Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work he did to get more employers involved in this when he was a Minister. We are following on from his good work by setting up an organisation called the New Futures Network, which will comprise businesses and charities. The network will encourage more employers to take on ex-offenders, who are often very loyal and hard-working employees, and who can help to address some of the skills shortages we face.

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

Reoffending now costs us £15 billion annually, as the Secretary of State just said. A recent report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of probation noted that not enough is being done to help prisoners to prepare for life outside prison, due to a

“combination of unmanageable caseloads, inexperienced officers, extremely poor oversight”.

The service was rated as four-star before privatisation. What will the Secretary of State do to address this?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As I have said, it is important that people are supported to get into jobs once they leave prison. Just as we are establishing metrics for governors, showing how many people are employed once they leave prison, we want to use similar metrics to hold probation operators to account to make sure that they are focused on getting people into homes and into work, which we know leads to a reduction in reoffending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lee]

The hon. Lady is right that access to secure accommodation can be challenging—not only within the prison system but within the community for those who have not committed offences, who cannot always access it within 24 hours. We are in lengthy discussions with the Department of Health on this, because access to secure accommodation in the circumstances the hon. Lady outlines is very important.

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

Last year, 2016, was the worst recorded for suicide in prisons. The Secretary of State introduced the Prisons and Courts Bill, but it contains nothing to address mental health issues. Why has the Justice Secretary missed this valuable opportunity to enshrine in law the way in which we treat prisoners with mental health problems?

[Dr Lee]

Last year’s prison White Paper contained something on healthcare, giving governors input into the commissioning of services, so that if there is an issue with mental health provision the governor can say so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am determined to ensure that we recruit the right number of officers right across the country. In the south-east, where costs are high and where there is much competition for highly skilled individuals, we have specific issues with recruiting and retaining people. However, the 2,000 new more senior roles that I mentioned are available right across the country, and people in HMP Berwyn will be able to apply for them with that extra training and get that extra pay.

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

There are now 6,000 fewer prison officers on the frontline than in 2010, and they are dealing with more prisoners. The Secretary of State wants 2,500 extra officers by 2017, but officers are leaving the service faster than she can recruit them. When will she come up with an effective plan to turn around that expanding exodus?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am afraid that there were two factual errors in the hon. Lady’s question. First, the prison population is exactly the same as it was in 2010—it has not gone up. Secondly, we are recruiting people at a record rate and have a record number of officers in training.

Prisons

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to be able to close this debate, in which Members have spoken very eloquently and knowledgeably about the issues facing our prison system. Before I go into what they have said, I want to thank our prison officers, prison governors, and all those who work in the Prison Service. They face very great challenges every day of their lives, and we owe them a lot for the work that they do for us.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), who has three prisons in her constituency, talked about the work that she achieved as a former Minister in trying to reduce the amount of violence in prisons. She comprehensively set out some of the failures of this Government. I am sorry if that disappoints Conservative Members but, as I will explain, there has been a failure to tackle some of the big issues facing our prisons.

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods), who also has three prisons in her constituency, said that the prisons budget had been cut by a quarter, with £900 million being taken away. That will obviously have an impact on how prisons are run and on their staff. She raised three issues that the Minister should be looking at. First, there are far too many women in prison, especially women with children, and there does not seem to be any clear strategy within the prison system to assist them or to deal with situations such as how children can visit their parents. That is reflected in the Ministry of Justice’s figures on suicides that have occurred in prison, which show that a much higher percentage of women have committed suicide and self-harm. My hon. Friend also talked about reoffending, and the education and training that would prevent it, as well as mental health issues and personality disorders. Funding for those services has been cut, and those things need to be addressed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) talked about the fact that many experienced staff have left the Prison Service and been replaced by inexperienced staff. It is well accepted that prison officers do far more than simply locking and unlocking the gates and taking prisoners in and out. They are often the only people prisoners will speak to. Prison officers act as mentors, advisers and family members, and they provide a sympathetic listening ear. It is not good enough to have inexperienced people taking over that work. I agree wholeheartedly with what the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) said about the tremendous work that prison officers do. As he said, their terms and conditions should be looked at properly and put on the same footing as those of people who do other difficult and sensitive jobs, such as police officers. Prison officers should be remunerated properly.

