Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
RT HON
CHARLES CLARKE
MP AND SIR
JOHN GIEVE
KCB
25 OCTOBER 2005
Q1 Chairman: Good morning, Home Secretary,
and Sir John. Thank you for coming this morning, particularly
the Home Secretary. You have achieved a remarkable feat of appearing
at every public session we have had since September. We may have
to stand you down for a week or two. We are grateful to you. Today
is the annual meeting when we look at a whole range of issues
arising from the work of the Home Office. May I start with one
straightforward point about procedures? The Home Office Department's
Annual Report currently contains a section which lists the Department's
responses to recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee.
Would you agree for the future that the annual report might also
list the Home Office's responses to recommendations from this
committee?
Mr Clarke: That is fine with me.
Sir John Gieve: I would rather
do neither in a way because it will add about 90 pages to the
length of the document, which is already pretty heavyweight and
rather expensive. We did send you a report on this. I am very
happy to keep sending it back to you with an update. Adding 100
pages to this document, which I suspect does not have all that
many readers already, has its costs.
Mr Clarke: Could we agree, Mr
Denham, that we treat the Home Affairs Committee on the same footing
as the Public Accounts Committee from this point of view and that
we will think about the issue of how best we do it on the website
vis-a"-vis the annual report and let you have a letter
shortly on that?[1]
Q2 Chairman: We would welcome that. The
point is, obviously, that all the select committees, including
this one, are currently spending or intending to spend more time
looking at what happened to previous recommendations that we made,
particularly sometimes those that were accepted, to see whether
they were ever acted upon, rather than always moving on to a new
subject. We welcome what you have said. We will come back to the
issue. Another issue about relations between the Home Office and
this committee: I wrote to you, Home Secretary, on 29 July on
behalf of the committee. We expressed concern that when we had
our inquiry into Terrorism and Community Relations earlier this
year we were not supplied with the relevant information that we
might have expected. We were not even told of the existence of
a Cabinet Office study on Young Muslims and Extremism,
which was later leaked to the press. I did ask that that and any
similar documents should be supplied to the committee for our
hearing in September. We did receive a copy of the one that had
already been leaked, which was useful, but we did not receive
any other documents; nor did we ever receive a reply to the letter.
I wonder why we have never had a reply to the letter.
Mr Clarke: I am sorry you have
not had a reply to the letter. I have it in front of me. Thank
you to you and your colleagues for giving notice that you might
raise this question now. The reason why you have not had a reply
is that we thought it was not a letter demanding a reply. I am
quite happy to reply if you would wish me to do so. Essentially,
we accept the position that you set out in the letter as the basis
for how we should operate. There is always a definitional point,
and I am quoting from your letter, about what are "major
internally commissioned research, intelligence assessments and
background strategy papers". There is always a question about
what those might be because at any given moment there is a vast
volume of assessments taking place. They are on a path—and
sometimes they have reached Ministers and sometimes they have
not reached Ministers—in relation to particular documents.
That would be my only qualification. We accept the principle that
you set out in that letter of 29 July. I apologise for not answering,
as I say. I will now answer giving a positive response to what
you have just said.[2]
Q3 Chairman: Would you accept, Home Secretary,
that for the future we should, at the very least, receive any
information that you might have to volunteer, had you received
a Freedom of Information Act request?
Mr Clarke: That is an enormous
amount. Under the fantastically new regime of the Freedom of Information
Act, which I celebrate as a Member who voted for it years ago,
the volume of information is enormous. There are literally many
filing cabinets of information.
Q4 Chairman: I am sure you would accept
that the paper that was leaked about young Muslims and extremism
should, with hindsight, have been provided to this committee when
we were carrying out our inquiry on Terrorism and Community Relations.
How do you intend to avoid a situation in the future where this
committee is not made aware of a document that certainly would
have been released, had somebody made a Freedom of Information
Act request for it?
Mr Clarke: The issue of the definition
is in your letter. I cited earlier the question of what is "a
major internally-commissioned research intended as an assessment
and background strategy paper". I did not refer to the next
phrase in your letter "directly relevant" and the reason
why the document you are referring to, Young Muslims and Extremism,
was about the issue of direct relevance or not. I quite understand
the committee's argument that it was directly relevant and that
was a wrong judgment on our part, and that is a discussion I am
quite prepared to accept. I know you will know, Mr Denham, from
the vast range of documents that exists at various stages of consideration,
that there is simply an enormous amount of documents. I would
say as an individual, indeed I say as Home Secretary, that there
are far too many documents whizzing around government at this
time in any case which do or do not relate into the policy-making
process in a direct way. I am not trying to avoid your questions.
