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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 118-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

Northern Ireland Affairs Committee

 

 

 

THE Northern Ireland PRISON SERVICE

 

 

Wednesday 21 November 2007

 

PAUL GOGGINS, MP and MR ROBIN MASEFIELD

Evidence heard in Public Questions 678-733

 

 

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee

on Wednesday 21 November 2007

Members present

Sir Patrick Cormack, in the Chair

Mr David Anderson

John Battle

Mr Gregory Campbell

Mr Christopher Fraser

Lady Hermon

Dr Alasdair McDonnell

Mr Denis Murphy

Sammy Wilson

 

________________

 

Witnesses: Paul Goggins, a Member of the House, Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, and Mr Robin Masefield, Director, Northern Ireland Prison Service, gave evidence.

Q678 Chairman: Minister, welcome on behalf of the Committee, and welcome to Robin Masefield, who is a frequent attender formally and informally. As you know, we have been conducting an inquiry into the Prison Service in Northern Ireland. We have visited the prisons there and we have been to look at a couple of prisons in the Republic. Last week a couple of us went to Belmarsh to look at a prison here, because we wanted to have one or two standards of comparison before making our report. We hope to publish a report before the House rises for Christmas. We will consider a draft at our first meeting next week and we will hope to publish it probably the week of 10 December. Obviously, we will give you proper notice of when we will do that and you will have one of the first embargoed copies, as always. Have you anything that you would like to say by way of introduction?

Paul Goggins: Well, Sir Patrick, I am glad finally to be here to give evidence to you. We had a shorter session before the summer recess, but I am glad we have this opportunity now, and I very grateful that you have also invited Robin to sit beside me. It was either sit beside me and help me or sit behind me and help me, so it is probably slightly more up-front to do it this way. I might say, to spare his blushes, that Robin and his senior team do a first-class job in running the Prison Service in Northern Ireland, albeit sometimes in rather stretching and challenging circumstances - and no doubt you will want to touch on some aspects of that. I think your inquiry and the report and the timing of the report are highly appropriate, given the state of development of the Prison Service in Northern Ireland, and I, as a Minister, and I am sure the officials in the Prison Service in Northern Ireland will learn much from what you have to say. I am sure that as you have conducted your inquiries you will have seen the many strengths that the Prison Service in Northern Ireland has. It has for the most part a very dedicated professional workforce, which is very well led, having to deal with a wide range of complex prisoners within the prison population on three sites, which obviously has many limitations upon it. Given that, the work that has been done is very impressive. There is an increasing commitment to resettlement, and a changing culture within the Prison Service. It is no longer simply there to keep people out of the community, but also to work with them and to reduce the risks that they pose. You will also have seen the many challenges - and I am sure we will discuss this again this afternoon: the need to improve the accommodation; to have a new adult male prison in Northern Ireland, which, given the current accommodation at Magilligan, you know and I know is much needed; a more holistic approach to women offenders. I have told officials in the Prison Service that I want a radical approach to this. We have a huge opportunity in Northern Ireland to be radical and to do the right thing and the most effective thing. We have the imminent completion of the transfer of health to the Department of Health, where the responsibility in my view should lie. We have a range of wider challenges that go beyond the Prison Service, across the rest of the criminal justice system: the need to speed up the criminal justice system and thereby reduce the huge numbers on remand within the Prison Service in Northern Ireland, and reducing delay. There are many challenges, but from the Prison Service point of view there is a very strong foundation to build on.

Q679 Chairman: Thank you very much for that. You have shown your own commitment and interest and knowledge of prisons, built up when you had ministerial responsibility in the rest of the UK; and that of course has stood you in good stead and we are delighted that the Prison Service is under your very capable guidance. It would be true to say that we have been both impressed and depressed by our visits, because the dedication of the staff and some of the facilities are impressive; some of the other facilities and difficulties under which staff are having to operate are very depressing. You have indicated your commitment to the new adult male prison, and we shall certainly be coming on to that in the course of our inquiry. One of the things that has depressed us very much indeed has been the number of remand prisoners and the number of fine defaulters who are in prison. You have now produced a Criminal Justice Order, and I wondered what you can say about the effect you think this will have on the prison population in Northern Ireland.

Paul Goggins: The Criminal Justice Order is a far-reaching piece of legislation which has been long in the making, but which is I think widely and warmly welcomed. It will mean, broadly, that the most serious and dangerous offenders in Northern Ireland will spend longer in prison, and therefore we will require more places in order to contain them for that period and work with them. The order will also do more to strengthen community sentences and provide alternatives, particularly alternatives to remand in custody through the introduction of curfews and the available of the electronic tagging. Our calculation is that if you look 15 years hence, because we are dealing with more serious offenders for longer, we estimate that that will mean an additional 120 prison places; but we also estimate that low-risk offenders, who will subsequently get community sentences, will take 60 away from that; so there would be a net increase, because of the new sentencing framework, of around 60 places. Of course, there are wider pressures within the criminal justice system, which have seen year on year an increase in the prison population. The estimates that the Prison Service has made would indicate that having had, since 2001 every year increases of over 10%, bar one year, we are seeing that slow down somewhat. This year the increase has only been 4%, but we anticipate that an increase of that size is likely to continue year on year. The total package of the normal pressures and the sentencing framework we estimate would mean in 15 years' time a potential prison population of around 2,500.

Q680 Chairman: I want to just press you on two points. We saw when we went to Belmarsh last week prison cells designed for two people, occupied quite often by three, and the prison cells that were occupied by two, by design were fairly cramped. We do not much like the idea of the sharing of cells. Belmarsh was opened 25 years ago and is a pretty modern prison and a well-designed prison, and it is nicely landscaped and all of that. But there is a degree of overcrowding which, clearly, was not properly anticipated. Are you and Mr Masefield absolutely confident that in the plans you are making you will truly have anticipated, so that you will not have doubling up and you will not have cramped conditions? If a prison is to have the function of rehabilitating people and you bung them in two or three to a small cell, you are not really doing much in the way of rehabilitating, are you? Are you confident you can give affirmative answers to us on that?