Since the Government came into power in 2010, they have made massive cuts to the number of prison officers, and that is a big reason for some of the current prison issues. It is all very well for the Government to say that they are trying to do things; that is good, but they should never have cut the number of prison officers in the first place. If they had not made that false economy, we would not be in half the mess we are in now. I try not to be party political about this, but it was the wrong decision and it would be good if the Government accepted that. There is no harm in owning up to the fact that an error was made.

One suggestion for dealing with some of the prison problems was made by the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Although I more or less agreed with him on international issues when I was a member of the Committee, I have to tell him that privatisation in prisons is not the answer. It has not been the answer for probation. The probation service used to have a four-star gold rating but it has gone downhill since the privatisation, and that has had some impact on the Prison Service.

[Crispin Blunt]

The Foreign Affairs Committee’s loss is the Opposition Front-Bench team’s gain. Will the hon. Lady be explicit about the potential role of the private sector under Labour policy? Labour had a commercialisation strategy, and Labour opened up the competition for Birmingham prison in the first place. Is the Labour party saying that there is no role for the private sector in the delivery of justice in our country, simply on ideological grounds?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The Labour party also introduced IPP sentences, and I was not one of those who favoured that provision. I will touch on its impact on our prison system. The Secretary of State spoke about the fact that the Government are trying to deal with the issues caused by the remnants of the IPP regime. One problem is that people who have served their IPP sentence cannot get out of prison until they have done specific, designated training courses, but unfortunately there has been a lack of funding for those courses. The Government have to take responsibility for the fact that many thousands of people in that position have not been released from prison.

As I have said, this has been a very good and interesting debate. Many experienced people have spoken, including former Ministers and Secretaries of State. I think we can all agree that everyone is concerned about this issue. It is not a big vote winner or an issue that is often spoken about on the doorstep, but it is important because it shows what we stand for as a society. The one thing on which most people agree is that we have got problems, and there is a crisis in our prison system.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), a former Minister, talked about some of the proposals in the White Paper that the Government have brought forward to deal with this issue. He set out all the shortcomings and all the questions that have not been answered. The White Paper seems to suggest that each prison will be run by its governor and then every problem will somehow be resolved. However, it does not provide answers to questions such as whether governors will have complete autonomy from the centre, and whether they will have enough money to be able to carry out everything they want to do. For example, if a prison governor thinks that 500 inmates require a two-month detoxification and rehabilitation programme, will he or she have the money to carry that out? It is all very well to say that governors can do such things, but where will the funding come from, or will they have an unlimited pot of money? How will people be recruited, and to whom will they be answerable? The White Paper raises a lot of questions that have not been answered, and it does not deal with the problems.

[Nusrat Ghani]

The hon. Lady has raised a number of issues, but we have yet to hear the Labour party’s solutions. Does she agree with Shami Chakrabarti, the shadow Attorney General, that half of all prisoners should be released immediately? Is that the policy of the Labour party?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

If the hon. Lady had been in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate, she would know that that question was asked by another Member; I think it was the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). On the first point, you are the Government—[Interruption]—and it is for you to deal with the crisis of the—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. The hon. Lady will resume her seat while the Chair is standing. May I just remind her that there is a reason why we do not address people directly in the second person? It is because things can get very heated. The hon. Lady should address her remarks through the Chair.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

They are the Government. They have been in power for the past seven years, and prisons have been under their control. It is under their watch that 6,000 staff have been cut.

[Simon Hoare]

I will take the hon. Lady’s lead and not be party political, but given the huge crisis that she is outlining to the House—her Front-Bench colleagues clearly share her view—will she explain why, on an Opposition day motion, Labour ran out of speakers and we did not?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to deflect attention from what the Government should have been doing for the past seven years.

As I was saying, about a quarter of all prisoners are held in overcrowded or unsuitable conditions. In the past 12 months, there have been 6,000 assaults on staff and 24,000 assaults on prisoners. There were also 105 self-inflicted deaths of prisoners, which is a record increase of 13% on the previous year. The levels of poor mental health and distress among prisoners are higher than those for the general public. The number of incidents of self-harm in prisons has increased by more than 25% in 2016 compared with the previous year. When we look at all the statistics provided by the Ministry of Justice, we can see that the number of incidents of self-harm has gone up and the number of assaults has gone up, and that deaths have occurred and suicides have happened. I am afraid to say that that is the responsibility of this Government because they have been in charge of prisons for the past seven years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. We need cells that are fit for purpose and usable. One of the things that my hon. Friend the prisons Minister has been focusing on in his regular meetings is making sure that our contractors get cells back to use and fit for purpose.