I am simply saying there is a vast amount of stuff. The questions
I think you ought to be particularly interested in are in stuff
that might pertain to influencing a policy decision by Ministers
on a particular question. That test is a good test but documents
like the Young Muslims and Extremism paper do not relate
to that.
Q5 Chairman: The Committee was carrying
out an inquiry on Terrorism and Community Relations. Perhaps,
Sir John, this lies in your field as much as in that of the Home
Secretary. Can you explain why, when this committee was carrying
out an inquiry on Terrorism and Community Relations, you or your
officials decided that a document called Young Muslims and
Extremism was not relevant to the work of this Select Committee?
Can you tell us how, in future, you intend to ensure that this
Committee is not denied a sight of documents that are relevant
to our inquiries?
Sir John Gieve: I cannot give
you a full account of the process we went through. All I would
say is that it was a discussion document based on officials' cross-departmental
discussions, which we did not intend to publish. It was a think-piece
which was informing the discussions we were having then about
future policy. What we should have done perhaps more than we did,
and what we will do in the future, is to consider explicitly and
in each case: is this a bit of work which we should make available
to the Select Committee? Your question is: surely there must have
been a lot more papers since September which we could have volunteered?
I am less clear on that because on the whole, as you will know
from your own experience, the papers we prepare tend to be papers
giving advice. This was quite an unusual paper in that it was
mainly setting the context and giving a diagnosis but without
moving on very far into the policy options. For the future, I
think we will much more systematically than perhaps we did on
this occasion go through the exercise of saying, "Is this
something we should publish", or "Is this something
we should send to the Home Affairs Select Committee in any event?"
Chairman: I am grateful to you for that,
Sir John. Can we put down a marker from this meeting that the
Committee's expectation is that in future we will receive such
documents and that there will be a greater openness? I am sure
it is an issue to which we will return. Can we move on to look
at the issue of prisons?
Q6 Mrs Dean: Do you accept that fostering
a work ethic in prisoners is the best single way of reducing the
likelihood of their re-offending?
Mr Clarke: I do. I would add that
if we can tie that fostering of the work ethic to an actual job
opportunity after the individual leaves prison, that would make
even truer the point which you have just made, which I also accept.
Q7 Mrs Dean: You will know that the Committee's
report on Rehabilitation of Prisoners stated that "hardly
anywhere in the prison estate does the work regime yet reflect
the structured working week found in outside work". Do you
accept that this is deeply damaging? Could you tell us what you
are doing to ensure that prisoners do "real" work on
a conventional 9 till 5 basis?
Mr Clarke: There are a number
of things about this. Firstly, I think the Committee was right
to make recommendations in the first place and was right to observe
that a great deal remains to be done. Secondly, I think there
have been significant improvements and significant changes in
the recent period, but nothing like at the pace that is required.
That is the reason why, in a speech at the beginning of September
this year, I set out a programme, which I believe needs to be
followed, of structuring a relationship between employers and
people within prison, offenders, which gives them not only a structured
work experience in prison, which is important, but also a realistic
prospect of a job outside afterwards into which they can work.
It also requires, by the way, a change in the benefits arrangements
as people leave prison and are on their way to work, which I have
been discussing, as it happens, earlier this morning and also
at previous meetings with the Secretary of State for Work and
Pensions, as to exactly how we can make changes to achieve just
that. We have had an interesting scheme run by Transco, which
has made a number of steps in this direction. I can tell the Committee
that there is a large number of significant employers who are
interested in working forward in this area. We are currently working
on developing an alliance of employers who will work with prisoners
precisely to generate the kind of work that you have described.
My own view is that the power of work experience in prison is
multiplied by many factors if there is a job at the end rather
than if it is simply a bit of exercise that is gone through in
an educational training approach. My big desire, as I set out
in a speech at the beginning of September, is to make a relationship
between employers and potential employers and people within prison.
We are working actively on that at this moment.
Q8 Mrs Dean: Do you agree with the Committee's
recommendations that the regime at Coldingly Prison should be
adopted as a model for other establishments?
Mr Clarke: I do, but in a qualified
way. I think the regime at Coldingly is positive and strong and
is a good model to look at, but I do not think a model, in the
words of the question you have just asked me, is the right way
to go. I do not think there is a model which is right. I think
in fact there will be a variety of different types of model, dependent
on the types of employers that one has in any given circumstances.
