Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
RT HON
DAVID BLUNKETT
MP, BEVERLEY HUGHES
MP AND MR
JOHN GIEVE
CB
11 SEPTEMBER 2003
Q60 Chairman: I thought it might
be useful to clarify that.
Mr Blunkett: I think they would
have had a job getting them on the buses!
Q61 Chairman: There were things like
cudgels.
Mr Blunkett: Yes, there were.
Q62 David Winnick: It could have
been dealt with under various laws?
Mr Blunkett: It could have been
but the people actually asking people to get off the buses and
display what they had were not aware of what they had until they
displayed them.
Q63 Chairman: Home Secretary, can
we move on to prisons and sentencing? What effect do you expect
sentencing trends to have on the prison population over the next
five years?
Mr Blunkett: There has just been
a further readjustment, as you will be aware, Chairman, of the
estimates that are made. I am trying to get people to look at
two separate things, firstly the trends without the action we
are taking, and that is what the statistical division have got,
which is a prison population rising by 2009, so over six rather
than five years, to 92,000 and a second look in terms of what
it is we can do that would change that projection. Change it,
because it is my intention to leave office with fewer people having
to enter prison because fewer people are committing crime and
those who are found guilty of what would in normal terms be described
as first time or minor offences being dealt with rigorously but
with a view to avoiding re-offending, so increasing community
punishment, intermittent punishment and the development of what
is in the Criminal Justice and Sentencing Bill, which we described
as custody minus. For those in the gallery that is where someone
receives a community sentence but the prison sentence has been
delivered therefore if they breach they can be delivered to the
prison on the sentence rather than having to be taken back through
court again. There is a stick and carrot, if they get it right
they stay out of prison and if they get it wrong they immediately
go to jail. The intermittent sentences are where—and this
has certainly worked in other countries, like Germany—people
can be put in jail at the weekends or during the week rather than
permanently and we can combine the experience of jail with community
sentencing, depending on the nature of the crime, so that people
do not lose their house, their family, their livelihood, which
contribute to people re-offending rather than preventing them
offending and at the same time to get really tough with those
who have committed heinous crimes so that the public have trust
in the system and know that people who threaten our lives and
our children will literally be put away for life. That will increase
the prison population at the top end but if we take the right
steps and we have consistency in sentencing across the country
we can manage a two-handed approach, which I believe is entirely
logical and will build confidence in the system.
Q64 Chairman: You talk about the
trends over the next six years, if custody minus and custody plus
are alternatives to prison and you are going to have an impact
on the prison population by 2009 you must be expecting them to
apply to a substantial number of people who are sentenced in courts
over the next few years. Could you tell us what the timetable
is for commencing those provisions from the Criminal Justice Bill
and how many people in say three years or four years you expect
to be sentenced under custody plus and custody minus? Do you have
the resources that are needed to implement those parts of the
Bill?
Mr Blunkett: We expect to implement
custody minus next year subject to Parliament's passing this legislation.
We would like to pilot it, we would like to pick the areas of
challenge and move on that quickly. We would then like to spread
the practice immediately, learning the lessons including, as we
were describing at the beginning of this session, with the help
of the Judicial Studies Board and the necessary training and support
that will be required. We are in the process of determining whether
custody plus, where people receive a combined sentence of prison
and supervision, can be piloted a year later. That is obviously
about the capacity and the working of the Probation Service, not
just the capacity but changing the operation and the nature of
the Service. In 1997 the Probation Service had a budget of just
under £500 million, £492 million, by 2005 they will
have a budget of £841 million. It is my determination that
as the Prisons Minister that we should examine how we are effectively
using that extra £345 million, which is very substantial,
it is over a 70% increase, to be able to effectively determine
the supervision necessary to stop re-offending. I would like to
say this afternoon that I think we need to think more broadly
about how we tackle correction of the policy. After two years
plus in the job I can be a little more imaginative than it has
been possible to be so far in terms of what we do. In terms of
looking at how we can reduce re-offending—and the Re-offending
Reduction Programme is working but I think there is more that
we can do—how we can use the experience in terms of supervision
for youngsters with adults, how we can use not only home domestic
curfew with tagging but how we can use satellite tracking to be
much more imaginative and how we engage the Civil Renewal Agenda,
the community volunteering to mentor and support. There is a much
bigger agenda here which we can address.
Q65 Bob Russell: Home Secretary,
I welcome your comment about the weekend prison concept, do I
take it from that that the Home Office will now look at the Home
Affairs Select Committee's report on Alternatives to Prison Sentences,
which we did in the last Parliament, because that recommendation
which was included there was rejected previously? Bearing in mind
it has proved to be very successful in Finland is this in a way,
if I can use the expression, a prison finishing school?
Mr Blunkett: I certainly would
not wish to use that expression because I could write the headline
for you tomorrow morning. I have already indicated I am not only
in agreement with looking at these alternatives and the dual experience
but we have put it in the Bill and I would not have put it in
the Bill if I did not believe we should use it. I am up for looking
at any past Select Committee reports in terms of learning lessons
and implementing them.
Q66 Miss Widdecombe: Home Secretary,
before turning to probation can I press you a little more on prison
overcrowding numbers, capacity etcetera? At the moment we have
just over 73,000 people in prison and there is an uncrowded capacity
of only 66,000, so although you are within operational capacity
you are nevertheless presiding over quite a position of overcrowding.
You have said that you expect in the longer term when your various
measures take effect that the prison population will decrease.
I just want to press you slightly on the interim period, both
in terms of the numbers you would expect and the prisons building
programme. If we have 73,000 people in prison today, and I know
you cannot be precise, I am not asking you to be, do you see that
as having gone up or come down or being the same in say three
years' time?
Mr Blunkett: We have forecast
the necessity over the next three years of putting in place a
further set of measures that will lead us to have 78,700 places
available. I appreciate this is operational, to use your term,
at the moment we have 74,100, or thereabouts, in place and therefore
we will have greater capacity to take account of the measures
that are already in train. My view is that instead of simply taking
capacity and using the exponential statistical diagram which has
taken place in terms of what has happened over recent years (the
rise from 45,000 to 73,000 in 10 years) that perhaps we should
look at other measures. Pat Carter, who Members will be familiar
with, has done a lot of work for Government in this area in the
past is coming forward to us and to the Prime Minister and the
Treasury with his review of what requirements will be and how
we can configure the prison stock, prison places in a way that
will be helpful. I want to see that report in the next few weeks
and then consider the best way forward.
Q67 Miss Widdecombe: Can I ask you
to give me a brief indication, and you have talked about places,
of how many new prisons you are building and any rebuilding of
current, old Victorian prisons that you have in mind?
Mr Blunkett: We have expanded
Birmingham Prison substantially, there are 400 odd places there.
We have Ashford and Peterborough as new prisons coming on stream.
I am interested in looking at how, and I will come to the difficulty
in a moment, we can release one of the less favourable, less acceptable
prisons in terms of conditions which happen to be in high value
areas in order to rebuild and reconfigure in a more acceptable
style for the 21st century. I share the implicit criticism that
in the 21st century some of our prison stock, and therefore the
work we can do with prisoners in them, which is the crucial factor,
are less than satisfactory. The difficulty is the bridge between
the ability to rebuild and provide and the disposal of and the
emptying of the prison. You are familiar with this as much as
I am. We need to look imaginatively at how we might do that, and
I am prepared to do so.
Q68 Miss Widdecombe: When you say
you are prepared to do so is that actually in hand, in train?
Mr Blunkett: I have asked for
work to be done on that so we can make collective decisions as
to the best way of achieving that goal.
Q69 Miss Widdecombe: Staying with
prisons and overcrowding for the moment, do you accept that the
first casualty of overcrowding is always purposeful activity?
Mr Blunkett: I think it reduces
the speed with which we can improve those purposeful activities.
As you know I was responsible when I was Education Secretary for
working with the then Home Secretary to transfer issues on literacy
and numeracy, which are absolutely crucial to the avoidance of
re-offending and to rehabilitation and, secondly, because I held
the work brief at the time for setting in train the process of
moving people into a situation of not only preparing for work
but being able to reach out to employers with the help of the
CBI, who have been very helpful on this, to actually get people
into jobs and work links and the programmes that we put in place.
