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I have said this before but, sadly, the Government’s record of listening to an independent and objective inspection and to the recommendations and advice that it gives is not good. I am somewhat cynical about the protestations in the policy statement. Only recently, all the warnings about foreign national prisoners were ignored, and look what happened. Last week, we had the Feltham inquiry, which again showed that warnings had not been listened to. I just hope that the attempt to put the Inspectorate of Prisons into a merged group is not a deliberate attempt to silence the inspectorate.
The record of the prison inspectorate includes exposing what the Prison Service’s own regulation and audit did not. Sadly, it is followed always by the explanation that since the inspection things are better, so we should not worry. There were pregnant women in chains in Holloway; assaults by prison staff in the segregation unit at Wormwood Scrubs; outrageous behaviour in the segregation unit at Wandsworth; and mental health treatment that was utterly disgraceful in Brixton, to which I brought the director-general so that he could see it for himself and not doubt it. There is a terrible performance by a number of young offenders’ establishments. Most recently, Woodhill prison was so bad that it had to change the governor, who had been meant to be running that prison.
So I come to the suggestion that all the talk that everything will become stronger and better under a merger is viewed with considerable cynicism. I ask everyone who is responsible for that policy to make certain that they understand that this proposal is flawed, because it does not come from a deliberate examination of the inspection of the criminal justice system or any suggestion that the prisons inspectorate has failed. It comes from a statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech.
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In the Army, we had a phrase, “situating the appreciation”. It meant that you decided what you were going to do and then you wrote a paper around that, explaining why that was the only suitable course of action. When I examined that policy statement, I discovered that there were eight options, of which only one was chosen. But option 7 is perfectly reasonable—it is to leave things as they are as regards prisons inspection and to merge the other four inspectorates. I can see the value of merging the other four, because they are the inspectorate of the Crown Prosecution Service, the Courts Service, the police and the probation service, and they have to work together on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that their inspections should be put more closely together. However, the inspection of prisons and the treatment and conditions of prisoners have nothing to do with that.
When I went on inspections, I used to take with me a team consisting of a psychiatrist, a GP, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, drug treatment specialists, education inspectors from Ofsted and the Adult Learning Inspectorate, social services inspectors—if I went to see juveniles or mother-and-baby units—health and safety and fire inspectors, civil engineers and experts in gardens and farms. Not one was from the Crown Prosecution Service or the courts, and only occasionally did I take people from the probation service, although I worked with them on thematic reviews. I once took a policeman with me when I went to see the work of the RUC in the Maze. I also worked with the DTI’s inspectorate of the security industry in looking at matters to do with private prisons and escort arrangements.
Therefore, I would be grateful if the Minister could say just how she envisages the time of the new deputy chief inspector of justice, community safety and custody working, other than their going on doing what is done now to inspect prisons, as required, and making available from time to time people to do other things, which I did when inspecting social services locations or helping elsewhere—in other words, maintaining the status quo.
In Section 52 of the Prison Act 1952, there is already a perfectly good description of how inspections should be carried out and it does not need to be changed. The Act was amended when I took over responsibility for detention and immigration centres. If you want the Chief Inspector of Prisons to take on the inspection of cells in police stations and courts, why not make a simple amendment? It does not need a great merger.
It is also of concern that a number of words are being lobbed out—I have mentioned one, which is “modern”. What does the Minister mean by “modern”? In her introduction to the policy statement, she states that she wants to have inspections that are “strongly led”. Does she not think that prisons inspection has been strongly led?
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There is another confusion under the new proposals. Paragraph 265 of the Explanatory Notes says:
“In contracts to inspection of a defined list of institutions the Chief Inspector will be under a duty to inspect the operation of certain broadly defined systems”.
That is not the purpose of prison inspection; it is all about institutions. Frankly, I am at a loss to say anything other than that the Government were minded to act because of what the Chancellor said, and they wrote a policy statement to satisfy his words, not to satisfy the needs which have been identified for so long.
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I have spoken only about the inspection of prisons but an almost more serious matter, which I mentioned at Second Reading, is now upon us—that is, our requirement to have an independent monitoring organisation to satisfy the protocol on the prevention of torture, which we have signed. We have come up to the requirement according to all the officials who are responsible for seeing that that independent arrangement is in place. The only place in the world where it is in existence is here, so why are we throwing it away? The report of our own Joint Committee on Human Rights states very clearly:
“In light of the above ... the absorption of HM’s Chief Inspector of Prisons into a single criminal justice inspectorate, without the specific guarantees that we have mentioned, would not be compatible with the requirement of the Optional Protocol ... that there be independent monitoring of places of detention”.
If we have it, why throw it away? We would only have to invent another, and that seems to me utterly pointless.
On the same subject, the president of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has said that the task of inspecting the treatment and conditions of persons deprived of their liberty is of a different order from inspections of other activities carried out in relation to persons not in custody, and that it would be ironic if, at the very time when the world looks to the United Kingdom for a prime example of an independent prison inspection mechanism, the UK were to decide to radically alter this model of good practice.
