Oral Answers to Questions

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that point so perfectly on behalf of his constituent. Good progress is being made following the expert panel’s report. First, we have launched a review into the presumption of parental involvement. Secondly, the design of the pilot integrated domestic abuse courts is under way. Thirdly, measures in the Domestic Abuse Bill to provide further protection to victims and survivors who use the family courts are passing through the other place. Guidance is a matter for the judiciary, but I have raised this with the president of the family division and he is very much seized of it and will consider making recommendations on judicial training to the judicial college in light of the recommendations of the harms panel and other developments.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab) [V]]

  Covid is spiralling out of control in prisons. In December, deaths surged by 50% and cases by 70%. Unlike during the last lockdown, the Government insist that non-essential workers go in and out of prisons every single day, risking spreading the virus. The University and College Union, which represents prison educators, tells me that teachers are not even allowed to prepare lessons or carry out marking at home. Instead, they have to go into prisons to print worksheets, deliver them to cells, pick them up from cells and mark them on site. Will the Minister please intervene to stop this reckless practice?

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but she must not repeat the myth that covid is out of control in our prisons. It serves nobody’s interests, least of all those of staff who are working day and night to control it. She makes an important point about education. Clearly, in this lockdown we wanted to ensure that more education and skills training were available. That is absolutely right and everyone would support it. However, there is a problem with what she says because, of course, the passage of paper and other documents in and out of prison inherently poses a security risk. That is the reality we live in and it is therefore important that we balance the needs of prison security alongside the needs of prisoners to access education. I will look carefully at the point she makes, but I think she will understand that a sensitive balance has to be struck.