Yes, that is more difficult, not less, if the prison is overcrowded
and if it is more difficult to organise those purposeful activities
then it makes it more difficult for prisoners to spend extra time
out of their cells with safety.
Q70 Miss Widdecombe: Is it also not
true that you are operating on quite a narrow margin of staff,
for example if there is a sudden post watch or something then
an education class or a workshop session is likely to be closed
down?
Mr Blunkett: I think there are
instances of that but I think we are working on adequate safety
margins.
Q71 Miss Widdecombe: You have talked
about education in literacy and numeracy, would you not accept
that the overwhelming majority, a big majority of people who come
into prison have not actually led structured life styles and one
of the most useful things you can do if you have them in prison
for any length of time is to get them into the habit of an orderly
working day, earning money from which deductions then have to
be made before any of it is disposable. If so, would you agree
there has been precious little progress to do that since 1997?
Mr Blunkett: I would not accept
there has been precious little progress because I think linked
to the massive expansion of the literacy and numeracy programme
last year—and I think the figure is 41,000—we are
providing training places, and it takes time to do so because
you have to establish the equipment and materials. I am very keen
to expand faster the outreach that we have, where people are placed
in work under secure and safe circumstances outside, the Press
Association are doing it in Howden in Yorkshire, there are even
a number of instances where horse race owners have been prepared
to link into prisons so they can get experience in a purposeful
way. I think that we need to do a lot more of that. We need employers
to be prepared to embrace it.
Q72 David Winnick: Martin Narey said
as far as the overcrowding of prisons is concerned he told us
that 22% of prisoners were sharing cells designed for one person
and he did not expect to see this proportion significantly reduce
in the next few years, that is a pretty dismal scenario, is it
not?
Mr Blunkett: Yes, it is. The juxtaposition
of having expanded by 15,000 the number of places available in
the last six years with replacing the stock that is unacceptable
and expanding the stock to avoid doubling up in that way is quite
a conundrum. I think the best thing politicians can do in these
circumstances is to simply be honest about it. Expanding places
we can fight for money for, replacing unacceptable conditions
is something that I must fight for, replacing bad conditions,
expanding the number of places and replacing doubling up is something
that we have an aspiration for. I would say that there are not
all that many—there are quite a few in this room—politicians
standing up on Budget statements and at autumn Spending Reviews
and demanding more spending in these areas, and regrettably neither
are there in the public, so we are fighting on a sticky wicket.
Q73 David Winnick: Your predecessor,
not your immediate predecessor but your predecessor in the previous
administration, proclaimed rather proudly that it would appear
that prisons worked. Do you take the same view?
Mr Blunkett: I think they do work
for some people if the resources, the time, the activity in the
prison, are geared to making it work, and above all are linked
to proper transfer at the end of prison sentences so that there
is a joined-up programme, hence the Criminal Justice Sentencing
Bill with a new programme and Custody Plus, and why it is quite
important to build confidence in the community around such programmes.
Q74 Miss Widdecombe: I just want
to press you slightly, Home Secretary, because you said, and I
understand why you said it, that expanding places and trying to
reduce doubling up and trying to make the conditions more acceptable
is an aspiration. However, I cannot resist putting it to you that
between 1993 and 1995 when the Prison Service expanded by almost
25%, that is the number of prisoners, and the actual budget per
prisoner was cut, nevertheless in that period we managed to eliminate
slopping out, to reduce doubling up from 21% to 17%, and it has
effectively now gone right back to more than it was, and all that
was achieved in a period of an expanding prison population. If
the will is there, and I sympathise with you that the will is
not always echoed all round the House, but if the will is there
it can be done.
Mr Blunkett: I am always willing
to learn from your miracle touch.
Miss Widdecombe: I was not in the service
at the time.
Q75 Bob Russell: That shows how good
it was then.
Mr Blunkett: I am risking my life
and limb, but I would I would be very happy to have a private
conversation with the honourable lady about what she picked up
when she came in and what she thinks we might learn from it now.