Paul Goggins: I am confident, but we have to do two things. We have to make sure that the right people are in prison - and that takes me back to the new sentencing framework that we are introducing - so that the low-risk offender is not in prison but is in the community, serving a sentence there; and that the dangerous offender, the more serious offender, is in prison and in prison for longer. You mentioned fine defaulters in your earlier question: it is quite preposterous that so many fine defaulters occupy places in the Northern Ireland prison system. In the Order I am introducing a new supervised activity order, which will be an alternative community disposal; but actually we have to enforce fines properly in Northern Ireland, and there is a lot more that we can do there. We need to introduce, for example, the power to deduct from earnings and benefit, which is now routinely used in England and Wales but is not yet used in relation to fine defaulters in Northern Ireland - so to enforce the fine and then provide community alternatives and not waste a very expensive resource such as a place in Maghaberry Prison for fine defaulters. There should be the right people in prison, and then sufficient places. I can tell the Committee that on current plans by the end of next year we will have added 170 places to accommodation, and I fully expect that it will be more than that, that we will have over 200 additional places in the prison estate by the end of 2008.

Q681 Chairman: Do you envisage a time in the fairly near future when fine defaulters, who should indeed be punished - we are not suggesting that they should not be punished - will not be occupying, as you called it, valuable prison space?

Paul Goggins: I think I would be wrong to say that there will be no fine defaulters in prison, because there has in the end to be a fallback position for those who absolutely resolutely refuse to co-operate with the authorities. I would expect proper enforcement of the fine, and then for those who still persist in not paying, or refuse to co-operate there would be a community alternative disposal of unpaid work within the supervised activity order. I know that the remaining few would go to prison, but not the large numbers that we have at the moment. The last time I went to Maghaberry Prison, I sat rather depressed with the Director General looking at the admission book: the last four people who had been admitted to the highest secure prison in Northern Ireland were fine defaulters.

Chairman: We have had a similar experience and entirely share your sense of frustration and annoyance. I know the Director General himself does. We move on to remand.

Q682 Sammy Wilson: You say first of all on the prison population that 120 new places would be needed as a result of the Criminal Justice Order, but that some 60 would drop out of the system because of fine defaulters, et cetera. What however will that do to the costs within the prison system because you are really replacing what I would describe as prisoners that are less risk and therefore supposedly cheaper to supervise with high-risk prisoners who are more expensive to supervise? Have you done any estimates, because one of the points of this inquiry is how to bring costs down in the prison system in Northern Ireland? Do you have any estimates as to what will be your ability to bring costs down?

Paul Goggins: There will be additional costs from the new sentencing framework both costs to the Prison Service but also to the rest of the criminal justice agencies. We estimate over the next three years we may spend an additional £14 million overall, and about £4.7 million of that would be costs that would fall to the Prison Service. This is in terms of offender behaviour programmes for those higher risk offenders who would be spending longer in prison. In overall terms we have to run a more efficient system; there is no question about that. The agreement that the Prison Service reached with the trade union to get 10% efficiencies in return for rewards that are appropriate, is a very important step forward. We need to make sure we make those efficiencies so that we spend all the money that we do spend as effectively as we can.

Q683 Sammy Wilson: Essentially given the changing composition of the prison population it is more expensive for long-term prisoners, in terms of long-term activities - you tend to do more activities with them.

Paul Goggins: As you deal with more difficult, more risky, more long-term prisoners, there will be additional costs. I would like to look at that as an investment by society, trying to reduce the risks that they pose; so that when eventually they come out of prison, as most of them will do at some point when the risk is reduced, that they do not persist with their offending. The social benefits for that will be clear, so it is a bigger investment by the taxpayer, but for an immediate return in terms of greater safety because people are out of the community, but in the longer term a reduced risk.

Q684 Sammy Wilson: You have given us some of the reasons for remand prisoners and how you intend to deal with them. We now have on average 40% of our prisoners who are on remand, people who have not been found guilty of anything, but they are still in prison - as opposed to 20% in other parts of the United Kingdom. What lessons have been learned from other parts of the UK as to how prisoners are dealt with, or offenders are dealt with, to avoid having them on remand? What steps have been taken?

Paul Goggins: There are two principles. The first is to make sure, again, that those who do not, frankly, need to be remanded in custody can be remanded on bail, perhaps with a curfew and an electronic tag. That is something that is not available at the moment, and that would help to get people out of the prison system who, frankly, may not need to be there. The real answer is to speed up the criminal justice system. It takes more than twice the time on average to bring people to justice in Northern Ireland as it does in England and Wales. We have to speed that up. We have set some targets for the criminal justice system as a whole to speed up the process between somebody being arrested and charged and prosecuted and finally sentenced. It is taking too long in Northern Ireland now. I am also now the Criminal Justice Minister as well as being the Prisons Minister and I am absolutely determined that we will speed up that process over the next two or three years so that we can get people through the system more quickly. I think we will see a reduction in the remand population as a result.

Q685 Sammy Wilson: There are structural difficulties within the criminal justice system which have led to the huge and frustrating delays that we all know about. Is there anything in the Criminal Justice Order apart from setting targets? Are there any changes in the Criminal Justice Order which will help reduce the number of remand prisoners?

Paul Goggins: The power to make a curfew order and to make that a condition of bail, and to back that up with the electronic monitoring. It could mean, for example, that somebody who had a job who had committed - somebody who had been prosecuted for an offence - if there is a curfew to run from, say, 8 pm to 6 am, they could be at work during the day and then confined to their homes in the evening; so there is a significant restriction on their movements, and the court can be satisfied with that, but they are not occupying a prison place even though they are being very closely supervised. That is an important step forward. There are other things that we can do, and this takes me perhaps into slightly wider territory. I think that, respecting the independence of the Prosecution Service and the judiciary, there are things that we can do to increase co-operation and co-operative working, for example, between the Prosecution Service and the police to make sure that the whole system is speeded up. I regard that aspect of my responsibilities every bit as important as making sure that we have sufficient prison places, because I want to see the right people in prison, not the wrong ones, so we need to have that wider view.

Q686 Mr Campbell: The Prisons Estate Options Appraisal has been the subject of a lot of interest outside the Committee outside, not least in my constituency, as you are aware. What is the present status of the appraisal?

