the lack of apprenticeships—services that, as they are for our Scandinavian brethren, should be in every prison. When is the Minister going to wake up?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman has come back from his summer holiday with his customary passion. I agree that if prisons are to work properly we need to give people the opportunity to turn their lives around. Prison reform is important to this Government. That is why we are giving governors more control of their budgets and more freedom to implement the plans that are necessary for offenders to turn their lives around. I share his concern and his passion, and such work is a priority for this Government.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

How will the personal learning plans of which the Minister has just spoken operate when a prisoner is transferred from one prison to another? What guarantees can he give that the education path on which that prisoner has commenced can be continued in his or her new setting, and that there will be consistency of offer right across the prison estate?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady points out a very serious problem that currently exists on the estate. Prisoners are transferred and cannot continue courses that they have started—for example, some were on GCSE programmes and cannot finish them. We are looking at courses and technology systems that allow them to carry on what they have been doing when they are transferred from one prison to another, so that there is progression on all the courses. I completely agree with her, but we are looking at it.

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

21. If prison is to achieve anything, it must change lives. It has the best chance of doing that if we offer people both education and assisted places in work on release. Given that three fifths of offenders still leave prison without identified education or any employment opportunities, will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State or my hon. Friend assure us that these programmes will be at the centre of the prison system and describe how these policies are being adjusted for greater success?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is right. About 50% of prisoners have the reading age and numeracy skills of an 11-year-old. If we are to give them a chance in life, we need to sort out education, but we also need to give them employment skills that are valued in the workplace. That is why prison reform, which is at the heart of the White Paper that the Government published last November, is carrying on at pace.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

The chief inspectors of prisons and of probation recently issued a devastating report on the Government’s flagship community rehabilitation companies, which stated:

“None of the prisoners had been helped into employment by through-the-gate services”.

Will the Minister commit to an urgent review of the role of CRCs, including their delivery of education and employment services, and will he guarantee that no extra money will be passed on to those private companies until they can be proven to be fit for purpose?

[Mr Gyimah]

The probation reforms that the previous Conservative Government rolled out mean that 45,000 offenders who previously would not have been supervised, because they had been in prison for less than 12 months, are now being supervised. The hon. Gentleman is right that there are challenges with what is a first-generation outsourcing programme. We have an ongoing probation review and extra funds have been invested in the CRCs, but we are still within the funding envelope that was decided at the start of the programme. We are carrying out the review to make sure that through-the-gate and other services operate as was envisaged in the original vision.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

6. What steps the Government are taking to counter extremism and radicalisation in prisons.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

8. What steps the Government are taking to prevent the use of drones over prisons.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

Drones are a serious threat to order and stability in our prisons, given the contraband that they are used to smuggle. Our intelligence work tells us that a lot of this activity is backed up by organised crime gangs. That is why we have invested in our intelligence teams. There is also a specialist unit between the Prison Service and the police service to track down and prosecute such offenders. In the last year alone, there have been 40 arrests and 11 convictions of criminals involved in drone activity, resulting in those convicted serving a total of 40 years in jail.

[Wendy Morton]

With offenders being more than twice as likely to be reconvicted within 12 months of release from custody if they are known drug users, what work is being done to tackle the supply—potentially using drones—of drugs into our prisons?

[Mr Gyimah]

Drones are one way in which drugs are smuggled into our prisons, but we are looking at all possible ways. For example, paper is sometimes impregnated with new psychoactive substances, which makes them very difficult to detect. The way to tackle the supply is to get intelligence not just from each establishment but from different parts of the Prison Service so that we can respond appropriately. We are investing heavily in doing so to combat the drugs problem in our prisons.

[Mr Speaker]

We are now substantially better informed.