Q76 Miss Widdecombe: I will give
you that private conversation any day. Home Secretary, have you
considered, and if so in what depth, merging the Prison and Probation
Services? Can you just tell us what you think would be the pluses
and what would be the minuses?
Mr Blunkett: I think there has
been some caution in going down this road because it was only
in the year 2000 that the National Probation Service emerged as
a national service with coherence and consistency across the country
and the establishment of the local service to match. Therefore,
I think there has been a belief, quite correctly, that we should
allow that to settle down and sort out where there are difficulties,
and there have been in places like London because of the geography
and the size of the areas. I think it is sensible for us to look
at how closer integration of the two services can lead to major
gains. I mentioned a moment ago in answering another question
that it was important that we did not just deal with what was
happening in prison but what was happening when people came out
and I believe that that conjunction is absolutely vital to successful
rehabilitation, therefore avoidance of reoffending. I would like
to link that with community and voluntary organisations as well
so, again, we are not just seeing this as a government programme.
I think that there is a debate to be had around this but at the
moment we are not in a position to go further than that, although
we have been looking at the whole issue of how we inspect the
services so that we can have a coherence about that as well.
Q77 Miss Widdecombe: Thank you. Have
you any comment to make on what the Chief Executive of the Probation
Boards Association said at the beginning of August when he said
that the Probation Service targets, after all those are set by
politicians, were "crude and amateurish and threatened to
distort its work"?
Mr Blunkett: I think making demands
on people, as I have found in previous ministerial roles, creates
a reaction. I think it is beholden on ministers when they are
putting in very substantial sums of money, when you see an expansion
of 2,000 officers in the Probation Service, that we are able to
measure whether we are seeing an improvement for that public investment.
I think this is a big issue for public service. I challenge those
who believe that the role of government is simply to put the money
in and leave the service alone. We are the only way in which the
public can demand value for money, we are the only way in which
we can hold to account, and if we have sensible light touch approaches
in terms of those targets nationally with underpinning targets
within the service at regional, local level then we will get some
sense out of it. Of course I do not accept that they are crude
or whatever the other pejorative term was, but I am very happy
for the Prisons Minister to meet the individual concerned so they
can have an eyeball to eyeball at the same time as you and I are
having one.
Miss Widdecombe: Thank you.
Q78 Bob Russell: Home Secretary,
clearly suicides in prison must be an issue which causes you considerable
concern. I believe the figures are that on average every week
there are two suicides in our prisons. With that in mind, could
you explain why the installation of safer cells, the programme,
has been cut back? Last year 2,700 were installed whereas I believe
in the current year only 800 are planned when all the evidence
shows that safer cells, if not lead to no suicides then very few,
if any.
Mr Blunkett: Yes, there were 105
suicides last year and that is far too many. I believe that the
programme that has been put in place alongside the expansion of
safer cells, which I saw for myself only a week ago, which is
the massive investment in better health and daycare facilities,
in mental health provision and in detoxification, is the way forward
linked to listening services, the mentors picking up the moment
someone comes into prison or a young offenders institution, and
it is often the younger people who are most at risk and it is
often during the first few days that that pattern of self-harm
is established. I think putting the resources as we are doing
now with the Prison Health Service being funded from the Department
of Health as from last April, who obviously have the resources,
will make the difference. It is a matter of choosing at particular
prisons which formula works best on the evidence of the nature
of suicide, what has led up to it, the time that the individual
has been in the institution and the judgment that is made on examining
the suicide as to what might have stopped it.
Q79 Bob Russell: A broad welcome
to that response, Home Secretary. If I could just go back to the
point that last year 2,700 safer cells were installed, this year
it is proposed to be only 800. Would you ask your officials to
look to see whether there could be a greater number installed
in remand prisons with predominantly young males, which I believe
is the area of most concern and the increase in the level of suicides?
Mr Blunkett: I will happily do
that because obviously I will want to check the circumstance in
terms of which priority should be invested in most quickly. When
I went to Feltham two weeks ago, I was impressed with the way
in which their wholly new facilities have transformed what was
previously available and the risk that went with it. We should
be mindful of improvements needed but we should also be celebrating
some of the very substantial improvements that have taken place.
Bob Russell: Thank you, Home Secretary.
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