| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
2 Nov 2005 : Column 1121W—continued
Prisons
Mr. Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures he has taken to prevent drug abuse in prisons among (a) staff and (b) inmates; and if he will make a statement. [16549]
Fiona Mactaggart: A comprehensive series of measures is in place to reduce the misuse of drugs by prisoners including:
All staff are required to report fit for duty. This includes not being unfit through either alcohol or drug misuse. Failure to meet this standard may result in disciplinary action. Staff are also liable to be searched when reporting for duty.
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to ensure that educational records are transferred effectively across the prison estate. [16960]
Fiona Mactaggart: Successful data transfer/exchange is an urgent priority as part of the implementation of the new offender learning and skills service. The three development regions (north-east, north-west, south-west) which went live in August 2005 have implemented the Learning and Skills Council's Individual Learner Record arrangements, whereby centrally held records are available to education providers involved in delivering offender learning services, but we regard this as only a partial solution.
The longer term solution will be inclusion of learning records (alongside all other data relating to the offender) on the National Offender Management Service's NOMIS database.
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners took part in higher educational courses in prisons in each year since 2000, broken down by (a) age, (b) gender and (c) ethnicity. [16962]
Fiona Mactaggart: These data would be available only at disproportionate cost.
The Department for Education and Skills provides support funding for Open University Openings access courses, Open University undergraduate course modules and contributions to tutorial costs. The table shows the number of places funded (figures are available centrally only from 2002).
| Openings | Undergraduate | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002–03 | 0 | 450 | 450 |
| 2003–04 | 200 | 650 | 850 |
| 2004–05 | 250 | 850 | 1,100 |
| 2005–06 | 250 | 1,050 | (44)1,300 |
(44) planned
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he has taken to implement the recommendations of the Independent Monitoring Board on diverting mentally ill and addicted prisoners in young offenders institutions to appropriate care and treatment. [16967]
Fiona Mactaggart:
All prisoners undergo health screening, which will identify mental health problems and addictions, on reception into prison. They will then be referred on for appropriate interventions. Measures in place to ensure that prisoners who need in-patient
2 Nov 2005 : Column 1123W
treatment for mental disorder are transferred to hospital quickly are now being augmented through a two year project which will establish a national waiting time for such transfers along with referral guidelines.
Lynne Featherstone: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the provision of condoms in prisons and young offenders' institutions. [17006]
Fiona Mactaggart: Prison doctors were advised in 1995 that they should make condoms available to individual prisoners, on application, if in their clinical judgment, there is a risk of transmission of HIV infection during sexual activity. The Prison Service is planning to issue, in early 2006, revised guidance and instructions which aim to clarify the policy on condoms so that it can be applied more evenly across the prison estate.
Mr. Hepburn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the quantity of drugs taken into prisons in the North East region by (a) prisoners, (b) visitors, (c) prison officers and (d) other means in each of the last 10 years. [17192]
Fiona Mactaggart: As I stated in my reply to a question by the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) on 10 October, we do not collect comprehensive information on quantities centrally.
The Mandatory Drug Testing programme, which is the principle means of measuring drug misuse in prisons, shows that in the North East the percentage of positive tests has reduced from 32.9 per cent. in 1996–97 to 10 per cent. in 2005–06 (August 2005).
The Home Office recently commissioned a substantial piece of research that identifies patterns of drug use and supply routes. The six main routes identified were social visits, mail, new receptions, prison staff, over the perimeter and reception after court visits. Measures are already in place to target these routes and the report will inform the further development of supply reduction strategies.
Mr. Hepburn: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people whose family homes are in South Tyneside are (a) on remand and (b) convicted prisoners in a prison more than 50 miles from their family home. [17196]
Fiona Mactaggart: As at 31 June 2005, the latest date for which figures are available, (a) no remand and (b) 44 convicted prisoners whose home area was recorded as South Tyneside were held in prisons more than 50 miles from their home.
Home address details are not held for all prisoners. Where an individual prisoner's home address is not recorded, the prisoner's committal, remand, convicting or sentencing court is used.
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of violent incidents in prisons have occurred in overcrowded cells in each of the last three years for which records are available. [17791]
Fiona Mactaggart:
Data on the number of violent incidents in overcrowded cells are not available and could be collected only at disproportionate cost.
2 Nov 2005 : Column 1124W
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many new (a) prison cells and (b) prison places are planned to be created in each of the next five years. [17792]
Fiona Mactaggart: There is an ongoing building programme to increase operational capacity to 79,100 by June 2006 and to 80,400 by 2007.
We continue to investigate options for providing further increases in capacity.