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

Some prisons, including Her Majesty’s Prison Birmingham, use prisoner violence reduction representatives—prisoners who are paid to monitor other inmates—to discourage disorder. Stakeholders we have spoken to suggest that some are ensuring compliance by themselves meting out violence to troublesome inmates. What assessment has the Justice Secretary made of their use?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady refers to violence reduction programmes. I have seen them in place in a number of prisons, where they can be very effective. Peer to peer support can often turn prisoners around, but it needs to be carefully managed and monitored. My expectation is that it is the role of the governor of the prison to make sure proper systems are in place.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

In December, during her statement to the House on the riot at Her Majesty’s Prison Birmingham, the Justice Secretary suggested that as many as 13 Tornado teams were deployed to the prison. Such events deprive other prisons of officer numbers. Is she confident that she has the resources to deal with disturbances of this kind, and when will Sarah Payne’s investigation into what happened be concluded?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are increasing the number of Tornado staff to make sure that we can deal with any incidents that arise across our prison estate, particularly while we are building up the strength of our frontline. Those officers do a fantastic job, and they did a fantastic job in resolving the incident at HMP Birmingham. I can tell the hon. Lady that the investigation into the incident at HMP Birmingham, which is being led by Sarah Payne, will report back in February.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and the evidence backs him up that having experienced officers is vital. We have a higher proportion of experienced officers in 2016 than we did in 2010; more than 80% of our prison officers have five or more years of experience. I am absolutely determined to keep those officers in the service. Two weeks ago, we launched a fast-track programme to help people already in the service to progress in their careers. We are also offering retention payments, particularly in hard-to-recruit areas, because we certainly need to keep those very important staff on board.

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

In every one of Her Majesty’s inspector’s reports on closed male facilities published during the Secretary of State’s time in post—reports on Bedford, Chelmsford, Hindley, Onley, Risley, Swaleside and Winchester, and the youth facilities at Isis and Wetherby—outcomes of the test of prison safety deemed them to be either poor or not sufficiently good. When can we expect a positive report on prison safety in closed male prisons?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady is right that current levels of violence in our prisons are not acceptable. That is why we launched the prison safety and reform White Paper, with measures to deal with drugs, drones and phones, as well as to bolster the number of front-line staff. We are also working directly with governors to help them to deal with issues that might trigger incidents in their prisons while we build up that front-line capability. I announced in October that we are recruiting an extra 400 staff in 10 of the most challenging prisons; we have already given job offers to 280 people, so we are making progress.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The Ministry states in the White Paper that it will trial the inclusion of prison co-ordinates in no-fly zones to prevent banned items from being dropped into prisons. How will that work in practice and what is being done now to reduce demand for banned items in prisons?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey is working with drone manufacturers and leading a cross-Government taskforce to get in place the technology needed to do that. We are also employing solutions such as installing extra netting. Last week I was at HMP Pentonville, which now has patrol dogs whose barking helps to deter drones. We are using all sorts of solutions to deal with contraband entering our prisons.

Prison Safety and Security

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. May I start by echoing the sentiments of the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) and paying tribute to the hard work of our prison officers, who face daily dangers and carry out valuable work? I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) for securing today’s timely and important debate, which I am pleased to be able to respond to. Given his experience as a Justice Minister and a member of the Justice Committee, his views on the current situation and what must be done are most welcome.

There is clearly an agreement that the current prison system is not acceptable. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), a member of the Justice Committee, highlighted additional areas of concern, such as IPP prisoners. The state of our prisons and the growing levels of violence shame our nation.

Prisons are becoming increasingly volatile and dangerous environments for both staff and prisoners. In the 12 months to June 2016, there have been nearly 6,000 assaults on staff, 24,000 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and 105 self-inflicted deaths of prisoners, an increase of 13% from the previous year. There are 6,000 fewer officers on the frontline than in 2010. Ministry of Justice statistics show that poor mental health and distress among prisoners is higher than among the general public. Incidents of self-harm in prison have increased by over 25% in 2016 from the previous year.

