Prisons Policy/HMP Long Lartin

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[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.

Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Prison officers work in a very challenging environment, and our job is to keep them safe in that environment. We are looking at a number of things, including making sure that any crime scene is preserved, working with the local police forces that attend the scene, and making sure that impact statements are well prepared and admissible in court. We are also ensuring that when someone assaults a prison officer and is convicted, the sentence is consecutive rather than concurrent with their existing sentence. I agree that it is vital that we keep prison officers safe.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

This dispute is, on the surface, about pay, and the Minister has said an awful lot about that, but he must realise that it is also about unhappiness that has been developing in the Prison Service for many years now, principally about safety at work. The levels of assaults on prison officers, suicide and self-harm are unprecedented. Fixing that is how the Government are going to resolve this in the longer term. When are we going to start to see safety in prisons improve?

[Mr Gyimah]

I have said right from the start that the levels of violence in our prisons are too high. We have been working very closely with the Prison Officers Association on health and safety and have made progress—for example, on regime management plans that the POA would accept. We are also investing £100 million to add 2,500 officers to the frontline, in addition to the points on pay that I have already made. These problems were long in the making, and yes, it will take time to resolve them, but we have the resolve to do so and we are doing it.

Prisons

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

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

I echo the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) in thanking our brave prison officers for the hard work they do and extend those thanks to the Prison Service’s Tornado officers, who have been active over the past few months and have done a splendid job.

This has been a well informed and, at times, lively debate. We heard one speaker from Plaid Cymru, five from the Labour Benches and 13 from the Government Benches. The Government Members included two former prisons Ministers and two former Justice Secretaries, which shows how seriously we take issues in our prisons and turning around people’s lives.

[Jenny Chapman]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gyimah]

I will make some progress first.

The Government have owned up to the problem. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said from the moment she was appointed that the level of violence in prisons is too high and has acknowledged that staffing is part of the answer to that complex problem, which has developed over a long period of time. There is consensus across the House that something needs to be done about this problem. The difference between the Government and the Opposition is that in the 30 minutes for which the shadow Secretary of State spoke, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) so eruditely put it, we did not get “a single positive alternative”. Listening to the shadow Secretary of State, I realised why one old wag referred to this House as the gasworks: his speech was full of hot air.

Our plan is very clear. In the immediate term, we are monitoring the situation and supporting governors to maintain order across the estate. In the longer term, we are tackling security threats, improving staffing levels and transforming the ways prison officers support and challenge prisoners. As part of that, we are looking at raising the prestige, status and role of prison officers. Those are not just words; they are backed by action, as was set out by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. There is a White Paper, new investment in staffing has been secured, and a prison and courts Bill, an employment strategy, a strategy to deal with women offenders and the probation service review are on the way. That is real action to tackle the serious problems in our prisons.

[Jenny Chapman]

Does the Minister take any responsibility at all for the deterioration in our prisons since 2010?

[Mr Gyimah]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it very clear that it is incredibly simplistic to say that the problems in our prisons are simply due to staffing. There is the rise of new psychoactive substances and old taboos in prisons have been broken. It used to be the case that prisoners never attacked a female prison officer. Now we see that routinely on our wings. Our prisons have changed and to deal with that complex problem, we need a multifaceted set of answers. That is what this Government are delivering.

The Opposition made two principal points. The first was about overcrowding. However, we still do not know whether the Opposition agree with themselves, given Lady Chakrabarti’s view that we should reduce prison numbers to the tune of 45,000. Even on the issue of prison officers, when my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) challenged the shadow Secretary of State to commit to increasing prison officer numbers by 2,500, he could not make that commitment. At the end of an Opposition day debate, I am none the wiser about Labour’s solution to a problem it calls a crisis. It called the debate but has been unable to offer a solution.

In the brief time I have to sum up, I will pick up on some of the points made in the debate. The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) made a very good speech. On leadership, I agree that we want governors to stay put for longer. We also want to ensure that staffing is effective on the wings, and I totally agree that we do not want the 1:60 ratio she mentioned. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath, made a characteristically erudite and eloquent speech, and I agree on the need for smarter alternatives to incarceration. One way is to deal with problems before custody. He also mentioned problem-solving courts. That concept, which we are currently trialling, is one I am very hopeful about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend describes a situation that is all too familiar in our Prison Service where prisoners undertake courses in prison that bear no relation to the outside world or the ability to get a job. In our White Paper, which will be published shortly, we will be saying how we can improve that education system—we have already accepted the reforms announced by Dame Sally Coates in her review—and how we can help governors work with prisoners in the local labour market to boost employment for inmates.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

There is a well-established link between unemployment and reoffending, and we are now five years on from the Government’s rehabilitation revolution. Will the Minister let us know whether the latest reoffending statistics show an increase or a decrease in reoffending rates?

[Mr Gyimah]

It is still the case, as it has been for decades in the UK, that roughly a third of people who leave our prison system reoffend. The hon. Lady mentions the Government’s record. I do not recollect the last Labour Government ever talking about rehabilitation and reform in our prisons. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will introduce plans that will give governors real power on the frontline, so that they can act as the ringmasters working locally to deliver real reform.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. One of the great things about the UK childcare market is the diversity of provision—childminders, nurseries, school nurseries—available to parents, as it means we can meet all parents’ needs, especially when it comes to work. We will make sure that flexibility for parents is at the heart of how the 30 hours is delivered.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It really is all about delivery. The Minister talks about meeting all parents’ needs, but already 59 local authorities say they do not have the places to meet current obligations to three-year-olds, never mind the additional hours. What is he going to do?

[Mr Gyimah]

Once again, I shall give a dose of reality: 99% of four-year-olds and 96% of three-year-olds are accessing the existing 15 hours of childcare. I am happy to compare our record with that of the previous Labour Government. After 13 years in office, it had provided 12.5 hours of free childcare. In half that time, the Conservative party has provided 30 hours of free childcare. Labour never offered anything for disadvantaged two-year-olds; we have a programme for disadvantaged two-year-olds. We are investing more than any previous Government. It might not like it, but it must accept it: the Conservatives are the party of childcare.

[Jenny Chapman]

My party introduced Sure Start. There was no Sure Start and there were no children’s centres—no universal offer for any kind of childcare—prior to the Labour Government in 1997. The test of this will be how many families actually use the additional hours and who those families are. How has the Minister managed to concoct a system where a household with an income of £200,000 a year benefits from the additional hours, whereas 20,000 single parents on the minimum wage will not be eligible? How has he managed to come up with something so deeply unfair?

[Mr Gyimah]

Let me explain the policy to the hon. Lady. She should be familiar with it by now. Our eligibility criteria make absolute sense. To get 30 hours of free childcare, someone needs to be in work and earning more than £107 a week and not more than £100,000 a year—it does not matter if they are a lone parent. That means that if anybody in the family earns more than £100,000 a year, they will not be eligible. I know that Labour Members do not want to hear it, but Labour’s childcare voucher scheme meant that parents earning more than £1 million could get childcare subsidies but the self-employed could not. We are not allowing that to happen in our childcare scheme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

It is encouraging to see that the Scottish National party has followed the Conservative party’s lead and is now pledging 30 hours of childcare in the upcoming Scottish elections. The hon. Lady will be aware that we have the childcare element of tax credits in England, so that parents who do not qualify for the second 15 hours can get support for up to 75% of their childcare costs through that policy.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

On 14 April last year, the Prime Minister boasted—I cannot do a David Cameron impression—that with a Conservative Government

“you will get 30 hours of free childcare a week”.

As I recall, there was much rejoicing throughout the land. However, can the Minister now confirm that one in three of the families who he said would get the 30 hours of free childcare—and they believed it because the Prime Minister told them that they would—will receive no additional hours at all?

[Mr Gyimah]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her post. I look forward to her future contributions as vice-chair of Progress, especially as I now understand that to be a front for hard-right views in the Labour party. She will know that for the first 15 hours, the offer is universal— 99% of four-year-olds and 94% of three-year-olds get it. We have been very clear that the second 15 hours is a work incentive. Surely she does not believe that Islington parents on £100,000 a year should be entitled to free childcare. I know that she wants to represent the new core constituency of the Labour party.

Childcare Bill [Lords]

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman]

It’s fantastic stuff, isn’t it? There is more:

“With a Conservative Government, you will get 30 hours of free childcare a week”.

Marvellous! Had I believed it, I might just have voted for it myself.

The trouble is that thousands of families did believe the Prime Minister when he promised to double the 15 hours of free childcare per week. How disappointed they will be to discover that the promise was false! Even those who dug deep and read the small print will be disappointed. When he made the promise, there was a caveat in the notes at the bottom of the press release: children will get the free childcare only if their parents are working more than eight hours a week. Thousands of families in which both parents worked more than eight hours a week each could plan on that basis, or so they thought—the Bill says nothing about eight hours. The Government now say that both parents must be working at least 16 hours a week, at the minimum wage, or, just to confuse things a bit more, earning above the equivalent earnings of 16 hours per week on the minimum wage but in fewer hours.