What the work of Coldingly illustrates is that within the prison
system there is a number of areas where good and positive work
is being done in this field. The thrust of your committee's report,
which I essentially accept, is that even though there are good
and positive pieces of work in certain parts of the prison system,
there are other areas where that work has not developed in the
way that it needs to and we have to universalise what is good.
Coldingly is a part of what is good. I personally do not think
that "a model" is necessarily the right thing. There
will be a variety of different ways of doing this.
Q9 Mr Clappison: Home Secretary, may
I welcome what you have just said about giving priority to work
within prison, and in particular creating job opportunities in
prison? You said you wished to see this. Are you in fact prepared
to be judged as Home Secretary on your success in providing work
opportunities for prisoners, involvement of employers both in
the private sector and the public sector, and on creating job
opportunities for prisoners when they leave prison?
Mr Clarke: Yes, I am prepared
to be judged on that. As I have said at previous times, both in
relation to this job and others, the job of a current Cabinet
Minister involves judgments across a wide range of different aspects
rather than one measure alone. Yes, I am prepared to be judged
on that. In fact, I have argued for five different forms of partnership
between prison and the outside world, which need massive extra
work. One is with employers, for the reasons you said; the second
is with the education system generally; the third is with health,
particularly mental health, drugs and alcohol; the fourth is with
families; and the fifth is providing communities, for example
including faiths. Our system should much more focus on those relationships
than what we do at the moment.
Q10 Mr Clappison: As you will be aware,
the Committee has visited prisons up and down the country and
has found that much more needs to be done on this front. One of
the things which we found was particularly damaging to providing
education and work opportunities for the prisoners was the high
level of disruptive transfers between prisons. Is something being
done to address this?
Mr Clarke: That is a very difficult
question. Firstly, I accept the diagnosis completely. I think
the constant moving around of people makes it very difficult to
get consistent programmes in any given area, or to establish any
consistent relationship, for example with a potential employer.
Secondly, there is no doubt that while we are as close as we are
to the size of the prison estate, it is inevitable there will
be a degree of that happening in a way that is unconstructive.
What we have to try to do is to get to a situation where we have
a much more focused approach. That is exactly what I set out in
my speech to the Prison Reform Trust at the beginning of September,
and that is the right way to go. For me, it requires a stronger
move towards community in prisons so that prisoners are in a closer
relationship to their local community. To that end, we are looking
currently at the prison estate in a very direct way to see to
what extent our prison estate does or does not meet that particular
test. It also requires having prisons which are more related to
the particular problems and conditions of particular offenders,
whether on health or education issues, that we can try and address.
There is a very great amount of work that needs to be done before
I can answer your committee's recommendations by saying, "We
have solved this problem". We are a long way away from that.
On the other hand, I think we are on track to do it.
Q11 Mr Clappison: This Committee and
others have noticed that it is very difficult to rehabilitate
vulnerable prisons, such as women, members of minority ethnic
groups and the mentally ill. Could you say a little bit about
specific steps you have taken on that front?
Mr Clarke: Yes. The approach that
we are taking is to have an end-to-end offender management system,
whether they are in prison or on probation, whatever it might
be, and a process which manages each person individually from
the point of view of reducing the possibility of each prisoner
re-offending. That means doing an audit of the health conditions,
which include some of the issues you have just raised—mental
health, alcohol and drug abuse; it means looking at their educational
attainment. As you know, literacy and numeracy are major factors
for many prisoners. It means looking at their relationships with
their communities and their families, and indeed in some cases
their faiths, to see how they can be supported and strengthened
in the transitions they have to make. That is the ambition of
where we want to go. Parts of that are now happening in a far
better way. If you look at prison education, for example, there
is a much more serious effort to look at people's skills levels
than was the case, say, 10 years ago. Some progress has been made
in those areas. Since prison health became the responsibility
of the NHS in general, there has been a raising of health standards
in prison since, say, 10 years ago. I would say we have had a
series of quite patchy improvements but we have not put in place
the regime I have just described of an end-to-end offender management
system which focuses on reducing the re-offending of a given prison,
but that is the path on which we are now engaged.
Q12 Mr Clappison: How long do you think
it will take to put in place that type of regime of end-to-end
management?