Nick Hardwick, the former chief inspector of prisons, has said that prisons are at their worst level for a decade. We have seen riots breaking out at Her Majesty’s prisons Moorland and Bedford and prisoners escaping from Pentonville. While the prison staff and the tornado teams who deal with these incidents should be commended, it is clear that prison conditions are simply not good enough. Violence continues to increase and safety continues to decrease.

The austerity experiment on our prisons has failed. Working in prisons has become less appealing and more dangerous. The presence of fewer officers, who are overstretched and overwhelmed, means a stricter and increasingly unsafe prison regime. It means that prisons cannot effectively reform and rehabilitate in the way that prisoners and wider society need.

Staff shortages meant that a prisoner was not allowed out to visit his dying mother. He was allowed a phone call, but it was too late; his mother’s life support machine had already been turned off. It has still not been confirmed whether he will be allowed to attend her funeral. Again, that is the result of staff shortages. When questioned on that issue at the Justice Committee on Tuesday, Michael Spurr of NOMS was not even aware of the incident. Will the Minister confirm when he became aware of that incident? How often do such incidents take place in our prisons?

Front-line prison officers leaving their jobs outstripped new recruits over the past year. Almost 14% of prison officers leave the prison after serving less than 12 months. The Government have failed to explain how they will deal with the problem of retention. Even more alarmingly, it appears that the number of deaths will not form any part of the assessment of how safe a prison is.

[Mr Gyimah]

On that point about whether the number of deaths will form part of how prisons are evaluated under our reform programme, I refer the hon. Lady to the White Paper. It explicitly says that under safety, deaths in a prison will be one of the outcomes looked at.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the Minister for that clarification.

Some 324 people have died in prison this year so far, which includes 107 suicides. It appears that assaults on prison officers by prisoners are not being appropriately dealt with. Although the Minister has said there is “swift justice”, and although we welcome a zero-tolerance approach to violence, it is increasingly clear that prison officers do not feel safe at work. Has there been any consideration of what impact consecutive sentences for assault will have on prison capacity and overcrowding?

It is clear that a range of hugely complex issues need to be considered in order to reform the prison system. While I welcome prison reform, I am afraid that the Government’s White Paper does not provide the rapid action that our prison system so urgently needs and has long asked for. It is a matter of particular concern that despite a sustained recruitment exercise, described by one Minister as going at “full throttle”, the net increase in public sector prison officers was only 440 last year.

While the commitment to increase the number of prison officers by 2,500 is much needed, it is not a cause for celebration. Four hundred of those jobs have already been announced, and it is 2,500 extra after a reduction of more than 6,000 on the frontline. Where will the first 400 go? How will they be allocated to prisons? How were the 10 most challenging prisons identified? They do not appear to be among the worst prisons for violence and self-harm. As it stands, this is far from being the biggest overhaul of our prisons in a generation.

The lack of detail in the White Paper is worrying. It is difficult to believe that these proposals have been fully thought out. Instead, they seem to have been hastily assembled. That is indicative of the lack of detail in the Ministry’s proposals on, for example, mandatory drug-testing. We are told that the drug testing regime will be enhanced,

“supporting governors to enable drug testing on entry to and exit from prison as part of a more extensive testing programme, increasing the frequency and range of drugs tested for”.

Putting aside whether mandatory drug testing has proved effective, given the widespread availability of drugs in prisons, that could add thousands more tests each year, but there is no analysis of the impact on cost and staff resources, especially as both are in short supply.

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady seems to be disagreeing with a lot of the proposals in the White Paper. Can she tell us what she would do instead to sort out our prisons?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I am not disagreeing with the White Paper; I am saying that it fails to deal with a lot of issues. There are a lot of unanswered questions in it. On one level, the Government want there to be more drug testing, but the question we are asking is: what about the impact on staff and resources? The White Paper singularly fails to provide answers on the details. For example, it says there will be rehabilitation and education programmes, but who will provide those? Where will the money come from? Will there be an unlimited pot? A number of issues are not clear in the White Paper. I look forward over the course of the next few months to hearing how the Department will deal with those issues.