Paul Goggins: The appraisal has now been completed and I am at the point of being able now to begin to scrutinise it very closely. I am not in a position, Sir Patrick, this afternoon to give the Committee my final conclusion, but I can confirm that I expect to be able to make an announcement before the end of the year, bearing in mind the Options Appraisal, the views of this Committee and various other representations that have been made.

Q687 Chairman: As you have had to leave it so late - and we understand why because we too have been delayed in our inquiry - you will not make a final announcement until you have seen our report, will you?

Paul Goggins: No. I will be very happy to see that, although I am already aware of the views of the Committee.

Q688 Chairman: You are aware of our views on Magilligan, absolutely, but we possibly do amplify those in the report.

Paul Goggins: That would be good to know. Obviously, one is issue is where we rebuild the prison places that are currently provided within the facilities at Magilligan. The key question is whether we rebuild at Magilligan or somewhere else. That is a key and urgent and immediate question, which I understand also is a very important issue for you, as a constituency MP as well as a Member of this Committee. Wider issues will be addressed in the Options Appraisal, not least looking beyond the immediate three to five-year period: what are the population projections for the next 15 or 20 years, and what kind of facilities will we need in that time frame to meet the demands of a rising prison population? We may well be looking, for example, at whether or not we need a third adult male prison in addition to the two that we currently have.

Q689 Chairman: Will you also give consideration to the building of an adjacent courthouse? We saw both in the Republic and at Belmarsh that that can be extremely useful. Is that one of the things that you will look at?

Paul Goggins: Certainly we have looked very closely, and continue to look, at how we can make the connecting point between the court system and the prison system as effective and as easy as possible, for all kinds of reasons - reasons of cost and security. We have implemented in Northern Ireland and are proposing to increase the availability of direct connection through video link-up and so on, which is proving very effective. We will continue to do that. There is no doubt that it will be one of the points you make in your report, and we need to show we can respond to that.

Q690 Mr Campbell: Just to clarify the issue of the Appraisal, I take it we would be correct in assuming that the appraisal will not be released in Christmas week?

Paul Goggins: No.

Q691 Mr Campbell: So it is really within the next four weeks.

Paul Goggins: I would certainly hope to, although I am taking account of the comment from the Chairman that he would very much like your report to be published before a response; so perhaps some further discussion about the precise timings would be helpful.

Mr Campbell: I just want to avoid a 23 December release.

Chairman: What we will do, Mr Campbell, if I may just interject here, is get our Clerk to talk to your officials after our meeting next week, when it will become clear whether we need another one or two meetings on the report. Then perhaps we can -----

Sammy Wilson: The right outcome would be a Christmas present! I do not know whether that would be very welcome on 23 December or not!

Q692 Mr Campbell: Chairman, to elaborate slightly, the Minister, I am sure, is aware - and I take completely on board his view regarding the way the prisons estate for the duration of another generation - but he will be aware of recent announcements in the area where the present Magilligan Prison is cited where a thousand jobs have gone in terms of ... I am sure you are also aware of the closure of the Ballykenny Army Base. Do I take it then that whatever happens about the wider prisons estate - and I understand that that has to be of paramount consideration - that the new build of the Magilligan site and the employment that that would bring to the area would be a consideration?

Paul Goggins: It will be one of the issues that we consider. We will also have in mind the fact that a culture of very good working has built up in Magilligan in a number of ways. That has a value as well. That, and the employment issues, taken together with what is the appropriate siting for a prison and how many places would be available and how much capital investment is available - all these issues will be borne in mind. I would be very happy to speak further about the precise timing of your report and my announcement.

Q693 Mr Campbell: You have alluded to the issue of the woman custody issue and the women's prison, and an indication of conclusions being published early in 2008: is that January or is that likely to be spring?

Paul Goggins: In relation to the review of women offenders? I have set in place a project group, which actually meets for the first time today. It is chaired by the Prison Service but it incorporates other agencies across the criminal justice system. Their initial report to me will be by the end of February 2008. I do not intend to initiate a wider consultation. I am sure the Committee will want to contribute to that, and others will. I intend that the final report should come to me by the summer of next year, but here - and you may want to discuss this further, Sir Patrick - it is important to emphasise that I do not simply want to look at prison accommodation for women. That looks at just one part of the overall system. I want a holistic look at how we deal with women offenders right across the board. It will be, I hope, a radical piece of work, which will point the way for the long term.

Chairman: Yes, I hope you will find that the recommendations we make in our report will help in that regard.

Q694 Lady Hermon: Thank you for leading us very nicely into consideration of women prisoners. Can I ask a very direct question? What priority is actually attached to a separate women's prison?

Paul Goggins: A high priority. Where we are at the moment with the refurbished Ash House, and where we are there now with the improved horticultural activities being moved, and I know that in the next phase there will be a new reception centre, discrete access to the education facilities, discrete healthcare facilities - all of these things will be improvements; but I am aware that this will not provide the ultimate answer for women who need to be in prison in Northern Ireland. There does, in my view, need to be separate accommodation. I would expect that within the overall review of how we manage women offenders, which is the piece of work just referred to, there will be a recommendation for that, but unless you have done all the other work to see how many women offenders would be managed in the community and how many may need hostel accommodation and how many could live at home under stronger supervision - we have to look at that wider picture to determine what size and scale that discrete women's unit should be. I want to do that wider work before moving on to the longer-term facilities for the incarceration of women. Certainly I think we are making the best of limited circumstances at the moment, but we need something more radical for the future.

Q695 Lady Hermon: Can I just push you a little bit further? Are you hinting at actually removing the women prisoners from the Hydebank centre?

Paul Goggins: We have no intention to move people from Ash House in the immediate future. The question of the location for a stand-alone women's unit is something that I would expect to receive advice about. It is part of this review that I have commissioned. It could be that there is space at Hydebank Wood within the estate there for a discrete unit for women which is completely separate from the rest of the establishment. It may be that it would be better to site the unit somewhere else, but wherever it is, it needs to be completely distinct from and separate from the other accommodation from the other offenders.

Q696 Lady Hermon: Perhaps this is the opportunity to ask Mr Masefield how far advanced the plans are for a separate facility for women on the Hydebank site.