Mr Clarke: I would say it will
be four or five years before you could say it is in place in a
way that we could be confidently about. We are currently working
on a five-year programme to do that, which we will publish in
due course, precisely to be able to answer your question as to
how we will phase that in over a period of time. I do not want
to detract, Mr Clappison, from what I think has been a great amount
of good work done in each of these areas. There have been significant
improvements. The commitment of people working in both prisons
and probation has been very strong, but we need to do a great
deal more, and that will take time to put into effect.
Q13 Mr Malik: Home Secretary, what reassurance
can you give to families and inmates in the context for example
of the Zahid Murabek case at the Feltham Young Offenders Institute
where he was murdered by a racist inmate with whom he happened
to share a cell? More recently, just over a year ago, one of my
own constituents was murdered in Leeds Prison. That was allegedly
a racist murder. Both inmates and prison officers were alleged
to be involved in different ways in both these murders. I am wondering
what reassurance you can give in terms of the Home Office's guidance
about prison officers identifying risks amongst prison officers
and also on formally identifying inmates who are likely to commit
racist attacks while in prison.
Mr Clarke: John may want to add
to this. My first response is that any death in prison, whether
caused by killing or by suicide, is absolutely tragic and really
unacceptable. There is a whole set of things that we need to do
to stop that happening. That includes some of the things Mr Clappison
was referring to about trying to ensure that the individuals have
a purpose and a future that they can identify with through their
lives. Secondly, as again I said in the same speech, we need to
increase the educational level of people working within the whole
of the criminal justice system, both prison and probation. We
need to improve that and improve our training in a variety of
different ways. Thirdly, we are constantly revising our procedures
in such a way as to exclude racist behaviour of the type you have
just described in its most extreme form but also at a lower level
than the extreme form of a killing in the way that the service
is run. These are constant commitments which the senior leadership
of the Prison Service in particular, as you asked about prison
but it extends to probation as well, is totally committed to achieving.
Sir John Gieve: May I emphasise
that this has been at the top of the agenda of the Prison Service
management before and particularly since Zahid Murabek's death
where the Prison Service acknowledged immediately that something
had gone badly wrong and has put in place a programme to address
it. As you know, it has been working with the CRE principally
over the last couple of years because the CRE had an inquiry into
not just the death of Zahid Murabek but also into race and diversity
policies in prison. I am confident we will come to and will keep
to a jointly agreed programme of addressing this issue.
Q14 Mr Winnick: On prison overcrowding,
Home Secretary, and you will know that last Friday the figures
were 77,774, it appears that the operational capacity is about
78,200 places. In view of the continuous rise in the prison population,
is it not likely that simply space is going to run out?
Mr Clarke: It is very close, as
you say, as the figures you gave, Mr Winnick, indicate. We are
building more capacity and the current 78,000 figure that you
mentioned is already scheduled to increase to over 80,000 by 2007.
You are, nevertheless, right and you are particularly right at
this time because the increase in the prison population since
the beginning of September has been at a very high level for a
number of reasons. That does put pressure on the system in exactly
the way that you describe. We have already taken a number of steps
to deal with that and we are considering taking further steps
to deal with it, both in the immediate term and in the medium
term. For example, we are bringing accommodation back into use
much quicker than anticipated; that has brought in 470 extra places
by the end of October. We are looking at the situation very closely.
Q15 Mr Winnick: The situation is vastly
different, is it not, from, say, 20 years ago? In 1985, for instance,
the number of prisoners was 46,234. Ten years ago, it was 50,982.
So in those 10 years there was an increase of just over 10%. From
1994 to the end of last year, not including this year of course,
it rose by over 46%. All the indications are that it is going
to continue to rise. Would you agree with that view?
Mr Clarke: Not entirely. I think
it is necessary to address a number of different issues. Issue
one: we have a very large number of remand prisoners in prison
at the moment, 13,000 to 14,000. The question is: is that higher
or lower than it should be and could we improve the way that we
take decisions in courts to reduce the number of people on remand
in prison? We think we can and, working with our colleagues in
the courts and the CPS, we are seeking to do that. Point two:
there is a significant number of people on very short-term custodial
sentences where there is a real question, for the reasons implied
by Mr Clappison's question, as to whether it would not be far
better for some of them to be on community sentences. With the
regimes we now have, following the 2003 legislation, there is
a far more focused ability to try both to punish people more,
because I think it is more of a punishment to be doing work in
the community than it is to be in a custodial place in prison,
and to do something more rehabilitative. On the other hand, I
think we need stronger sentencing in the case of some of the more
serious offences, the violent offences and so on, to make sure
that people are not a risk to the public in the way that things
happen. We have to rebalance the system therefore in those different
directions. We are determined to do that. Within that, there are
factors which I find very surprising. For example, 12 to 13% of
the occupants of British prisons at the moment are foreign nationals.