What do the Government think they will learn from testing on entry and release, given that prisoners will most likely simply avoid drug taking in the run-up to those periods? The argument that counting the problem—and not even counting the problem in a particularly robust way—is the same as dealing with it seems unrealistic, at best.

Overcrowding is another issue contributing to the level of violence in prisons. As of July 2016, 76 prisons—just over 60%—were overcrowded. Overcrowded prisons held 9,700 more prisoners than they were designed to hold.

The White Paper sets out a programme for building new prisons, but also points to more prison closures. Since coming to power in 2010, the Government have announced the closure of many prisons, with a combined operational capacity of over 4,100. Again, the Government’s policy is muddled. Are they trying to build their way out of overcrowding or will they address the number of prisoners coming into the system?

Finally, we all acknowledge that the prison system is no longer working and is increasingly unsafe. The Justice Secretary continues to say that prison reform is a priority, but the level of violence in prisons has not even stabilised, let alone begun to improve. Urgent action is needed now, not in a few months or a few years. The matter goes beyond politics. Livelihoods are at stake and lives are at stake, and the fact that we have unsafe prisons must not be ignored.

One of the main reasons why prisons are unsafe is the number of prison officers who were made redundant and the reduction in their number. We have been told that we need at least 8,000 prison officers to deal with prison safety and prison issues. The Government do not seem to have got anywhere near achieving that. Will the Minister think about the prison officers who have been made redundant? Has there been any consideration of the idea of re-employing them, even temporarily? The Government say they are trying to deal with the matter, but if they had not cut the number of prison officers in the first place, we would not be in the mess we are now in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

Obviously, private prisons determine pay and conditions. The deal we have agreed is for members of the Prison Officers Association in bands 3 to 5. I will write to the right hon. Lady with more details.

I echo the concerns raised by the right hon. Member for Delyn on this important topic. I hope the new money we secured for staffing, the new money for the Ministry of Justice and now the new deal on pay, pensions and health and safety indicate that, as I said in my intervention, our interest is long not just on aspiration. We are determined to deliver. This is all happening in the four months the new team has been in post.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly challenged us on the White Paper and on providing concrete plans to tackle drugs, phones, recruitment and the old Victorian estate. We have announced a comprehensive plan to tackle these and other crucial components of the prison system. Despite the inevitable time lag—it will take time because some of the problems have been long in the making and did not arise overnight—we are working to make sure that what can be delivered today will be delivered, and we are confident that we will see lasting benefits in the coming months and years.

As we set out in the White Paper last month, we will invest £100 million to recruit an additional 2,500 staff. Reference has been made several times to the number of staff in 2010, but we have closed 18 prisons and secure detention centres since that date. More importantly, our desire to recruit 2,500 extra staff is based on evidence. We want to create a system in which every prison officer handles the cases of six prisoners. That is what we call the new offender management model, which was recommended in the Harris review, which Members have mentioned. We are implementing it via our new staffing model.

The investment will provide the capacity for prison officers to play a dedicated officer role and to build constructive relationships. As the former prisons Minister is aware, we are talking about a people business: it is about relationships and about prison officers being able to listen prisoners’ frustrations, to diffuse tensions and ultimately to reduce the level of violence. That is a vital component of our plan to stabilise and then decrease the level of violence, self-harm and suicide, as well reforming offenders more generally. With nearly half of all offenders going on to commit crime within a year of being released, we believe that giving each prisoner a dedicated officer will help prisoners to turn away from crime in the long term.

We recognise the challenge in recruiting an extra 2,500 staff. That is why, as I told the Select Committee, we will launch a number of initiatives to help us to do that.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The Minister says that 2,500 extra staff will be employed, but achieving the things that he has mentioned will require far more than 2,500 prison staff.

[Mr Gyimah]

That figure is 2,500 new staff over and above what we would ordinarily recruit. In the Select Committee, the National Offender Management Service chief executive, Michael Spurr, made it clear that in practice that means we will have to recruit 4,000 staff next year and 4,000 staff the following year. It is a challenge, but that is why we have new resources and investment. We will also do it completely differently from how it has been done historically. In the past, prison governors did not have the freedom to recruit themselves. They could not hold open days or advertise locally. People who ended up being recruited into our Prison Service had never visited their place of work or met anyone they will work with beforehand. In addition to the national recruitment effort, we will give the governors of the 28 most challenging prisons the power to recruit for themselves, and that will make a huge difference. It is a question of someone seeing an advert on the internet versus seeing that their local prison is recruiting and they could get a local job.