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment is made of prisoners in young offenders institutions to ensure that they are not allocated a cell shared with a potentially hostile inmate. [17825]
Fiona Mactaggart: The National Security Framework, the core security document for the Prison Service, requires that prisoners are risk assessed on reception and induction and are accommodated in line with a number of risk assessments. This includes the reception health screening process, which incorporates an assessment of mental health, and a cell-sharing risk assessment. The latter must be completed for every new prisoner received into custody on the first night of reception before allocation to his/her cell. Any prisoner identified as being at high or medium risk of harming others has a risk minimisation plan, which, along with the cell-sharing risk assessment, is re-consulted every time that a prisoner moves location within the prison or to another prison.
Dr. Cable: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of prison suicides in 2005 involved prisoners in overcrowded cells. [17920]
Fiona Mactaggart: In 2005 to date (to 20 October), of the 64 apparent self-inflicted deaths in prisons in England and Wales, 19 (30 per cent.) followed self-harm incidents that occurred in double cells and 45 (70 per cent.) in single cells. 17 of the 19 prisoners who died following self-harm incidents in double cells were being held in prisons that were, in the month of the prisoner's death, operating over their Certified Normal Accommodation (the un-crowded capacity of an establishment after adjusting for accommodation out of use). However, records collated centrally do not indicate whether these 17 prisoners were accommodated in cells certified for one.
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners he estimates were HIV positive in each year since 1997, broken down by gender. [18340]
Fiona Mactaggart: Information about the number of prisoners with HIV is not collected centrally. The Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) undertook an unlinked, anonymised survey of the prevalence of HIV, hepatitis B (HBV) and hepatitis C (HCV) among the prisoners in eight prisons in England in 1997–98. Prevalence of HIV was 0.36 per cent.
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he plans to review the law prohibiting sexual activity in prisons. [18341]
Fiona Mactaggart:
There is no legislation prohibiting sexual activity in prisons.
2 Nov 2005 : Column 1125W
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many mothballed or decommissioned prison places there are within the prison estate, broken down by location; [19051]
(2) what estimate he has made of the cost of returning mothballed or decommissioned prison places into service; [19057]
(3) if he will take steps to build new prisons. [19053]
Fiona Mactaggart: A number of places at Ranby (46 places), Dartmoor (98 places) and Glen Parva (120 places) have been permanently decommissioned. It is not economic or feasible to bring these places back into use.
Two wings at Long Lartin (152 places) have been taken out of use as they are no longer fit for purpose and a decision to refurbish or replace them is under consideration. The relative cost of each option is still to be determined.
There is a small 12 place mother and baby unit at Askham Grange which is not being currently used as there is no pressure on this facility at present.
The Weare, a 400-place prison ship, was also closed in August 2005, but no decision about its future has yet been taken. There are no plans, at present, to build new prisons.
Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many new prisons have been built by the Government since 1997. [19317]
Fiona Mactaggart: The Government have opened nine new prisons since 1997.
Dr. Vis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many mothers have been refused a place in a prison mother and baby unit in each of the last three years. [21784]
Fiona Mactaggart: This information has not been routinely kept for the last three years. However, since April 2005, quarterly figures have been collated.
The first available figures, for the period April to September 2005, show that a total of 15 women were refused a place in a Prison Service mother and baby unit.
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prison places he has planned for each year up to 2012. [21846]
Fiona Mactaggart: There is a funded building programme to increase operational capacity to 79,100 by June 2006 and 80,400 by 2007. We continue to investigate options for providing further increases in capacity.
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisons in England and Wales have been free from illegal drug use in each of the last eight years. [21850]
Fiona Mactaggart:
The mandatory drug testing (MDT) programme monitors levels of drug misuse. Prisoners are tested routinely for a panel of seven illegal drugs. No prison, in the past eight years, has been entirely free of illegal drugs.
2 Nov 2005 : Column 1126W
Mr. Llwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners are being held in each prison in Wales; and what the maximum capacity of each is. [19852]
Fiona Mactaggart [holding answer 28 October 2005]: Details of the population and the useable operational capacity of each prison in Wales (as at 14 October 2005) is set out in the table.
| Establishment | Operational capacity | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Cardiff | 754 | 754 |
| Parc | 1,036 | 1,032 |
| Swansea | 425 | (45)428 |
| Frescoed | 170 | 167 |
| Usk | 250 | 247 |
(45) The population figure for Swansea includes five prisoners who are authorised to be absent. Authorised absences mean that although prisoners are recorded as part of the establishments population they are either being held in outside facilities for medical treatment or assessment, or have been released on temporary licence for resettlement or compassionate reasons.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |