Examination of witness (Questions 260
- 265)
WEDNESDAY 8 JULY 1998
SIR DAVID
RAMSBOTHAM
260. I have listened to a number of remarks
which you made and indeed the questioning of the Committee all
seemed to be predicated very much upon the belief or understanding
that prisoners were getting out anyway, it is a rundown situation.
Of course that is a process which will take several years and
it is also conceivable that it may not be a completed process,
that something could go askew between now and then and that we
are still left dealing with the same kind of situation. To what
extent—and I am obviously not wanting to hear any of the
detail of your report to the Secretary of State—does your
report take into account both sets of possibilities?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I am sure she will not
mind me saying that one of the things I have said to her is that
I think, while obviously one is talking about the possibility
of prisoners being released, what one must be quite clear about
is that the Maze is a living prison and must remain a living prison
until the last prisoner has left it. Therefore any recommendations
I have made to her, are about continuing the running of the Maze
and making improvements to the running of the Maze on the grounds
that it is a living prison. It would be quite wrong for me to
say that it is not going to go on, therefore do not bother. The
safety of prisoners and the safety of staff must be paramount
right up until the moment it is emptied or closed.
261. May I take you back to the view you
expressed which Mr Hunter questioned and you clarified that it
was a prisoner's view of the circumstances you were dealing with?
Society deals with its prisoners on the basis not of how they
see themselves but how society sees them and they are there as
criminals under the criminal law. In those circumstances, they
are dealt with in a very peculiar way, in a way which has changed
over time and in fact changed backwards and forwards over time
as far as what might be described as political status is concerned.
If we have to deal with prisoners in the long term of the kind
that we have at the Maze prison, is it necessary for us to grasp
that nettle and to have a fundamental change as to how prisoners
are categorised in the Maze prison?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) That will have to be a
political decision. As far as I am concerned, as I have said in
my report, I am responsible for the treatment and conditions of
prisoners. If they are going to be there for some period of time,
whatever persuasion or whatever they are or why they are there,
the Prison Service has a responsibility for them, to treat them
with humanity and to look after them and cater for their needs,
I believe that there are many things which should be done to make
their day more purposeful and active with the ability to get at
things like education and work and training and so on which are
currently denied. That is a general issue which applies to all
prisons as well as the Maze. I do not think it would be right
for me to comment on any political recategorisation or whatever,
on how long people might or might not be there. Whatever does
go on must be positive and aimed at rehabilitating them into the
community at some time, because this is the fact I keep on reminding
people in this country of, that there are 65,652 prisoners in
prison today, all except 30 are going to come out and the question
we have to ask ourselves is in what state of mind they are going
to be when they come out. That is something which every Prison
Service must address itself to, no matter what type of prisoner
it is looking after.
262. Let me have another attempt at making
it easier for you to answer that kind of question. You have been
asked to look from a prisoner's point of view at safety and those
kinds of issues and indeed as far as the staff is concerned. However,
there are fundamental differences in relation to the safety for
staff and for prisoners if they are dealt with in what might be
described as normal circumstances here in Great Britain and the
circumstances where they are put onto a wing where they have a
wing paramilitary commander and a block paramilitary commander
who all report to the overall prison commander of their paramilitary
organisation, where prison officers have to get permission to
go onto wings from the paramilitary leader in that area. From
a safety point of view, is it not something which you would be
recommending should be changed?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) All I can tell you is that
there is a huge amount of this in my report and I am sorry that
you were not able to read it before we met. I think I had better
leave that particular question because we have gone into all that,
both in history as to how it developed and how things might be
developed along the lines you have been talking about which is
now with the Secretary of State.
Mr Robinson: I shall
possess myself with patience.
Chairman
263. It is unusual for us to have a witness
in front of us who constitutes a trailer for a publication which
is coming out hereafter. I hope we have not caused you any embarrassment.
You seem to me to have moved very sensitively round the areas
where there might have been embarrassment in some of our questions.
I hope we have not caused you any embarrassment.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I am sorry. I would much
rather have shared it all with you because of the Committee that
you are.
264. I think I speak on behalf of the whole
Committee when I say that we are greatly looking forward to it
in due course. Before Mr Grogan asked his question, I was tempted
to indicate before you answered his questions about agency status
that I had played a significant part in the creation of agency
status. I am very glad I did not and that you felt maximum latitude
to say exactly what you thought on the subject. It has been an
excellent session. If I may ask you a final improper question,
which you are totally entitled to deflect, do you have any sense
of how long the Secretary of State is going to take to come to
a conclusion on your report? That is not just a curious question,
that obviously has some germaneness to the workings of this Committee.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I am afraid I do not. What
I pointed out to her when I sent the document to her was that
if this were here in this country, the programme which I have
agreed with the Home Secretary is that it is three weeks after
I have sent it to them for discussion over matters of fact and
two weeks to publish, so the earliest it could have been was five
weeks. In this case obviously there are other timings which will
decide. Normally I would just go ahead and publish and it may
be that she wants to publish in Northern Ireland or whatever.
We have not discussed that yet. We are going to but neither she
nor the Permanent Secretary have given me any indication other
than she said here, "I am considering your recommendations".
265. Would it be reasonable for us to assume
that you had sent her the report before you wrote to us on 25
June?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Yes; well it was on its
way, I do not know whether it had got to her.
Chairman: That is
extremely helpful. I am sure I speak on behalf of the whole Committee
with much appreciation for the comprehensiveness with which you
have answered our questions. Thank you very much indeed.
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