A question was asked about pay supplements and where they would apply. In fact, that is already happening. For example, HMP Feltham can pay £4,000 extra per person in recognition of how difficult it is to recruit there. Many of the people that Feltham would interview might be choosing between a job there and working at Heathrow airport, which they might feel is a less aggravated environment in which to work. That is why in those establishments the governor can use a supplement to attract staff. For our 10 most challenging jails, we had a target of recruiting 400 staff and we allocated £14 million for that. We are halfway to that target already, so we are making progress.

We all need to recognise that prisons today are in a very different place from where they were 10 years ago. The issue of new psychoactive substances has been mentioned, and we cannot gloss over that. Those substances are incredibly dangerous. In one incident, even the officer who went to help someone who was on those drugs had to be hospitalised because of how potent the drugs are. I mentioned in the Select Committee that taboos are being broken. Prisoners never used to attack female prison officers, but we have seen such incidents, including potting. Also, prisons magnify the community outside, so gang violence is being imported into our prisons. We are also seeing serious cases of mental illness. Yes, staffing is part of the solution, but the problem with which we are dealing, as the right hon. Member for Delyn recognises—he is nodding—is incredibly complex. We must ensure that we deal with it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Select Committee Chairman is absolutely right that we need clear and transparent data and metrics to be able to understand what is happening in our prison system. I will outline more detail on that issue when we launch the White Paper.

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

Suicides in prisons are at record levels, and self-harm and violence are soaring. The situation in women’s prisons is worse than it was a decade ago. The Government’s own statistics show that the rate of deaths in England and Wales has risen to almost one a day—a record high of 324 in the last 12 months. Does the Secretary of State recognise that cutting staff and prison budgets while the number of people behind bars grows unchecked has created a toxic mix of violence, death and human misery?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to act on those very problematic statistics, and in particular to deal with the high levels of self-harm and suicide. One of the 10 prisons to which we have given additional money for staffing is a women’s prison. We are looking more widely at how we can ensure that women offenders are given the support that they need, because many come into prison with mental health issues and many have suffered abuse in the past. I want to ensure that those offenders have the support that will enable them to turn their lives around.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I hear what the Secretary of State has to say about funding for the 10 prisons, but Pentonville, where only last week there was a stabbing and two people were injured, is not one of them, and the events that took place at Lewes prison at the weekend also underlined the problem of prison understaffing. John Attard, of the Prison Governors Association, has written that we need

“more than the….400 extra officers in just 10 prisons.”

Will the Secretary of State listen to what is being said by that association, and by the Prison Officers Association, about the Ministry’s failings in respect of prison staffing?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I agree with the hon. Lady that violence and levels of suicide are serious issues, and I am determined to address them. That is my No. 1 priority. I have made an immediate start in 10 of the most challenging prisons, and I will be outlining more in the White Paper. Let me, at this point, express my sincere condolences to the family of Jamal Mahmoud, who unfortunately died in Pentonville.

We all need to recognise that these are serious issues, which have numerous causes including the rise in psychoactive substances. It will take time to turn the situation around—it takes months to train prison officers —but we have developed and will be launching a comprehensive strategy. I want our prisons to be places of safety but also places of reform, where we address reoffending and make our society as a whole safer.

Safety in Custody and Violence in Prisons

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

HMP Wormwood Scrubs is an older, Victorian prison facing various challenges. I went around it recently, and as I said, I have confidence in its very good new governor. The hon. Lady mentioned mobile phones, which we have not talked about much so far. As the Prime Minister announced on 8 February, we are committed to working with the mobile network operators, which also need to rise to their responsibilities to help us fight the scourge of mobile phones in prisons.

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

In the last four years, there has been a rise in levels of violence against prison officers owing to understaffing and the fact that there are not enough rehabilitation programmes. Is it not time to re-evaluate how we decide who to send to prison and, when we do send them to prison, to make available proper rehabilitation provision?

