Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con):
The Government’s prison policy is quite radical, but does it extend to encouraging people in the private sector to
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design, build and operate prisons? If not, why not? Would not Wellingborough be an ideal site for that kind of project?
Jeremy Wright: I can reassure my hon. Friend that when making decisions on who should run new prisons, be they in Wrexham, London or anywhere else, we will consider private sector bids as well as public sector bids. We want to reach the best deal for the taxpayer in the provision of a quality service. I can at least assure him that there will be a competition, and I hope that we will consider all bids fairly.
Mr Chope: But that covers the contracts for the running of prisons once they have been built. I have in mind companies from the private sector designing, building and operating prisons in a way that allows us to develop the best rehabilitation for offenders, which is very much at the forefront of the Government’s policy.
Jeremy Wright: It is our conclusion that it is best to separate the building and the running of a prison. That gives us more options when we consider the contracts for the running of the prison. I can assure my hon. Friend, however, that private sector bids will certainly be actively considered for the building of the prison, which is the first decision that we will take. We will then mount a separate competition for the running of the prison and I can again assure him that we will consider carefully all the bids that we receive.
Let me return to the issue of Wellingborough as an alternative London prison. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough has said that large numbers of London prisoners find themselves in Wellingborough. Indeed, they also find themselves in Onley and in other prisons. That is due to the significant deficit of prison places in the London area for London prisoners. As he knows, I firmly believe that the best solution to the shortage of places in London is to build a new prison in London. That is why we are considering the development of the Feltham site.
My hon. Friend is correct, however, to say that we need alternatives to the Feltham site, and we have other potential locations that fall within the designated site search area. Unfortunately for Wellingborough, that designated area does not stretch into Northamptonshire. It is my expectation that we will find a suitable location for a new London prison on one of these sites.
My hon. Friend’s advocacy and passion, with which you are well familiar, Mr Speaker, command respect. He has asked me to look again specifically at the alternative sites that may be considered for a new London prison. He knows of my scepticism that Wellingborough could be the right candidate for that role, and I make absolutely no promises about the outcome of that further consideration, nor do I undertake to postpone the disposal of the site for as long as 12 months. However, in view of the fact that our conversation on this matter took place only this morning, I will take time to consider properly what he has said before making a final disposal of the Wellingborough site.
As my hon. Friend knows, however, we cannot hold on to the site indefinitely. The level of security, utilities and maintenance has been reduced to one appropriate for a site that has been closed, but it does not come cheap, none the less. We estimate that about £237,000
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will be spent in this financial year on holding costs alone. It is therefore in the taxpayer’s best interest to avoid unnecessary holding costs and to seek to dispose of the site expeditiously, in accordance with central Government guidelines governing the disposal of surplus property assets.
Mr Bone: I am grateful to the Minister for doing what I said he might consider doing right at the beginning, and the Secretary of State was right to say that when there are new facts, the situation will be looked at again—I very much appreciate it. I have one thing I wish to take up with the Minister. He rightly talks of a number of prison closures, but they have been undertaken under the new Secretary of State for very sound reasons. I believe that Wellingborough’s closure was done under the old Secretary of State, when we did not have the policy in place that we now have.
Jeremy Wright: I would say two things on that to my hon. Friend. First, he must always remember to complete his quotes. When the Secretary of State did endorse his generous assessment of me, he also said, equally generously, that I was prepared to follow through on difficult decisions where I believe them to be in the national interest— I hope he is right about that, too.
The second point relates to the closure of Wellingborough prison and the comparison with other prisons. My hon. Friend knows my view, and I do not think we are ever likely to agree on this. Having looked again at that decision, I believe it was the right decision to close Wellingborough prison in the circumstances. We are now considering a different question: what to do with the site and what prospects it may have for future use. I repeat that he knows where my scepticism lies, but he asked me to consider the matter again, specifically whether Wellingborough might form a suitable site for another London prison. I said to him this morning, and I am happy to repeat it, that he may have some task persuading me that it is better to build a London prison in Northamptonshire than in London.
Jeremy Wright: I have provoked my hon. Friend again, and I am happy to give way.
Mr Bone: This afternoon, I had the fun of looking up the travel times to Feltham and to Wellingborough, and I found that there was not a lot of difference.
Jeremy Wright: I am not sure what method of travel my hon. Friend was looking at. As I have explained to him, there are a number of factors to consider: the transfer time between the relevant prison site and the local courts it would serve; and the relevant travel time for those who may be visiting inmates at the prison. Given that the majority of prisoners we would be looking to accommodate will come from the London area, it, again, seems logical that where we can, we look at a site within the London area. I say again to my hon. Friend that given what he has said to me, I think it only right that I should take the opportunity to look at this matter again, and I will do so.
Chris Heaton-Harris:
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) will be pleased to hear of the Minister’s generous offer. I have a
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question on the policy for London prisoners. As the Minister knows, I have a vested interest, because my area contains two prisons that take prisoners from London. When I have visited these prisons, I have found that they have mainly been full of former gang members who have been taken out of London. Removing them from the north of London, where they come from, is seen as a benefit, because that makes it more difficult for them to maintain contact with the gang networks from which we have just extracted them. How far have we gone with this policy so far? What are the thoughts for the future? Surely we are going against our own vested interest here, which is to remove these people from whence they came.
Jeremy Wright: My hon. Friend is right to an extent, and he knows that the two prisons in his constituency are probably no more than a stone’s throw from the edge of mine, and I know them well. He is right that there are a number of London prisoners who are in prisons outside London for good and sensible population management reasons. I can reassure him that it is highly likely that whatever provision we make for an additional London prison, there will remain some transferring of London prisoners to sites outside London. That will be necessary because of the figures that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough has given the House tonight. That does not mean that we should not consider the needs of the majority of London-based prisoners, which will be to remain in the London area, and the needs of their families who will wish to visit them, as much as the needs of those offenders themselves. It still seems to me that we will want to consider the building of additional prison capacity in or around the London area.
Jeremy Wright: I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend before I come to a conclusion.
Mr Hollobone: I applaud the Minister for his open-mindedness with this new question that he now poses for himself, and stress the excellent connectivity of Wellingborough, both north to south—it is less than 50 minutes on the train to London—and east to west, with the excellent road network. Moreover, much to local people’s consternation, a campaign sponsored by the Department for Communities and Local Government a couple of years ago saw Northamptonshire marketed in London as “North Londonshire”, attracting people from London to Northamptonshire. In his efforts to answer this new question, I urge the Minister to ignore this regional boundary, which very few people recognise. Northamptonshire is the southern most part of the supposed east midlands, but it really does not feel like it.
Jeremy Wright:
I sense that the next application from my hon. Friends will be an extension to the tube network to Wellingborough and Kettering. In any event, I feel it necessary to point out that it is still a hard sell to make the argument that it is a more effective location for a London prison to put it in Northamptonshire than to put it in London. None the less, as I have said, I will consider that case, and I will look carefully at what my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough has said. He will recognise that I cannot undertake indefinitely to
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hold on to a prison site that we may not need and do so at a significant cost to the taxpayer. It follows that, as a first step to what may be the disposal of that site, officials in the Ministry of Justice have a meeting scheduled already with the local planning authority to begin discussions on the future of the site. That process is obviously at an early stage and no decisions on its future use have been made. It must surely be in the interests of my hon. Friend’s constituents and the taxpayer at large that we, in close consultation with the local
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planning authority, look at the possible future uses of the site, including its potential for development. We will continue with that process alongside looking again at the viable options for the new London prison. I trust that my hon. Friends will accept that that is a prudent way to proceed.