Mr Masefield: Mr Chairman, I was going to take a vow of silence this afternoon!

Q697 Chairman: We will allow you to break it!

Mr Masefield: I will come back to the courthouse point, if I may at the end of the proceedings. I do not think I can add much, Lady Hermon, to what the Minister has said in terms of we are working hard to produce the report covering both the strategy and the policies for the women and the second related strand crucially is accommodation and the estate issue by the end of February. Although there is a bit of linkage, I have only got one team, as it were, on the estate side, and we need to get the Options Appraisal for the adult males out of the way and finally completed before we can move on to the women because they are a high priority, as you rightly say.

Paul Goggins: The immediate challenge, as Robin has said, was to sort out the inadequate and unacceptable accommodation at Magilligan; that has to be improved, and we have covered that before. As we then moved on to the second question, which is what are the appropriate facilities for women in prison in Northern Ireland, I, in a sense, did not want to simply answer that question, so as soon as we began to discuss that, myself as Minister with officials, I said that we needed to take a wider look here and could not just look at what we provide for women prisoners; we have to look at the wider system. That is why I have commissioned this wider work. I want an answer to the question about where we imprison women, but I also want an answer about whether we can do more to support them in the community to supervise them at home, et cetera. Once we have got the whole picture, part of that picture will be about where we incarcerate women.

Q698 Chairman: Have you been to the Republic to see the Dochas Centre that we visited?

Paul Goggins: I have not seen the Dochas Centre.

Q699 Chairman: I believe that Mr Masefield has. I would say that those of the Committee that went were very impressed by the quality and the organisation and layout of that particular women's prison.

Paul Goggins: I can confirm, and you may know this from your visits, that Hydebank Wood Prison has formed a partnership with Dochas to try to make sure that good practice is shared, and that a more gender-specific approach both to training and the supervision of women in our prison at Hydebank Wood is developed and improved. I think that that partnership is very helpful and very useful. I want to answer that question about where the women's prison should be in the context of a wider analysis of the overall situation.

Chairman: That is fully understood.

Q700 Lady Hermon: I wanted to ask one final question n regard to the siting of Hydebank Wood. There have been concerns expressed certainly to me by Finlay Spratt, the Chairman of the Prison Officers' Association about a memorial garden. Can I have an undertaking, Minister, that a memorial garden will be considered when we are looking at the site at Hydebank Wood?

Paul Goggins: I am very happy to consider that.

Q701 Lady Hermon: And the £1 million price tag that might come with it!

Paul Goggins: Certainly the question of a memorial garden has been raised with me before and I am perfectly happy to consider one.

Q702 Mr Campbell: Is that partnership in terms of good practice et cetera confined to those two prisons or is it being shared elsewhere?

Paul Goggins: It is specific to those two prisons. It is in relation to the care and treatment of women in the two prisons. The idea is to share good practice and to make sure that we improve, wherever possible, the current system and structures for supervising women in prison.

Q703 Mr Campbell: Why would it not be thought prudent to do that with other women's prisons?

Paul Goggins: It may very well be. I am perfectly open to consider that.

Mr Masefield: We have had in the past a degree of informal benchmarking, as we call it - Magilligan with Garth and Maghaberry with Franklin, which are sister prisons, at the same time. We have slightly let that fall. I am quite keen to develop a linkage, if I can, with a cluster in the north-east, which would include Franklin, Low Newtown women's prison, Deerbolt Young Offenders' Institution, and a fourth which escapes me.

Paul Goggins: When establishing the Reach Unit at Maghaberry, the staff there went to Whitemore and spent a week there to see what they did. I think the point is well made. We need to develop a partnership.

Chairman: We find that reassuring. Can I move on to John Battle? He has some questions on the efficiency of the service.

Q704 John Battle: Last night in my constituency 1,216 people were locked up in Her Majesty's Prison Armley. It costs £23,500 per place per year to keep people in Armley, and that is nearly the same as the whole prison population of Northern Ireland. The figures in Northern Ireland are much higher but, granted, reducing slightly - about 82,000 to 80,000. The only prison-related target in the Northern Ireland Office's list of PSA targets is to reduce the cost per prisoner place in the short and in the medium term. Do you see that figure reducing in the medium term and is it a serious worry for you trying to get it down?

Paul Goggins: I think the figure will come down, and it needs to come down. We had a previous exchange about this in the other session that we had before the summer recess. It is important to understand the limitations of cost of per prisoner place as the measure of efficiency because, quite simply, the cost of per prisoner place is what it says; it is the cost of the service divided by the number of prisoner places. Consequently, when a decision was taken last year not to spend more money by increasing the number of prisoner places, when we decided not to spend that money and not to build those extra places, the cost per prisoner place actually went up because there were fewer prisoner places. It is a limited instrument, but nonetheless it is an important one, and we intend to bring it down. Our aim next year is to get it down to £82,500. Comparing the cost per prisoner place in the Northern Ireland system with the England and Wales system is also a false comparison because there are economies of scale in the English and Welsh system which we do not have in the Northern Ireland system. Also, it has to be said that because of the troubled past and because of the risks that prison officers faced over many years, the average salary of a prison officer in Northern Ireland is rather more than it is in England, so there are costs built in to the system that one perfectly well understands, given the risk that people face.

Q705 John Battle: I think I preferred the language you used the last time in the last session, and you actually used it again today; it is a larger investment in each prisoner. I prefer that language. I am suggesting that you might take that target out. We are getting rid of lots of other targets across government. Why do you not apply to remove it because it is unhelpful because comparisons are made every time unfairly? On the one hand, will the capital investment reduce the costs and is that planned in, and, second, can you say more about the strengths of the system, that investment, the fact that the record in Northern Ireland for re‑offending is less than in the rest of the UK? The connection for resettlement back in the communities is much, much higher than in the rest of Britain, and those are factors that get you value for money that are not weighed against the system. Why not scrap the target and free yourself from this criticism and spell out how perhaps the system in Britain could learn from what you are doing?

