Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Jo Stevens

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

Modern, fit-for-purpose prisons will have a huge impact on prison officer safety, not least because they will not have all those corners where people can hide. They will also be good for rehabilitation. Today we have opened Her Majesty’s Prison Berwyn, which is the largest prison in Europe and is taking its first prisoners today. That is a huge step in our efforts not only to reorganise the estate, reduce overcrowding and improve safety in our prisons, but to ensure that they can be places of rehabilitation.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I have listened carefully to the Minister. He said that he thought that this action was designed to disrupt the safe and decent running of prisons. Does he not understand that the whole reason why prison officers are withdrawing from these tasks is that we do not have safe and decent prisons? We have intolerable and dangerous prisons; I would not want to work in them, and I am sure that the Minister would not either.

[Mr Gyimah]

As I have said, our prison officers do an incredibly difficult job. I visit prisons almost every week and I know how hard the officers work. The POA has decided to make a stand on pay, as we have seen in today’s bulletin. I urge it to withdraw its bulletin because it will not do anything to improve safety in our prisons.

Prison Safety

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Jo Stevens

Thursday 15th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gyimah]

It is encouraging to know I am not the only minority here.

The comments made by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) were music to my ears—I am referring not to his comments about early release and so on, but to his recognition that the new ministerial team is in transition. It is worth stating up front that it is eight and a half weeks since the new ministerial team came to post, and in two or three months’ time we will be having a very different debate. We are committed to coming forward with a new plan, and I am confident that its contents will be as strong, if not stronger, than the Select Committee expects on the issues that have been outlined.

I would go as far as to say that the Secretary of State should be commended for not doing what is very easy to do in a new job: seek a couple of headline-grabbing announcements that are not based on evidence. The Secretary of State is determined to look at the evidence and come up with a plan that addresses the need for safety in our prisons and also focuses on reform.

[Jo Stevens]

As all this was set out in the Queen’s Speech many months ago, can the Minister explain why work now needs to be done so that he can announce his plans in two to three months’ time?

[Mr Gyimah]

The Queen’s Speech was seminal, as has been mentioned, in that it made reform of prisons part of social reform. That reform would give governors freedom in rehabilitation but, as the statistics that have been referred to ad nauseam show, safety and security in our prisons is also a challenge. We need a strategy that deals with both those aspects of the programme. Safety and security were not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is bringing forward a plan that brings those two things together.

On the issue of reform, let me be clear that the Secretary of State and I are absolutely committed to reforming our prison system, as set out in the Queen’s Speech. I am determined to ensure that our prisons are places of safety and reform, where offenders can get off drugs, improve their education and get the skills they need so they are less likely to offend. Our prison system needs to be fit for today’s demands. The improved physical environment, which will be safer, will have better rehabilitative services and will empower governors to focus on delivering better outcomes within their prisons.

Today, a number of comments have been made about the urgency of the task ahead. I assure the House that we do not underestimate the severity of the challenge, and the Ministers tasked with such a huge responsibility feel its fierce urgency. As hon. Members know, we are investing £1.3 billion to reform and modernise the prison estate to make it more efficient, safer and focused on supporting prisoner rehabilitation. Given our commitment to swap old Victorian prisons for new ones, therefore, the great thing is that the money is available. When the Secretary of State comes out with her plan—I will come on to some of the detail in my speech—we will see how that is to be achieved.

We want to see prisons run by governors capable of providing outstanding leadership. It has been mentioned that many governors do not feel that they have the freedom to deal with challenges on the ground, and I want to see governors who have the freedom, ability, time and resources to manage safety and security risks, while rehabilitating offenders.

Our goal is to see frontline staff working in decent, ordered and well organised prisons that treat prisoners with humanity and ensure that those staff are able to spend time helping offenders to develop their potential. We want a system that is better able to identify the emerging factors and threats that will impact on prisons, a system that can address them proactively. This is a particularly important point. We have referred to drugs and to drones, and such threats, including mobile phones, will continue to evolve. In the plan that we will present, we want to address not only the challenges of today, but the emerging threats on the horizon.

Improving outcomes for prisoners is better for us all, as my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) so eloquently put it. Reducing offenders’ reoffending means fewer victims and less crime. The Secretary of State has already assured the House that we will be setting out the Government’s plans for prison safety and reform this autumn. Since becoming Justice Secretary, she has been clear that she wants to continue prison reform at pace.

Safety, too, is crucial in our prisons. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), in a forensic speech, highlighted the safety statistics and how terrible they are. Safe, decent and secure prisons are a fundamental part of our reform ambitions, and I am of course acutely aware of our existing problems.

Anyone who has been prisons Minister knows that we get daily incident reports and, no matter what the time of day, we are woken up if a serious incident that Ministers need to be aware of happens. Prisons Ministers and Secretaries of State live with what is happening in our prisons day in, day out—we cannot ignore it. I am sure that hon. Members agree that the rising levels of violence against prisoners and staff, and self-harm and self-inflicted deaths, are not acceptable and require our immediate and urgent attention.

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[Mr Gyimah]

I will come on to the incentive structure in a moment, but I will deal first with the point about staffing.

Any discussion of staffing should acknowledge the brave and invaluable work that prison officers, staff, volunteers and governors do every day. I am determined to see that they, just as much as those in their care, are safe and properly supported. The recruitment and retention of staff in prisons is a high priority and, as I have said, part of the necessary response to the problems. For example, at prisons in the south-east that have presented persistent challenges, we have launched targeted recruitment campaigns to attract and retain the right people. We are ensuring that prison officers have the skills necessary to deal with such issues, which is why training for our prison officers has been increased from six to 10 weeks. We are also examining additional ways to retain high-quality and experienced staff.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire made an important point about the task required of prison officers today—it is about not just numbers or training but what the job is. That is an important point, because we do not want prison officers simply to be turnkeys, locking people up and letting them out. We want them to have a key worker role, building closer and more professional relationships with prisoners. As my hon. Friend knows, that is very much part of the offender management model that we are looking to roll out across the prison estate.

I turn to some of the key threats that have been highlighted in the debate. The House is aware that the dynamic within prisons has changed, contributing to the rises we have seen in levels of violence, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths. In fact, what we see in prisons is a magnification of what we see in society more broadly—in particular, the proliferation of psychoactive substances, and the evolution of technology such as metal-free phones and drones, which enables drugs to be brought within our prison walls.

The Chairman of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, mentioned the £10 million investment to deal with prison safety issues secured under the previous Secretary of State. That has been distributed to the prisons that are experiencing the worst levels of violence. Over the coming weeks and months, we will provide more information on how that is working for our prison system.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury put very well the point that psychoactive substances are having a serious and significant impact on the safe running of our prisons. That view is commonly held, and many in the Chamber are aware of it, as is the chief inspector, Peter Clarke. For the communities inside prisons, however, such substances have dramatically changed the dynamic. There is the impact on an individual’s behaviour as a result of taking the drugs, and the impact on driving an illicit prison economy. The power of drugs such as spice and mamba cannot be overestimated. They are dangerous, mind-altering drugs that fuel unpredictable and violent behaviour.

What have we done? The varying ways in which substances can be smuggled into prisons—as tobacco, or even sprayed in liquid form on to paper—contribute to the challenge our professional staff face in keeping such harmful and damaging drugs out. We are, however, taking decisive action to tackle that ever growing threat, and we have introduced new legislation to combat the use of drugs and psychoactive substances in prisons.

The Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 has made these drugs illegal, and we have introduced new criminal offences for the supply and possession of psychoactive substances. In addition, the Serious Crime Act 2015 introduced a new offence of throwing anything into a prison. As a result, those who smuggle packages over prison walls, including of psychoactive substances, can face sentences of up to two years.

[Jo Stevens]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous. Does he think that if there were more staff in our prisons, some of the problems that he has just talked about, such as the smuggling of drugs—of any type, not necessarily just psychoactive substances—mobile phones and other contraband into prisons would be reduced?

[Mr Gyimah]

I have acknowledged that staffing is part of the response that is needed, but let me take one of the hon. Lady’s examples: mobile phones. The best way to deal with mobile phones is to ensure that they cannot work in prisons. I have with me a prop. This book—“Gavin & Stacey”—was sent to a prisoner. I did not realise that there was such a book.

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[Mr Gyimah]

The Chairman of the Justice Committee is once again spot on. I am particularly concerned about the rate of repairs in our prisons. Carillion is one company that has a contract and receives public funds to perform such work, and I have not been impressed by what I have heard about its response speed. I will meet its management to ensure that it delivers what we expect.

We are taking several other operational measures. They are not glamorous or exciting—not all of them will grab headlines—but they show how gritty we have to be to address the problem of safety in our prisons. We are making operational improvements, such as rolling out body-worn cameras. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire is right that we should be driven by the evidence, which suggests that having cameras does not on its own necessarily solve the problem. Some prisoners say that cameras, on their own, could actually escalate situations, so they should be used with the five-minute intervention system. We are piloting a new case management programme for violent prisoners; updating assessment, care in custody and teamwork—the care planning process for prisoners at risk of suicide or self-harm, which the right hon. Member for Delyn was particularly concerned about—and creating a violence reduction taskforce to support and advise establishments with high rates of violence. We are also trialling a body scanner in Wandsworth prison, as has been mentioned.

Work and education in our prisons are also key; they are valuable in addressing reoffending, and I am committed to that. Today, we announced the transfer from the Department for Education to the Ministry of Justice of responsibility for education and training provision for those subject to adult detention in England. For anyone who was in any doubt that we are committed to reform, that is one piece of proof that we are committed and determined to proceed at pace. That so-called business of government transfer will enable us to give prison governors more power for delivering education in prisons.

[Jo Stevens]

Does the Minister agree that for someone who is locked up in their cell for 23 hours a day because of staff shortages, getting out to do education is difficult, if not impossible?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady makes absolutely the right point. We want prisoners to have time out of their cells to engage in work, education and training. I want us to have a mature debate, so let us not try to say that staffing is the only response to the challenges in our prisons. I have acknowledged that it must be part of our response, but we need a comprehensive response.