Prison Reform and Safety

Vicky Foxcroft Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

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

It gives me great pleasure, as a newly elected member of the Justice Committee, to speak in today’s debate. Last Thursday, members of the Committee visited HMP Rochester. Rochester holds 740 prisoners and conditions in that Victorian prison have been described as deplorable by the independent monitoring board. In March 2017, the Government announced that the prison would be closed and replaced, but in October 2017 that was put on hold. Many of the facilities at HMP Rochester are in a state of disrepair. For instance, the classroom in which rehabilitation lessons take place has a leaking roof.

[Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

On that point, and the point made a few moments ago about data, it is extremely important to have adequate data if we are to provide education and training. The Prisoners Education Trust and the Ministry of Justice have both reported that reoffending goes down by an average of five percentage points if education can be provided.

[Ellie Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree that education is absolutely at the heart of the rehabilitation of offenders.

At Rochester, when it rains, lessons have to be cancelled because the roof leaks. These issues have to be addressed urgently if we are to reform our prisons and improve standards. Visiting cells there, we saw prisoners in cramped and unsanitary conditions. One cell that housed three men had a toilet that was screened by little more than plastic sheeting and had no toilet lid. In addition, the perimeter fence is low and not comprehensively covered by CCTV. This has led to drugs, particularly Spice and other psychoactive substances, frequently being thrown over the fence, with 47 drug-related incidents recorded in just one week. We were told it would cost £300,000 to install a fit-for-purpose CCTV system and that the benefits would be immeasurable. We also visited the drug rehabilitation wing, but the 12-step rehabilitation programme had to stop when the prison received its now rescinded closure notice. These are the conditions that the governor and staff at HMP Rochester are battling daily and I commend them for their work.

One of the key factors in rehabilitation and safety in our prisons is the prison population. It has been fluctuating around the 85,000 mark for nearly a decade and as of this month stands at 86,000. The Government have been asked repeatedly why the numbers continue to grow, and their answers usually follow the template that more people are convicted of sex-related offences and are serving longer sentences. Although that may be the case in part, we must also look at the wider picture to understand fully why our prison population continues to rise. We cannot look at offences and sentence length alone to answer this question.

Long-term cuts to mental health services, addiction support and housing have all played a part and had an impact on our prison population through reoffending rates. The Ministry of Justice’s latest figures show that 29.6% of offenders in the October to December 2015 cohort reoffended within a year. Cuts mean less support when these individuals require more than most. The Howard League’s “No Fixed Abode” study from 2016 estimated that a third of released prisoners have no accommodation to go to on leaving prison. The Combined Homelessness and Information Network’s annual report on rough sleeping in London showed that 33% of people seen sleeping rough had some experience of being in prison. Let me repeat that: a third of all prisoners are likely to be homeless on release.