Paul Goggins: I feel a recommendation coming on here, Mr Chairman, which I will be very happy to consider! The point is well made. Next year, when we increase the number of prisoner places by 170 - I hope by more than 200 - if we are able to agree the business plan for some additional places - that will be the most dramatic thing we have done to reduce the cost per prisoner place; but actually it will mean we are spending more money. In that sense, it is a very limited target, so I am very happy to consider any recommendation in that respect. What you say is true about what we see in terms of re-offending rates for people coming out of prison. It is also true to say, Sir Patrick - and I am sure you have touched on this in your own deliberations - if the Prison Service in England and Wales had the same proportion of prisoners per population as we have in Northern Ireland - then David Hanson, as Prisons Minister would have less than 50,000 prisoners whereas today we have 82,000.

Chairman: Indeed - a point very well made. Can we move on to healthcare? We have our own resident GP!

Dr McDonnell: Mr Goggins, I would be keen to touch on two points but the one big contentious issue coming out of the women's care generally in healthcare and other things - but I would rather tunnel into the status of the healthcare programme at the moment and the question of the transfer of health from the Prison Service to the Department for Health, we understand, on 1 October. What is the current status of that change in responsibility for healthcare, and can you outline to us some of the challenges or obstacles in that transfer?

Q706 Lady Hermon: Particularly the obstacles! You can name names! Feel free to name names!

Paul Goggins: The transfer should have been completed on 1 October, as you have mentioned. Minister McGimpsey and I have had discussions about this and I am hopeful that we are moving to a positive conclusion on this issue in the fairly near future. The Prison Service will be transferring across £6 million that is currently spent within the Prison Service on health; and we will be transferring that across to the health budget.

Q707 Chairman: We understood that had already been transferred.

Paul Goggins: It has, but the responsibilities that go with it have yet to be transferred. I am indicating that the resource has gone, and the responsibility we hope can be concluded in the very near future. The mood is one of engagement and discussion and I hope that we will get ever closer to the actual formal transfer taking place. I understand a new Minister in the devolved administration taking some care over this decision. It is a big responsibility and I understand perfectly well why he would want to think carefully about this and find out all the facts; but the facts are that in the current year we will spend about £4,000 per prisoner on healthcare, which is considerably more than is spent in the system in England and Wales. I hope that that will reassure the Health Minister that there is a sufficient resource going in there to allow him to carry out his responsibilities as the Health Minister. As I say, this is a constructive engagement, and I hope it will be concluded shortly and successfully.

Q708 Dr McDonnell: I do not need to repeat it, but just for the sake of argument I will. The challenge is that if healthcare is going to be improved, it will require a greater resource, as I understand it, and that will be a drag. Is there any way that that extra resource can be easily obtained?

Paul Goggins: We are actually putting in some additional resources over and above that which was previously agreed in relation to mental health, because there is an obvious need to increase and improve mental health provision in the Prison Service. The Prison Service is putting in an extra £225,000 in addition to £150,000 that was already in the transfer package, so we are adding to that to create a fund that we hope the Health Department will also add to, to bring it to some £600,000 additional money to fund additional mental healthcare in the prison system; so we are transferring across that which we were already spending, but we are also finding some extra to transfer across to meet these particular needs.

Q709 Dr McDonnell: You have anticipated my final question on mental health. It appears to me and all of my colleagues that there is a shortfall in terms of mental healthcare and mental health support. Indeed, there would appear to be a number of people in prison for mental health reasons rather than for criminal reasons, and, dare I say it, people who are more of a risk to themselves than to the public. Surely, the case arises that we should be trying to provide some sort of mental healthcare for them rather than imprisoning them? Are there any plans to develop high security or medium security mental hospital facilities or has there been any investigations or any efforts to try and create shared facilities with the Republic?

Paul Goggins: I agree that nobody should be in prison simply because they have an unmanageable mental health problem. If they need mental health care, then that is what they should get and they should get that outside of the custodial system. However, if somebody who has committed a serious offence that merits imprisonment has a mental health problem, then the Prison Service, in partnership with the Health Service, should make sure that those needs are met. The point that you are raising is where somebody has a very serious mental health problem that requires them to be in a secure hospital. That facility at the moment is not available in Northern Ireland. I have to say I have been prepared to discuss such an issue with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, but they would have to take the lead, as they do in the English system - a secure mental health hospital that would include people who have committed serious offences in an establishment that is run by the Health Service, not by the Prison Service. I would be happy to discuss the development of such a facility and even to consider the possibility of locating a small unit perhaps, run by the Health Service but within the custodial estate run that is run by the Prison Service so that we can meet their needs. I do not deny that this is an inadequacy within our current arrangements. The most serious offenders who have been sentenced but found to have a significant, serious mental health problem can go to Carstairs. The numbers are limited. What we do not have is a facility in Northern Ireland. It would have to be a Department of Health lead, and we would be very happy to collaborate with them.

Q710 Dr McDonnell: It was my impression from our visits to various places that there is a black hole here; that people who I would score very low on the criminal scale ended up in prison by default because there was not a secure facility for them to go into. I would urge you to kick-start the Department of Health and others who are responsible on that particular issue because it has struck me, particularly going back to the earlier issue of women prisoners, that a lot of them were there probably primarily because of a mental health problem rather than a criminal problem.

Paul Goggins: To reinforce the point, in my view nobody should be in prison simply because they have an unmanageable mental health problem; and if they have a mental health problem that should be dealt with and treated within the appropriate health setting. If I might add to that, I am not seeking merely to pass the buck to the Department of Health here: having previously had the responsibility for health in Northern Ireland I know the pressures that are in the Northern Ireland health system and I know that it is a huge leap to improve mental health provision across the community as well. That is a huge challenge for Mr McGimpsey, and I am not seeking to diminish the size of the challenge he faces here at all; but there is a huge need there, and if mental health needs were more appropriately met across the community we would see a knock-on positive impact in terms of that.

Dr McDonnell: I want to pay respect to the Minister's efforts but I repeat the point that there is no facility at the moment and we need a facility of some sort because in the end as a last resort, if somebody is a mental health person causing disturbance, they end up there; there are no other options and they are bundled into gaol.

Chairman: You will take that point, I know.

Q711 Lady Hermon: Minister, you did identify that you were invited to find obstacles in the way of the transfer responsibility to health. One obstacle, and one only that has been identified to the Committee - additional finance has been requested. Are there other obstacles or problems in the way that you are aware of at the present time?

Paul Goggins: No, the principal issue that Minister McGimpsey has wanted to satisfy himself about has been about the financial package that comes across. I hope that we have been able to reassure him about the adequacy of the package; and indeed, we have been able to find some additional investment to go into the mental health work that needs to be done. I would hope that having satisfied those questions, we can move to a satisfactory conclusion. Obviously, this is something he is still considering.

Chairman: Maybe two Christmas presents, one for Mr Campbell and one for the others!

Q712 Mr Murphy: Minister, the Committee had the opportunity to visit the separated prisoners in Maghaberry when we were there and the first thing that struck me was how young they were to be involved on both sides in paramilitary organisations; but also to warrant segregated status at such a young age. What is the criteria for any individual coming into the system to request separate status? Is it primarily for their safety or is it for the safety of other prisoners in general, or is it a combination of both?

Paul Goggins: They have to request it. They have to be over age 18 and have to be a member of or associated with a proscribed organisation connected with the affairs of Northern Ireland. They have to satisfy an assessment carried out by the Prison Service as to their own safety and the safety of staff were they to move into separated conditions. They are the three stages really: the age requirement, the status in terms of their belonging to a proscribed organisation and the assessment of safety risks. If they satisfy all of those three criteria then they can go into a separated regime; but, again, there are strict conditions that apply there, and they have to comply with the rules that operate within the separated regime.

Q713 Mr Murphy: One of the problems also that we came across with the separated prisoners was the fact that once they were in a separated regime, they were in many ways outside the general prison system in that it was much more difficult for them to take advantage of education and training and spent a lot more time either on the wing in their cells; and parole, it would seem, would be impossible for a prisoner with separate status. How long would you think that would continue?

Paul Goggins: I would like to think we could move quickly on from the separated regime, but I do not see any prospects of it in the near future. I think that recent events in Northern Ireland remind us that there are still substantial risks within the community from dissident Republicans and others who have not yet put the past behind them and who still pose that risk. Within the prison system we have to make sure that such people can be managed safely and effectively, bearing in mind the safety of staff as much as anything else. I do not see any immediate prospect of moving from the separated regime. Robin may want to comment on some of the detail of this, but the Prison Service has tried and made enormous efforts to make sure that those in the separated regime can engage in physical activity in education and so on, but obviously there are limitations in terms of where they can move and how frequently. They do have the satisfaction of living in probably the best accommodation in the prison service in Northern Ireland, but nevertheless I acknowledge that there are limitations.

Q714 Sammy Wilson: Minister, will you also explain to the Committee the regime which separated prisoners will be subject to, is fully explained to them when they apply for separated status?

Paul Goggins: Indeed it is, and nobody is forced into the separated regime. They have to request it in the first place. It is something that they ask for, and they know fully what they are moving into when they do.

Q715 Lady Hermon: Minister, are prison officers and their families at risk from dissident Republicans at the present time? What is the level of threat against prison officers in particular?

Paul Goggins: In overall terms the threat has reduced in recent times, and that has been part of the reducing threat generally in Northern Ireland; but it has not been eliminated. From time to time, concerns are expressed about particular prison officers and about information being passed, and sometimes the police come across information of that kind and have to notify prison officers who are affected. The Committee has my assurance that any threat like that I would regard very seriously indeed because the protection of the public requires that I, as the Minister, and senior officials make sure that we do our best to protect prison officers, police officers and others to do the job that they are there to do. The risk is still there. I feel that at the moment there is concern around the community in Northern Ireland, and I am sure Member of Parliament from Northern Ireland will recognise that. No doubt that has been felt in the prison system as well. In overall terms, the risk has certainly reduced.

Q716 Mr Murphy: Minister, can you provide the Committee with the current numbers of separated prisoners and the number of people who actually apply for separation when they come into the prison system and whether that is increasing or declining?

Paul Goggins: Robin may want to come in second on that. The current numbers are that there are 34 separated prisoners in Bush in and 31 in Rowe as of today. Obviously, that means there are some spare places within there. In terms of the overall demand, I do not know what Robin could say about that.

Mr Masefield: If anything my instinct is that it is probably slightly reducing, and certainly on the Loyalist side. About a year ago the numbers were around the 50 mark and now they are down to 34, as the Minister has said. On the Republican side, broadly they are consistent over a period of time. Individuals do come out of separated accommodation on the same basis that nobody goes in on a compulsory basis, it is a voluntary basis. A number of individuals can choose to opt out, and certainly in the past one or two have done that on the Loyalist side, explicitly who wished to avail of wider programmes, particularly perhaps with an eye to some of the commissioners that you were referring to in your earlier question.

Q717 John Battle: Given, if there were improving and changing political circumstances and it could be taken out of the equation, has anybody done any work on how much you would save if you did not have separate facilities? Would that halve the number I referred to earlier on, the cost per prisoner?

Paul Goggins: It would certainly have an impact. At the moment there are prisoner places that fall into the calculation which are not occupied within those two units for example. There is no question that it is an expensive facility to have. Were we able to end the separated regime and invest that money elsewhere, then clearly there would be gains and benefits, but the plain fact of the matter is that to retain the stability, safety and security of the overall system -----

Q718 John Battle: I am just pushing to see if anybody has done their homework - if we were not in this position this would be a saving now.

Paul Goggins: I could not give you a specific figure. We will look at the work that may have been done on that, if there is anything that we can -----

Q719 Chairman: If you could give us a figure, it would be quite helpful. Clearly, there is a figure for what it is costing you over and above the ordinary prisoner population.

Mr Masefield: We could have given you figures. If I may mention briefly, we were given additional funding in 2003/2004 and we scaled that back significantly, so the increase, if you like, is not as great as it was a couple of years ago.

Chairman: If you could let us have that we would be very grateful. Thank you very much indeed.

Q720 Lady Hermon: I am coming back to this issue of threats against prison officers. We know in recent times we have had the UDA telling us that they have put weapons beyond reach, which is obviously not decommissioning, and Loyalists in my constituency have been responsible in the past, amongst others, for attacking prison officers. What level of specific threat has been issued by both dissidents and by Loyalists in recent times to prison officers?