[Andrew Selous]

Decisions about who goes to prison are obviously for our independent judiciary, but the hon. Lady is absolutely right about the need for better rehabilitation. We are determined that time in prison is not wasted but is productive, relevant and beneficial to prisoners and to the wider community in terms of keeping us all safe when they come out.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I will quote one of those letters when I have given way to my hon. Friends.

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

Constituents have written to me saying that they have been at their current address for the last 20, 30 or 40 years, but that they have received nothing to tell them about the changes.

[Owen Smith]

That is an extremely common experience for MPs, because the letters sent out in 1995 by the then Tory Government were neither use nor ornament. I have got one here that was sent to a woman on 13 June 1995. This letter has five pages, and not one of them mentions that the pension age is going to rise to 65. In fact, every single page refers to the fact that the state pension age for women is 60. The final page offers the extraordinary suggestion that

“a form inviting you to claim your State Retirement Pension will be sent to you”

a few

“months before you reach 60.”

This happened in the very month that the Bill that became the 1995 Act was going through this House under that Government. That is a measure of what a desperately poor job they did of informing people.

State Pension Age (Women)

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

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

rose—

[Mhairi Black]

I want to make some progress.

Some people say, “You should not have to be written to. It’s your pension, you should be keeping an eye on it. You should be looking out for reports and things, and take responsibility.” But when giving evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee, financial journalist Paul Lewis told us that after researching this himself he could barely find any reporting of the issue at all in 1995. There were a few small press cuttings from the business pages at the back of some newspapers. A freedom of information request revealed that the Government did fund “broader” awareness campaigns, which ran in waves between 2001 and 2004, but that these campaigns

“did not focus on equalisation in particular”.

In fact, only one of the press adverts in those campaigns was focused on this issue—one press cutting roughly seven years after this had already been passed into law. It is quite evident that this whole thing became a total mess. I do not know whether it was not reported deliberately, for political reasons or fear of ramifications, or whether it was a genuine accident, but what I do know is that women were not notified. It was not reported and they were not given enough time to be able to make appropriate arrangements.

This brings us on to the Pensions Act 2007, which increased the equalised state pension age from 65 to 66 between 2024 and 2026. It gave all affected people 17 years’ notice. That is fair enough, but then we come on to what the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) mentioned, the Pensions Act 2011. That came along and said, “Forget the 17 years’ notice, we’re going to rush this through. We need to do this right now.” The 2011 Act accelerated pension age equalisation for women and the subsequent increase to 66, effective from October 2016 onwards, meaning that affected women had only five years’ notice to try to remedy life plans that had been in place for years.

--- Later in debate ---

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

When the latest changes to pensions were made in the Pensions Act 2011, Labour Members objected to them. We had many debates about the issue—I remember speaking in them—and focused especially on the double-whammy effect on women, but the Government went ahead and passed the legislation.

I want to explain to the Minister what my constituents have written to me—I will read some of it out—about how women are being affected by the changes. Every one of the women who has contacted me has said that they agree with state pension age equality, but they object to and have difficulty with the way in which it has been implemented, particularly the acceleration of the increase and the lack of information.

Some of my constituents who are directly affected by the changes have told me that, even now, they have not received any communication or formal notification of the changes from the Department for Work and Pensions. That is utterly unacceptable, given the gravity of the changes. Posting notices in women’s magazines and Sunday supplements is both patronising and ineffective. None of the women I have spoken to are readers of such publications; they found out about the changes through word of mouth.

As the increase in the pension age is literally life-changing, far more notice should have been given ahead of the changes, and the Government should have ensured that everyone affected can plan for their future. One lady I spoke to told me that she has lived at the same address for the past 30 years and has not received anything. There is no excuse for that. To suggest that people somehow knew what was happening is wrong.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I fully recognise that there has been a breakdown in communication from successive Governments, but does the hon. Lady have a practical solution to deal with that?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I will come on to the practical solution later in my speech.

Women have told me that their other major concern is that, even when they have been notified, they have not had enough time to prepare for the major changes in their lives. One of my constituents is 62 years of age and she was due to retire at 62 years and three months. However, she will now have to work until she is 65. Understandably, that has caused a great deal of distress and uncertainty for her, because she had been planning to retire in a few months’ time. Her plan was to co-ordinate her retirement with the birth of her grandchildren so that she could look after them and not have to resort to having the Government pay for their childcare. The changes have thrown her life into turmoil and, of course, the Government will now end up paying for that childcare.

