Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
MR
JOHN GIEVE
CB, MR MARTIN
NAREY AND
MR WILLIAM
NYE
15 JULY 2003
Q40 Miss Widdecombe: What are your
working projections for the expansion of the prison population
over the next five years?
Mr Narey: We are just waiting
for some new projections to be worked out at the moment because
at the moment the prison population is significantly under-cutting
most recent projections, so those new projections are being cut
out. At the moment, there is every sign that the population will
reach somewhere in the region of 80,000 by about 2005-06.
Q41 Miss Widdecombe: And what will
capacity have reached by that same period?
Mr Narey: Operational capacity
today is about 76,400 although we cannot of course, as you know,
use every one of those spaces. Operational capacity will have
increased to 77,000 at the end of this year and by March 2006
it will be about 81,000.
Q42 Miss Widdecombe: So operational
capacity will be 81,000 by 2006?
Mr Narey: Yes, but that includes
every place and obviously we cannot use 81,000 places.
Q43 Miss Widdecombe: And operational
capacity, of course, is very different from non-overcrowded capacity?
Mr Narey: Indeed.
Q44 Miss Widdecombe: What will the
non-overcrowded capacity be by 2006?
Mr Narey: I would have perhaps
to write to you with that exact figure but I would say that the
uncrowded capacity at that point will be in the region of about
70,000.[2]
Q45 Miss Widdecombe: So you will
have uncrowded capacity of 70,000 and a prison population of about
80,000?
Mr Narey: We may have. It depends
on what the new projections—
Q46 Miss Widdecombe: I am aware these
are not very precise instruments but that is your estimate. Therefore,
we are working towards a situation in which overcrowding, even
within operational capacity, is going to increase over the next
five or six years?
Mr Narey: Overcrowding has certainly
increased over the last few years. We are not planning at the
moment for it significantly to increase—indeed, we are hoping
very much to hold to operational capacities. It has been very
close but the overcrowding is not quite as bad in some respects
as it used to be. We measure overcrowding by prisoners sharing
two to a cell. We no longer have prisoners sharing three to a
cell like before.
Q47 Miss Widdecombe: We have not
had three to a cell meant for two since 1994.
Mr Narey: Indeed.
Q48 Miss Widdecombe: Let alone for
one, so that is an old figure that need not even be looked at.
I am trying to look at where we are going in the next five years
from, say, where we have been over the last five years. What is
the percentage of prisoners sharing a cell, two to a cell designed
for one?
Mr Narey: 22% right now.
Q49 Miss Widdecombe: Is that going
to go up or down over the next five years?
Mr Narey: It is difficult to say.
I would expect it, if it rises, to rise by a very small amount.
Much of that depends on what can be done to reduce the population,
but I do not think there is significant further operational slack
which could allow a further increase in operational capacity and
a further increase—
Chairman: Could somebody deal with that
mobile phone, please?
Q50 Miss Widdecombe: Sorry, but before
that interruption what you were saying is that you expect if anything
it will rise, even if only slightly?
Mr Narey: There may be some slight
scope for rising but I do not think there is scope for it to rise
significantly. The 22% is there.
Q51 Miss Widdecombe: Let me ask you
this: how important do you regard it to start getting that figure
which at the beginning of the last decade was coming down to start
to come down again—I do not mean the numbers in prison because
I have no view on that, but the overcrowding levels.
Mr Narey: Patently I would welcome
that figure coming down. I do not think that it is by any means
ideal to hold two prisoners in a cell meant for one, particularly
when they have to share a toilet in that cell. I do not think
that is anything that anybody would want but it has been the reality
in prisons in the twenty years I have worked in the Prison Service.
I would very much welcome a reduction. I think, however, you can
to some extent mitigate the effect of overcrowding by having regimes
which get prisoners out of the cells into positive activities
which might make them employable and into jobs, and we are doing
that much more than we were able to a few years ago.
Q52 Miss Widdecombe: I will come
to purposeful activity in a moment because, as you know, I have
a particular interest in that but on overcrowding, if there is
going to be an increase or at the very best a standstill situation
in respect of the number of prisoners—22% is not far short
of a quarter—carrying out their sentences in overcrowded
conditions, there does not appear to be any hard plan to reduce
that percentage, is that right?
Mr Narey: No, I do not think it
is right. As I have explained, operational capacity with the provision
of new places in two new prisons will rise. What remains to be
seen is whether the population will rise with it. I am confident,
for example, that the population will fall by perhaps a 1,000
over the next three months as the recent extension to home detention
curfew kicks in, and that will allow us to reduce somewhat the
number of prisoners who have been doubled up.
Q53 Miss Widdecombe: You use interchangeably,
and they are not interchangeable, the terms "operational
capacity" and "overcrowding". Operational capacity
is safe overcrowded capacity.
Mr Narey: That is right.
Q54 Miss Widdecombe: And uncrowded
capacity is what you get when you reduce the numbers of prisoners
sharing cells designed for fewer prisoners. On that measure—and
I am sorry to press you on it but I want to be very clear—you
do not foresee much progress over the next five years and there
is not a hard plan—on that measure—to reduce it?
Mr Narey: I repeat that I think
we will see some fall in the number and the proportion of prisoners
sharing two to a cell in the next few months but I have to be
realistic that if the population continues to rise at anything
like the rate it has been recently—
Q55 Miss Widdecombe: 80,000.
Mr Narey: —we may return
to a proportion of around 22%.
Q56 Miss Widdecombe: Can we now go
on to what you were very eager to lead me on to which is the regimes
in our prisons? First of all, do you accept that, when there is
overcrowding, purposeful activity is usually the first casualty?
Mr Narey: Yes.
Q57 Miss Widdecombe: Given the rapid
rise of the prison population at the moment and the huge pressures,
what are you doing to try and ensure that purposeful activity
increases and does not just stand still?
Mr Narey: I think there have been
quite dramatic increases in purposeful activity. I can tell you
that the number of hours of purposeful activity per year have
risen by something like 38 million in the last ten years.
Q58 Miss Widdecombe: What is the
average?
Mr Narey: The average, because
the divisor has been rising very fast, has stayed almost level
and we have been just below the 24 hours per prisoner per week
mark for some years, as you know. But I think as purposeful activity
has come under pressure what we have sought to do, and had some
success with it, is protect those aspects of purposeful activity
which contribute towards reducing offending and protect education
classes, treatment programmes and so forth.
Q59 Miss Widdecombe: You may wonder
why I am raising it in this context and I will tell you in a minute,
but have you given any thought to contracting out bed watchers?
Mr Narey: Yes, we have given some
thought to that.
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