[Mr Gyimah]

The right hon. Gentleman, as a former prisons Minister, is well aware that the job of tracking down and arresting criminals is one for the police service, not the prisons Minister. In response to his other question, we are looking at various types of technology to disrupt drones flying into our prisons to deliver contraband.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

9. What assessment his Department has made of the reasons for recent trends in the number of employment tribunal cases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

12. How many additional prison officers have been newly recruited since January 2017.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

Between the start of January and the end of June 2017, there has been a net increase of 868 new prison officers. That puts us well on track to recruit 2,500 new officers by December 2018.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Minister will be aware of the major drugs finds and related problems at Holme House prison in my constituency, where experienced officers have left and have been replaced by 18-year-old recruits. Does he really think that recruiting youngsters is the answer when it comes to meeting the needs of our increasing prison population, tackling drugs, and solving the crisis in the Prison Service?

[Mr Gyimah]

I take issue with the implication behind the hon. Gentleman’s question. We are recruiting new prison officers. We were all inexperienced once, but that did not mean that we were not capable of doing our jobs. I have been to the Newbold Revel training centre; I know that many of our recruits are of the highest calibre, and that the recruitment methods are those that have been used over a number of years. The Opposition did not believe that we could deliver these numbers, but we are delivering them, and I think that the Opposition should be supporting the Government.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

As a result of the Government’s excellent policy, a new, modern prison has been built in Wellingborough. Can the Minister tell me how many of the new prison officers will be working there, and when the prison might open? If he cannot do so now, will he write to me, please?

[Mr Gyimah]

I will certainly write to my hon. Friend. The staffing arrangements at Wellingborough have not been decided yet, but we are very proud, and very keen to be progressive in opening the prison.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

The Minister is boasting about the number of prison officers who have been recruited this year, but the Ministry’s own figures show that 35 prisons—a third of the total—have suffered a fall in frontline officer numbers since January this year. Is this another example of what the former director-general of the Prison Service now describes as Ministers

“doing nothing except issue cheery press releases...which suggest all is going precisely to plan”?

[Mr Gyimah]

It has nothing to do with “cheery press releases”. There are 868 people on the payroll, who have started work in our prisons and are doing a heroic and brave job. We promised to invest £100 million to recruit 2,500 new officers by the end of 2013, and we are on track to deliver that target. Of course there are wider issues in our prison system, such as the retention of officers, but we are working on those. We are also going beyond that, recruiting smart graduates to work on the frontline, and we have exceeded our targets for the Unlocked programme.

Those are not boasts. It was the Opposition who talked prison officers down and said that no one would want to work in our prisons. It is good to see people stepping up to do what is a brave and challenging job.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

T5. What upgrades have been achieved in prisons since we came into office, and how are we going to rehabilitate prisoners even further?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I assume my hon. Friend is referring to the upgrades in the prison estate, where we are investing £1.3 billion to modernise the estate. As part of that, we will be building 10,000 modern prison places. That should help with offender rehabilitation. In terms of where we are now, we have started with the proposed developments at Glen Parva and HMP Wellingborough, and we have also announced plans to build four new prisons: in Yorkshire, adjacent to Full Sutton; at Port Talbot in Wales; and the redevelopment of the young offender institutions at Rochester and Hindley.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T4. Given the problems the Department has had when it has privatised many of its services, it seems extraordinary that there are now plans to privatise the collection of court fines and outsource the work of civil enforcement officers. When will the Government appreciate that the public expect these sensitive public services to be delivered by the public, not a bunch of cowboys?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

In the past 18 months, three of my constituents have died in HMP Bristol, which has one of the highest numbers of self-inflicted deaths in custody. What reassurance can be provided that that prison is being given the scrutiny and support that it needs to get those figures down?