Another constituent has told me that, anticipating retirement at 60, she took voluntary redundancy aged 58 and a half when her company was seeking to downsize. She was later informed that she will not be able to access her state person until she is 66 years of age. She now finds herself unemployed and having difficulty finding another job, because of her age. She has been left in financial hardship as a result of not being notified about the changes to the state pension age until it was too late. She is not the only example; many thousands of women across the United Kingdom are in the same boat.

The discrepancy of two years and two months for women born between April and December 1953 is simply confusing and unfair. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government were told as much in the debates in 2011. It means that, for some constituents, the difference is about £14,000, which is a lot of money. Again, it is not just a few of my constituents who have been affected, but women across the country.

Hundreds of thousands of women have had significant changes imposed on them not just once, but twice, with a lack of appropriate notification, and retirement plans have been shattered, with devastating consequences. The Government seem to have failed to recognise the severe impact that the speed of the implementation of those changes has had on those women. The changes have not affected men to the same extent, as their state pension age has not been increased by such a large amount and they have had much more notice. The pension system has historically discriminated against women, and the new changes are yet another example of that.

I urge the Government to reconsider the provisions and to diminish their impact by making transitional arrangements that are fairer for those women affected.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

I have listened with great interest to the hon. Lady’s speech and to those of other Labour Members, particularly to their references to transitional arrangements. I wonder whether she could help me. What does she mean by and what would she suggest as “transitional arrangements”, how much will they cost and how will we find the money?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I am glad that the hon. Lady has given me extra time for this speech. There are many different ways in which to deal with the issue; there is not one panacea or simple solution. If the Government want a comprehensive response from me about the way forward, I am very happy to put together a detailed plan about how to deal with this issue.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Conservative Members are constantly asking what a practical transitional plan might look like. Surely it is the responsibility of the Government to bring forward such a plan, which the House can then debate. This is an abdication of responsibility.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is typical of this Government’s approach to such things.

[Mark Durkan]

My hon. Friend may recall that a further transitional arrangement was proposed when the Bill went through in 2011. In October 2011, an arrangement was proposed that would have meant nobody had to wait more than a year, rather than up to 18 months, to reach their pension age. It would have cost £10 billion over 10 years, and it would have meant having a common state pension age in 2022. That was proposed, but the Government rejected it.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, which I hope has helped the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins).

As I have said, I am very happy to pen a very detailed plan to help such ladies, but if I write it, I would like the Government to promise to implement it. Perhaps the Government will give me an assurance that, when I come up with suggestions about how to deal with various problems, they will say, “Yes, you are right: the hon. Member for Bolton South East has come up with a solution, and we will actually implement what she says.” Will the Minister make me such a promise?

Assisted Dying (No. 2) Bill

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Friday 11th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

Let me put a rational question back to the right hon. Gentleman. How is it that senior members of our society have reached a point at which they feel they might be a burden? The increasing secularisation of society has contributed to this, because the Christian principle of honouring our fathers and mothers must have become weakened if our parents and grandparents are starting to feel that they are a burden to us.

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

rose—

[Simon Hoare]

rose—

[Mrs Spelman]

I should like to make a bit more progress before I give way.

Assisted dying should be the absolute exception, not the rule. In practice, the law as it stands has seldom been used to convict anyone for assisting someone else to die. Strong laws protect vulnerable people. The existing law protects the elderly, the disabled and those who might otherwise feel pressured to die. It is difficult to prove definitively that someone has not been coerced. It would be almost impossible to pass a law that could definitively prove one way or another whether an elderly person had been coerced.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. I agree with what she is saying, and I should like to give the House a small example of why that is the case. My mother is 83 years of age and has a number of health issues. Last year, she was in and out of hospital, and in April this year she was told by the consultant that she did not have much time to live. In May, she was given about three days. My mother has now recovered and is very healthy again. Before I left home at 5 o’clock this morning, I had tea and biscuits with her, and she was walking about. She has recovered, but when she was suffering, she was saying, “I feel I am a real burden on my family. I can’t do this.” She was very emotionally distressed, and she still sometimes gets distressed, but she has survived and she is now healthy.