Paul Goggins: Lady Hermon will understand that I would not want to go into too much specific detail in the Committee but I can tell her that the police have informed a number of prison officers that they may be facing a particular threat, and obviously encouraged them to take the appropriate action. I am aware of that.

Q721 Lady Hermon: Are you able to say from Loyalists or dissident Republicans or both?

Paul Goggins: The particular threats are from dissident Republicans, the ones I am referring to, but obviously I would not want to go into particular details here. It reminds us all that those threats still exist, and appropriate steps are taken.

Lady Hermon: Thank you. It informs our report, Minister.

Q722 Mr Campbell: I appreciate that the Minister does not want to go into specific detail, but given the dissident threats that we have seen both in Dungannon and Londonderry against serving police officers, are the threats that he is talking about in relation to prison officers in and around that time period or do they pre-date that time period?

Paul Goggins: The threats that I am referring to are current, so they are very much within the same time frame. I do not want to give the Committee the impression that the overall level of threat and risk has increased; these are specific threats that the police have been made aware of, which they have relayed to particular individual prison officers. They are particular and specific rather than general.

Q723 Mr Campbell: Is that since the shootings of two police officers? That is the point I wanted to make.

Paul Goggins: Yes.

Q724 Chairman: We will not press you too much on that for obvious reasons. A lot of witnesses have said to us that separation should come to an end as soon as the political situation permits, and you have endorsed that general sentiment, although you have made it quite plain this afternoon that you do not see an early end to it. Do you think this is an issue that should or would come within the wider discussion on how to devolve responsibility for the criminal justice system?

Paul Goggins: I think there would be a general consensus that there is no immediate prospect of ending the separated regime; I think that view would be shared between those with political responsibility in Northern Ireland and ourselves. I think that after the completion of devolution it will be an issue for the Justice Minister, in consultation, to determine when the appropriate time would be. In a sense, all that I have been saying and the Secretary of State has been saying in recent weeks has been that the community needs to point the finger at those dissident Republicans and others who still pose this threat so that they can be brought to justice and put in prison where they belong. Inevitably, as we move to more peaceful times and sustaining those peaceful times, those who pose the risk will be in prison. I would expect therefore that this separated regime may persist for some considerable time with all the costs and other commitments that come with it. I anticipate that this will be an issue for the devolved Justice Minister in due course.

Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. Can we now move on to the regime in general with David Anderson?

Q725 Mr Anderson: Can I ask you about education work and training that is provided or not provided to a level that it should be. We are advised by the Inspectorate that the quality and the quantity is inadequate and that in Maghaberry, in the most recent inspection - some people spent up to 22 hours a day in the cell because there was not any work or training available for them. Have you got any plans to address this?

Paul Goggins: We currently spend ₤1.8 million on the workshops and ₤1.7 million on education and training in prisons, but I do not deny for a minute that the workshop facilities at Maghaberry are less than we need in order to satisfy the demands of the prison population there, but that is because there are many more prisoners being looked at in there than originally envisaged. I think we do have limitations. I do want to see improvements made and more prisoners gaining qualifications. I want a more joined-up approach to resettlement in general, not just for the Prison Service, but for the Prison Service to connect with the Probation Service, with further education providers, with skills providers and indeed with employers and other public agencies, so we get a more effective outcome in terms of what happens when a prisoner is released. We need to do more, I am sure of that. The facilities we have are limited at the moment, and we will need to do what we can with them. In the end we need to bring into the prisons far more perhaps than we have in the past the expertise that lies out within the further education sector. I think you have seen some good examples at Magilligan where they have moved in this direction perhaps more rapidly than in the other two establishments. I think the benefits will come with that. I do not deny the limitations of the present system in terms of the workshops.

Q726 Mr Anderson: You have told us what you want and what you need, but you have not told us what you are doing, with respect.

Paul Goggins: Robin may want to answer this but there are no specific plans for a large-scale redevelopment of the workshops. Obviously we will do what we can within the budgets that we have, but there are no large-scale plans to redevelop the workshops at the moment.

Mr Masefield: We are committed to gearing up and getting better bang for our bucks, if you like, out of the existing services we have got, and in particular simple issues like timetabling, like addressing why we fail to get prisoners sometimes off the landings to the workshops or to the education classes. Magilligan in particular has been taking a lead on that, which is excellent, and now I want to turn my attention to Maghaberry and work with the Governor there and his senior management to deliver that. I always wanted to pick up on a theme. There is quite a potential theme for the Committee, if I may make so bold, of working not just within the Northern Ireland Prison Service or the criminal justice silo but across the devolved administration. On Monday this week, I and two of my senior colleagues had a very good meeting with the Permanent Secretary for the Department of Employment and Learning, DEL, and four top officials, and we were discussing this very issue, how we could work together better, potentially with a view to outsourcing, although that would be some years down the road, and go down the English route you know, the learning and skills centre and education route. In the shorter term there is merit in doing that. You are bringing together, Minister, a ministerial group on reducing offending early in the New Year, to bring together a number of devolved administration ministers to look at this. They are societal issues and they are with us for a period, and then they are back in the community. If we can make those linkages, get them jobs, get them training and placements on the outside, it has to be in everybody's interests.

Q727 Chairman: Of course it does. I would like to back up Mr Anderson. From all that we have seen it is very clear that an adequate Prison Service has obviously got to have decent - not palatial - accommodation, but it has also got to have really adequate educational and training and recreational facilities. If you bang up young people for hours at a time and they are not allowed to use their energy in a constructive and sensible way, whether by playing disciplined and organised games or making things in the workshop or learning bricklaying, as we saw in Belmarsh last week and we have seen in Northern Ireland too, this has got to be part of it. Can you assure us that in your plans for the Prison Service over the next decade this is an important ingredient?