The Government, in their spin, misled the public, then they misled families with the detail, and now they are confusing parents and providers with the implementation. That is why I support new clause 1. It is necessary to ensure the Government examine the Bill after its enactment, which could have some serious unintended consequences. The first potential consequence I would like the Government to monitor is the impact on the supply and quality of childcare places.

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

All parties at the last general election promised to increase the free entitlement. Labour promised to increase it from 15 hours to 25 hours for working parents. The Conservative party promised to increase it from 15 hours to 30 hours for working parents. Who would she have included or excluded from Labour’s definition of working parents?

[Jenny Chapman]

As I will explain, the problem is with who the Government are excluding. People earning more than the minimum wage but working fewer hours would be entitled to the Minister’s 15 additional free hours, whereas someone working 15 hours on the minimum wage will not be entitled to them. If I am wrong, I will gladly let him intervene to correct me.

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady mentioned the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), who, at the end of the Committee stage, said it was a good Bill and that she could find nothing in it with which to disagree. I hope, in their handover, they had that discussion. The eligibility criteria are very straightforward. Eligibility will be judged on income. If someone is under 25 and earning the national living wage, they will need to earn £107 a week. If they are over 25 and earning the national living wage, which the Government are introducing, the calculation will be the national living wage times the number of hours they can work. It is very straightforward.

[Jenny Chapman]

Well, I am glad that’s as simple as it gets. I said at the outset that I supported the Bill reasonably enthusiastically, but it is a bit arrogant of the Minister to suggest that it is a perfect Bill and that it has no complexity. As he just demonstrated incredibly well, there is huge complexity. Somebody on low earnings and working fewer than 16 hours a week will not qualify, but someone on higher earnings—

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[Jenny Chapman]

Is the hon. Lady looking at the wrong piece of paper? I shall go on to explain what is in new clause 1, and if she listens carefully, she will understand what we are trying to get at.

The new analysis by the House of Commons Library reveals a black hole of £480 million in the funding of this childcare offer. That shortfall represents £470 per child each year for those taking up the full 30 hours of free childcare. Independent research undertaken by research company Ceeda, as commissioned by the Pre-School Learning Alliance, suggests that the Department’s funding review has underestimated the cost of delivering childcare. The researchers found that, if funded at the average rate of £4.83 an hour—£4.88 minus the early years pupil premium, which the Department claims is worth 5p an hour—announced by the Government on 25 November, nurseries and pre-schools would face an annual shortfall of £233.70 per child for three and four-year-olds taking up the existing 15-hour entitlement, and £467.40 for those taking up the full 30 hours.

What could be the consequence of that funding gap? Childcare providers will have some difficult choices to make. There is every possibility that in an attempt to make ends meet, the gap will be met through driving down quality, while some providers might leave the market altogether, resulting in less choice for parents and a lack of supply. The Pre-School Learning Alliance warns, rather ominously, that as the existing scheme is significantly underfunded, it is now “crunch time” for the sector. The sector is already in a precarious position, and the Minister needs to reflect on the fact that the Family and Childcare Trust reports that a quarter of local authorities have a shortage of places for children in their existing schemes. There are 40,000 fewer places now than there were in 2010. Given that the Government failed to build capacity in the sector, how are the extra hours going to happen and how does the Minister think providers are going to pay for it? New clause 1 flags up those issues for the Government and asks Ministers to monitor the effect of the new arrangements.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the hon. Lady for being so generous in giving way. The Conservative party promised at the election to increase the average funding rate and it is delivering on that promise. The Labour party did not promise to increase the hourly rate. If the hon. Lady is arguing that the funding rate is not enough, will she tell us what the Labour party considers to be the right funding rate for the entitlement?

[Jenny Chapman]

I do wish it was my Bill that we were debating here. I really do, but it is not; it is the Minister’s Bill and it is for him to defend it and to argue against my new clause. That is why we are here. This is not a re-run of the election campaign. I am sure we are all glad about that—I know I am!