That is a very large number indeed. If you look at the period
from 2000 to 2005, the number of British nationals in British
prisons increased by about 11%. The number or foreign nationals
in British prisons increased by about 75% over that period. If
the foreign nationals had increased at the same level and percentage
as British prisoners, we would have about 3,500 fewer prisoners
in prison than we do today. That does mean that the overcrowding
issues you are describing would not be acute, even on just that
one measure. To take a different example, there are about 800
British prisoners in other EU prisons and about 1800 EU prisoners
in British prisons. I am not quite sure why that disparity has
arisen in this way. We are looking at that. There is a number
of issues of this type and that means that in my opinion we need
to look in a much more focused way upon the prison population
and whether prison is the right way of dealing with their position.
In some cases, heavy sentences may be necessary. In other cases,
community sentences may be necessary. That is precisely the process
we are now going through. With the Sentencing Guidelines Council,
the system has a capacity to address this in a more considered
way. I am sorry to give such a lengthy answer, Mr Winnick. The
reason I do so is because there is often a very glib—and
I do not criticise you or the Committee for that—look at
a number, e.g. 80,000 or 78,000, and then to say that is the issue.
It is very important to get beneath that number to the different
types of prisons and different circumstances and to decide on
the best way of dealing with those.
Q16 Mr Winnick: Returning to your earlier
answer, Home Secretary, and I accept the necessity of what you
describe as a lengthy answer, but certainly justified in the circumstances,
is it intended, for example, to extend the use of Home Detention
Curfew by, say, 45 days, as some newspapers reported? Together
with that, perhaps you could answer the question whether police
cells will continue to be used as appropriate.
Mr Clarke: Both of those are measures
that we are able to look at. For example, on police cells, there
were decisions taken a few years ago precisely to do that. It
is undesirable in many respects to do that because the police
need the cells for their own purposes in the way they operate.
It would be undesirable also in principle to change the detention
curfew arrangements. Either of those might be necessary. No decision
on either has been taken but all those matters, and others, are
kept under review in dealing with the situation that we currently
face.
Q17 Mr Winnick: May I ask you this, Home
Secretary? I do not know whether you have had the time today to
read the newspapers. The lead letter in The Times, signed
by one of your predecessors, Douglas Hurd, by Martin Narey and
Lord Justice Woolf, argues that the prison policy is a very critical
one. I do not suppose you would dispute that for one moment. They
refer to the acute overcrowding and then argue for a royal commission.
This is a letter signed by people who have obviously held the
most senior positions both in politics in law. In view of their
comments, do you have any feelings at this stage that what they
argue in today's newspaper should be very carefully considered?
Mr Clarke: I have not had a chance
to read the papers today, nor have I seen the letter. Your mentioning
it, Mr Winnick, is the first time I have heard of it. I have,
however, discussed this issue in detail with Lord Hurd in his
capacity as Patron (or whatever the correct title is) of the Prison
Reform Trust. We have had meetings to discuss this. I discussed
it with Lord Woolf when he was Lord Chief Justice and with Martin
Narey, of course, when he had responsibility for these matters
within the Home office until a few weeks ago. My own view is that
there are serious issues, and as I say I have not seen the text
of the letter, which need to be debated. I think that was the
sense of both my answers to your questions but also the speech
I gave to the Prison Reform Trust. Personally, I am very sceptical
indeed about the merits of royal commissions in this area or any
other. I do not believe they are a good way of proceeding. I think,
despite Mr Denham's concerns about how seriously the Home Office
takes the Select Committee's recommendations, that select
committees for example are at least as good a way of dealing with
matters as a royal commission, and so I am not in favour of a
royal commission approach, but I am in favour of a public debate
about these issues in a focused way.
Q18 Mr Winnick: No doubt you will read
the letter at some stage and reflect further.
Mr Clarke: I will make a point
of reading it later today.
Q19 Chairman: I think that the Home Office
have no more intention of following the recommendations of a royal
commission than they do of a Select Committee.
Mr Clarke: I am very keen to follow
the recommendations of a Select Committee!
1 See Ev 38 Back
2
See Ev 38 Back
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