[Mr Gyimah]

Every death in custody is a tragedy, and I offer my condolences to the families of my hon. Friend’s constituents. We have increased the staffing level at HMP Bristol by 31 prison officers in the past year. I chair a weekly safer custody meeting with officials to drive forward improvements, and I review the details of every self-inflicted death to see how we might prevent others. We have also launched an internal review of our approach to safer custody, specifically in relation to mental health patients, and I would be willing to visit my hon. Friend’s prison in order to deal with this further.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

T7. Last week, a Tory peer said that Brexit was a good thing because our young people would be able to work longer hours. Can the Minister confirm that his Government will continue to guarantee protections for workers in accordance with the European working time directive?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)]

T10. Last year, 316 people died in our prisons. Emails from prison doctors printed in the media a few days ago say that there are not enough medical staff in our prisons and that urgent hospital referrals are being cancelled because of prison escort shortages. What are the Justice Secretary and the Health Secretary planning to do to tackle this growing healthcare crisis in custody?

[Mr Gyimah]

We are very conscious that the Government have a duty of care to everyone we hold in custody. We are working with the Department of Health on a number of protocols, including some relating to mental health, as well as working to ensure that prisoners get access to the healthcare that they need, when they need it.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Will Ministers give the House their response to Lord Farmer’s recent report on the importance of strengthening prisoners’ family ties to reduce reoffending?

[Mr Gyimah]

Lord Farmer’s report is excellent. Family ties are important not only to help people to turn their lives around, but to improve stability in prisons. We will publish our response in due course and will make the House aware of that.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

While I welcome the Minister’s news about increased prison officer numbers in HMP Bristol in my constituency, I am concerned by the Department’s figures, which show that 1,770 experienced prison officers left the service last year. What is the Minister doing urgently to retain valuable experienced prison officers for the longer term?

[Mr Gyimah]

It is always the case that people will leave an organisation voluntarily or due to retirement or—[Interruption.] May I finish my point? In some cases, people may leave because they have not been too happy with what has been happening in our Prison Service. A retention plan is available, but the numbers that I gave earlier—868 net new prison officers so far this year—take account of people leaving the service, so we are actually up on last year’s figures.

[Ms Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

Having recently met the governor of Styal prison in my constituency, I know that drones are an increasing problem in prisons, as is the illegal use of mobile phones. The two are linked because mobile phones allow for greater frequency and accuracy of drone activity. Does the Minister agree that the way to curb drone activity and stop illegal mobile phone use is to block phone signals in prison? Will he support my private Member’s Bill to do that? The Second Reading is on 1 December.

[Mr Gyimah]

I fully support my right hon. Friend’s Bill. It is what we need to deal with the illegal use of mobile phones, which are used to carry on criminal activity from behind bars.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

The Minister’s plans to build a prison on the Baglan industrial park in my constituency are causing a huge amount of concern and disquiet within the community. May I urge the Minister to come to the public meeting that I have organised on 20 September in Baglan to explain the position to the community?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman is aware that Ministers do not attend public consultation events about obtaining planning permission for new prisons. He is also aware that the Port Talbot site was proposed alongside several other sites by the Welsh Government, who continue to support us in redeveloping the site for the purpose of the new prison. I have received his representations on behalf of his constituents—he is diligent and persistent—and we also had a meeting on 12 July. Subject to the two-day consultation, which is more than would ordinarily happen, I am willing to engage further with him on what could be done to ameliorate his constituents’ concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware of the serious disorder at HMP Birmingham in my constituency on Sunday, which follows the very serious riot in December 2016 and serious incidents at other prisons across the country over the summer months. Clearly our prisons are in absolute crisis. Is it not time that we had an independent inquiry into the state of our prisons?

[Mr Gyimah]

We have already said that the level of violence in our prisons is too high. I spoke to the Gold Commander at HMP Birmingham on Sunday night, and we should first praise the professionalism of the Prison Service in dealing with what are very difficult and very challenging situations in our prisons. Of course, a key part of dealing with the stability and security problem in our prisons is increasing the staffing levels, on which there has been a number of questions today, and we are doing so. A wider part of the reforms is dealing with drones, mobile phones and illegal drugs, and it will take time to do that, but I praise our prison officers for their brave work in containing these disturbances.