New clause 1 also asks the Government to evaluate the impact on parental employment and the administrative burdens placed on parents and providers. What parents want, aside from high-quality and affordable provision, is a scheme that is easy to understand and predictable. After someone has had a baby, deciding when to return to work and for how many hours is a difficult and finely balanced choice. Employers and parents need certainty. As parents fret over the balance between work and family life, employers and co-workers also make choices about their hours and staffing. We want those parents who choose to work to be able to do so. Any opaqueness about eligibility is damaging to take-up of the scheme and harms the confidence that the Government will not move the goalposts once complex family arrangements have been put in place. The proposed scheme, under which someone earning £107 in half a day would be eligible for 30 hours per week of free childcare but someone who works 15 hours a week on the minimum wage is not eligible, will seem bonkers to most people. I therefore urge the Government to do as new clause 1 suggests and monitor the impact of this change, in particular on parental employment patterns.

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[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady raises important questions about parents on zero-hours contracts and how they will be monitored. The first point is that parents on zero-hours contracts are self-employed; they are all entitled to the childcare under this scheme. HMRC will check the income levels, and in the case of the self-employed will know how much they earn over a period of time. In addition, and more importantly, there is a grace period so that if someone falls out of work for a period they will not lose their childcare.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am, of course, grateful to the Minister for his intervention, but I might just suggest that he will get the opportunity to make his own speech when I have finished, and he might want to answer some of my questions then. I will move on—

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[Mr Gyimah]

I am grateful for the opportunity to hold this important debate, and I once again welcome the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) to her position. The amendments that have been tabled raise a number of interesting issues, which I shall deal with in turn. Let me say at the outset, however, that extending the 15 hours to 30 hours is primarily a work incentive. That is why the first 15 hours are universal, but the second 15 hours are based mainly on economic eligibility criteria. In judging and evaluating the impact of the policy we should bear in mind the work incentive.

[Jenny Chapman]

What the Minister says is correct—that is his intention—but does he accept that in new clause 1 our intention is simply to hold him to that and to assess the success of the Bill in delivering that intention?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady is right to ask the questions. However, I shall resist the new clause, and the main reason is that a number of evaluations, which she has asked for, are under way. There are important programmes, as I shall explain, that focus on reducing the gap between disadvantaged children and other children.

New clause 1 asks us to evaluate the impact of the new entitlement for working parents. That is extremely important and I hope that Members will be reassured to know that we have a very strong evidence base about the impact of free early education entitlements. We know, from studies such as the effective pre-school, primary and secondary education project that early education has a significant impact on child outcomes. Children attending high-quality provision for two or three years before school have a seven or eight-month developmental advantage in literacy compared with their peers.

The Department for Education has commissioned another longitudinal study, if the hon. Member for Darlington will listen: the study of early education and development, which follows 8,000 two-year-olds from across England to the end of key stage 1. It looks at how childcare and early education can help to give children the best start in life and at what is important for high-quality childcare provision. The study is being carried out by NatCen Social Research, working with Frontier Economics, the University of Oxford and 4Children, on behalf of the Department.

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[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about a concern felt by some parents. The first 15 hours is universal, but it is voluntary—parents do not have to take it. The previous Government were very mindful of supporting parents who chose to do something else, so we introduced the marriage tax allowance, which supports those parents. In terms of school readiness, the key thing is that the evidence shows that it is helpful for children to attend an early years setting little and often. The universal part of this offer is 15 hours so that those children do not lose out.

Where a family choose to work because that is right for their family circumstances, it is right that the Government respond to the cry from many parents that childcare is too expensive. That is precisely what this Bill does. Rather than widening divisions in society, as the hon. Member for Darlington suggested, this Bill, by enabling more parents to fulfil their aspirations to work, is helping to narrow the economic gap that she mentioned.

[Jenny Chapman]

The Minister is making quite a bold assertion about the impact of this measure. He does not know that his Bill will narrow the gap, nor does he know that the most disadvantaged children will be able to benefit from the 15 hours, because in fact they will not.

[Mr Gyimah]

The early years foundation stage profile data show that the gap is already being narrowed. Economically enabling more parents to work if they want to is a positive thing for us to do for the growth of our economy.

Funding has been mentioned several times. This Government have invested a record amount—more than any other—in the early years entitlement and in childcare more broadly, but we also know that there are inefficiencies in the system. For example, not all the money that is allocated is distributed fairly to different local authorities, and not all of it reaches the frontline. We will therefore engage in a comprehensive package of reform by introducing a national funding formula for the early years so that funding is transparently and fairly matched to need, and fairly distributed between different types of provider in different parts of the country.