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Mr. Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley): Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a problem not only with
overstretch but because the Prison Officers Association is not allowed to operate in private prisons? Different rules and standards of employment are leading to difficulties. I do not know whether he is aware that people in charge of escorts do not recognise the POA. Market testing of training is another problem. I have two prisons in my constituency, and those are the issues that are raised with me. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman hears the same problems. The staff are of a good calibre, but morale needs to be lifted. The only way to do that is to stop overstretch and more prisoners entering prisons.
Mr. Beith: As I have two prisons in my constituency and a responsibility in the House that leads me to visit many others, I echo the fact that there are just such problems. I have a great deal of sympathy for prison officers, who are at the sharp end of all the problems and must deal with cuts. Such officers are very often not available in sufficient numbers to enable the provision of education. Why are evening educational activities frequently cancelled? It is not because there is no education officer; it is because there are no prison officers to accompany prisoners on such activity.
The chief inspector has expressed quite strongly the need for a change in the culture of the Prison Service, involving both management and the Prison Officers Association. Such a change, away from the confrontation of the past toward a much more co-operative approach, began some time ago. Because private prisons began operation without some of that history, they have enjoyed some advantages. However, the POA would quickly point out that such staff are at some disadvantage in that they lack the association's strong support in some of the difficulties in which they may find themselves. We are in an era of significant change in how people who work in prisons work together with a common purpose.
When 53 per cent. of released offenders, including 75 per cent. of young offenders and 89 per cent. of juveniles, reoffend within two years of release, it is disastrous that we should be losing work and educational activities. There is a real chance that the Government's new money will simply plug the gaps that have grown over the past four years rather than achieve a net improvement. The key performance indicators that were published this week show that the level of purposeful activity has fallen for four years in a row. The Minister should be embarrassed that the figures are as bad as that, and should recognise the need for some urgent action.
The chief inspector points out that work and education are seen as the soft target for cuts. Without guidance to the contrary, one can understand why governors make such decisions; there is very little else that they can cut in the short term. That approach must be reformed. In the section on training prisons, the chief inspector makes a significant remark:
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam):
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has been able to secure this debate. I shall raise three issues: the self-harm of prisoners, work and active prison regimes and the relationship between prisons and the probation service.
The incidence of self-harm in prison is worrying. We know that suicide in prisons is a major problem. Between 1990 and March 1997, 516 people took their lives in British prisons, which must be a major cause of concern. In addition to those who go so far as to take their own lives, a significant number carry out other acts of self-harm. In a written answer that I received yesterday, I was given some disturbing figures. Between September 1997 and October 1998--the last 12-month period for which complete statistics are available--the number of reported incidents of self-harm among male prisoners was 5,963, and among female prisoners, 1,052.
The figure for female prisoners is particularly worrying. For men, the 6,000-odd incidents can be set against 60,000 prisoners, giving a ratio of approximately one incident per 10 prisoners a year. But for the 3,000 women prisoners, there is approximately one incident per three prisoners a year. That must be a major source of concern in the management of care of female prisoners.
Although self-harm, by definition, is not wholly under the control of prison management, the regime must be a material factor in deciding self-harm rates. We believe that overcrowding, in particular, causes problems because it increases tension in prisons and reduces opportunities for supervision, especially of those who are vulnerable and liable to self-harm.
In that respect, the dramatic increase in the number of women prisoners who harm themselves must be noted: from 1,353 at the end of 1992 to 3,189 by the end of July 1998. That is a 136 per cent. increase, compared with a 64 per cent. increase over the same period for male prisoners. Concern about that is reflected in the chief inspector's description of the situation in Holloway as "appalling". Although women prisoners who harm themselves are of particular concern, the problem extends to prisoners in general.
On issues of work and active regimes, on which my right hon. Friend touched, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches believe that prison works best when prisoners work. The figures for weekly hours spent on purposeful activity are deeply worrying. As my right hon. Friend said, there has been a reduction in hours of purposeful activity in most prisons. The figures seem to show a trend of hours falling year on year.
In the year 1994-95, the average number of hours spent weekly on purposeful activities was 26.2; in 1995-96, it was 25.2; in 1996-97, it was 23.8; in 1997-98, it was 23.2; and in 1998-99, it was 22.8. That last figure was set against a declared target of 24 hours. There is an incontrovertible trend in the wrong direction, which we would wish to be dramatically reversed as a key way of reducing reoffending, which must be one of the primary goals of the Prison Service.
Prisoners need a purposeful regime if they are to be prepared for release. That must be a particular concern in respect of young offenders, who we hope have a useful future before them and will not return to the prison system or the criminal justice system.
The chief inspector's report on the young offenders institution and remand centre at Feltham causes particular concern in this respect. After visiting Feltham on an unannounced inspection, the chief inspector said that he had to disclose to the public not only that the conditions and treatment of the 922 children and young prisoners confined in HMYOI and RC Feltham were
There was particular cause for concern in the figures that he reported on opportunities for employment at Feltham. When the children and young offenders who were held there were asked whether they had done any work that would help them to get a job on release, only 8 per cent. thought that it would help them. Twenty-five per cent. were uncertain. Six per cent. thought that it was too far in the future to say. Nine per cent. did not comment. Very worryingly, 52 per cent. thought that the work
Mr. Lawrence Cunliffe (Leigh):
There are in my constituency a remand prison and a senior prison--Strangeways and Hindley. I remember discussing with a prison governor, who ultimately moved very high in the prison ranks, the question of what we considered to be purposeful training in the true sense. I am glad to say that half the young remand prisoners were doing purposeful training on such things as brick making, concrete work and car maintenance. They were a bit reluctant about car maintenance. There was always a problem attached--there was some temptation there.
"When Governors suggest to me that their prison is the cheapest in the system, I ask them what they are not doing in order to achieve that 'distinction'. Invariably the answer is in regime activities, which means that they have idle and unemployed prisoners, the antithesis of a training prison."
We must end the absurdity under which cuts in the very programmes that have been shown to help to reduce reoffending are regarded as efficiency gains. It is
nonsense to regard taking out the very thing that can make prison do its jobs properly as an improvement in efficiency.
"in many instances, totally unacceptable",
but that they were some of the worst things that he had seen in the prison regime and in many ways worse than when he reported on them two years previously.
"would not be helpful to them on release".
That is set against the background of the chief inspector's deep concern about Feltham in general. Those youngsters have their whole life ahead of them, and we must hope that they will find their way into purposeful employment as a major way of preventing them from having any further contact with the criminal justice system.
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