Paul Goggins: It certainly will be. I will give you an example of a recent initiative where 80 employers came into the prisons to work with the staff in the Prison Service. I think, as we try and join up the real economy with the need to train inmates in prison, we have a huge opportunity, especially with Northern Ireland developing and regenerating in the way that it is; the skills that we are helping to give people relate to the real economy and provide a bridge back into a proper well-paid job when they come out. The bricklaying you have seen is one example of that where people can be very well paid, but it is a skill they can learn whilst they are in prison. The more we can do of that the better. We need more adequate workshops - I do not deny that - and more of them - but we need to make sure that what is learnt in the workshops relates to the real world of work, and provides hopefully with employers like the agencies that came in an opening and a connecting point of people getting into work after they have been released.

Q728 Mr Anderson: The Criminal Justice Order is going to bring in indeterminate sentences. You will be aware there has been a challenge on this side of the Irish Sea. Do you see that as being an issue because people have said they cannot fulfil the terms of the Criminal Justice Order because they do not get perhaps the option of training, which is part and parcel of the Order?

Paul Goggins: I said before that we were committing 4.7 million over the next three years to provide within the prisons the facilities, the offending behaviour programmes, the professional people who can run those programmes, so that we meet our obligations under the new proposed indeterminate sentences. You are quite right, and I am aware of the legal challenges in England, but if we say to somebody, "You pose such a risk that we are going to send you to prison for a minimum number of years and then we will not allow you out until you prove that you have reduced your risk" then we have a responsibility to ensure that we provide the means by which they do reduce that risk. We understand that responsibility and are committed to fulfilling it.

Q729 Sammy Wilson: I am not so sure, Minister, that the facilities we saw for the training in Maghaberry, for example, and what we saw at Belmarsh last week - there was not a great deal of difference in the standards. At Belmarsh they did seem to do a lot more outsourcing, especially the education facilities and they were run by the local further education college. What impediments are there to doing that in Northern Ireland because I suspect it is a way of probably bringing down costs as well? The other thing is, when we were talking to the people who were doing bricklaying - they indicated that when they finished their sentence there already was in place a scheme where they would be given a trial on the sites for the Olympic Village, et cetera. What impediments are there in Northern Ireland to introducing things of that nature?

Paul Goggins: Can I deal with the second question first? I think that points to the need for a joined-up approach between the agencies outside the Prison Service that work on education and training, together with the Prison Service and also with employers. There are some good examples in the English and Welsh system. I remember that Transco had a tremendous scheme where they were training gas fitters who were in prison, and then guaranteeing them a job when they were released, provided they kept their behaviour proper and so on. There are a number of other examples. You have seen some on your visit to Belmarsh. I think it is entirely possible to do that. If I can share an anecdote with the Committee, I remember going to the finals of the Prison Service bricklaying competition some years ago at the prison in Yorkshire. The person who had won that award the year before, who was now released, came back and presented his own trowel to the winner of that year's competition. He told everybody there what he was then earning, which made most of the prison officers look rather askance! In terms of the outsourcing, that is the direction of travel. Just as we are now, hopefully at the point where we can transfer fully the responsibility for health to the health professionals, I would hope in time that we could move to a situation where the education is passed to the educationalists and the training and skills is handed to those who are skilled in that. We will get the best result because they are the experts. The Prison Service runs the prison, but those services within it can be run by those who are expert in that field. I had a separate discussion with the Education Minister, Caitríona Ruane last week in relation to youth justice. I would hope we could move to a situation where, for example, the Education Department is running the education in the Woodlands Centre and provide the education that some young people do on programmes. That is entirely the right direction of travel, and I think that once we have completed the work in health we can move on and look at other areas as well.

Q730 Mr Campbell: Does the Minister envisage we could have prisoners who were completing their sentence at Magilligan coming out with bricklaying qualifications. Perhaps they could help re-build the gaol!

Paul Goggins: I take that as an addition to the recommendation from Mr McGimpsey!

Q731 Mr Fraser: In his submission, the Ombudsman suggested that the office should be placed on a proper statutory footing to secure independent powers of the office. Do you agree with this, and what plans do you have to make this happen?

Paul Goggins: We do agree with it, and we will be bringing forward amendments to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which is currently going through Parliament. I hope that we will be able to publish those by the end of this month, and then in due course that Bill will receive Royal Assent at some point in the course of 2008. I am very pleased that we are placing the Ombudsman on a statutory footing: it is entirely right and indicates the seriousness of his role within the overall system of imprisonment. It is very important that we have a good robust independent system for complaints to be dealt with. There is an issue about whether or not his role should extend to probation, as it does in England and Wales. We have decided not to do that, although we are going to pilot by mutual agreement, on a voluntary basis, for the ombudsman to deal with complaints from prisoners about the Probation Service so that - because his role is focused on prison, prisoners who make complaints about the Probation Service on a trial and voluntary basis. We are going to try that out. In terms of his remit as the Prisons Ombudsman, we have put that on the statute book.

Q732 Mr Fraser: Can you explain in a bit more detail why you decided not to include the Probation Service as in England and Wales?

Paul Goggins: The numbers of complaints are relatively small, and the evidence is that complaints that are made are readily dealt with within the existing set-up. Obviously, the Ombudsman in England and Wales is dealing with a much wider group of people. We think, given the smaller numbers and given the complaints that are already dealt with pretty satisfactorily, it was not necessary.

Q733 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. Are there any other questions that any Member of the Committee would like to ask the Minister? Summing up, Minister, we are very grateful to you and to Mr Masefield. Are there any points that you wish to make to the Committee in private before we conclude the public session, or are you quite content?

Paul Goggins: I am quite content, given the earlier commitment you made to discuss the time of the publication, I am content that we will do that.

Chairman: Your evidence has obviously been extremely helpful and entirely relevant. We will be making this report now very soon. We are grateful for your assurance that you will take carefully on board the points we make, as you have already very obviously taken on board the points in the Magilligan letter sent to you in the summer. We shall look forward to Mr Campbell's Christmas present! I would like to conclude by saying that we believe that the Northern Ireland Prison Service is so small, and the population is so small, that you really could create here - you have the opportunity to create here - a model for the whole of the United Kingdom. We hope that you will seize that opportunity and that you will develop over the next few years a model prison service - of course, a prison service that recognises that people in prison have been sent to prison as a punishment, but also recognises the challenge of prisons to return those people to the community as active and proper members of that community, and that you do not darken the prison doors with those who do not need to be sent there. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Mr Masefield.