I could go on, but I hope that, when the Minister replies, she does not repeat what people have been saying to me—that this new inspectorate is going to be so much stronger and better. I ask her not to pretend that a deputy chief inspector of justice, community safety and custody, who is subordinate to a chief inspector and to responsible Ministers and government policy, will be stronger and more independent than a standalone chief inspector who is responsible for arranging both content and method of inspection of all those held in custody, with direct access to Ministers and the public whenever he or she requires.
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There is an old saying in the Army: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. I am not speaking about my time but about my admirable successor, who has done, and continues to do, such a wonderful job. It would be an absolute crime to waste something that we have and, in particular, to remove a priceless weapon from the hands of Ministers—that is, independent and objective quality assurance of what goes on now and for which they are responsible. That is why I make no bones about these amendments sweeping away all reference to the prisons inspectorate and recommending that we go back to option 7, while by all means merging the other inspectorates. I beg to move.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: I speak on behalf of my noble friend Lord Dholakia. First, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on powerfully representing a view that I think is shared by many of us in this Chamber. What I say will in some ways echo what he has said much more eloquently than I could do.
We have returned to an aspect of the Bill which, for those involved with the work of the Prison Service and penal reform, has caused the greatest concern, confusion and dismay. We have been considering the proposition that the prisons inspectorate is the most highly acclaimed internationally of all our inspectorates, as well as being the most highly respected institution at home. It is recognised for its standards, achievements and, above all, its independence, but it is to be subsumed into an amalgam of five criminal justice inspectorates. This causes confusion and dismay because it seems to jettison such a rare and valuable resource in the name of modernisation, rationalisation, efficiency, unification, a holistic approach, and giving the public the best possible service. I am paraphrasing the words of Charles Clarke last March.
That demonstrates a fundamental failure to understand the nature of the prison inspectorate, to recognise the essential and vital differences between its role and that of other inspectorates, or to see that it already represents a precious beacon of best practice. Instead, the clause proposes the diminution of everything that the inspectorate is for. My parallel with what happened after the Seeborne committee and what that did to social services is not as wide of the mark as was suggested by the Minister when we debated this at Second Reading.
When different departments or inspectorates are combined with notions of unification and a holistic approach, by definition it means that differences in areas of expertise become blurred. Over time these crucial differences are gradually lost. That is a tragedy. The essential difference is based on the fact that the inspectorate is looking at the treatment and condition of people who have been deprived of their liberty, which, as Dr Silvio Casale—the president of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture—said,
- “is fundamentally different from other criminal justice measures and has different legal and moral implications”.
It requires specialised skills and experience, and is critically dependent on its absolute independence from Government—its chief inspector coming from outside the service—so that it can criticise policy as
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If the clause stays part of the Bill we will be left with a very atypical, diminished element of a much larger whole. The independence, so highly prized, will be circumscribed in a variety of ways. Clause 27(8) allows Ministers to,
- “specify functions, organisation and matter that should not be subject to inspection either in whole or in part”.
Clause 30 allows Ministers to control the time and resources of the inspectorate by directing inspections on specific matters. Clause 30(3) states:
“In exercising any of his functions the Chief Inspector shall have regard to such aspects of government policy as the responsible ministers may direct”.
That is not all, but it is among other clauses which seem to amount to the complete undermining of its independence, its ability to criticise policy as well as practice and use of its own criteria and methodology.
Anne Owers has made a statement that until 2008:
“Ministers have said that they want us ... to ensure that the current extent, robustness and methodology of custodial inspection is preserved and incorporated into the new ... Inspectorate”.
Unless these clauses are amended, I fail to see how that will be possible.
Finally, I reiterate my deep concern about the future inspections of children and young people in custody. This is a still further specialised area that is treated in a specialised way within the prisons inspectorate itself. There is a specific team which deals only with YOIs, using separate criteria, a different set of expectations and a child-centred approach. Those of us who have worked with vulnerable children know that it takes great skill and specialised experience to take on this sort of work. We currently have that.
Indeed, I have come to the view that where our child prisons—the STCs—are concerned, in which inspections are now carried out by CSCI because the children are so very young, it might be that the specialised team of the prisons inspectorate would be even better placed than CSCI to carry out inspections, because it understands custody as others cannot. Had STCs been inspected with such rigour and candid, open criticism of findings in the past, I wonder, in the dark watches of the night, if some of the fearful practices uncovered by the independent report of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—strip-searching, solitary confinement and restraint of children as young as 12—might have been stopped sooner and a life saved. What will be the future of this work in the brave new world of combined inspectorates?
In the light of the range of arguments and depth of feeling this clause has engendered, I hope that the Government will carefully rethink its position on this amendment.
Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: Briefly, I support Amendments Nos. 148 and 149 in particular, and what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater.
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Placing five inspectorates under one umbrella is foolhardy, to say the least. Today, however, I shall speak only of the prison inspectorate, covered by these amendments. The inspectorate of the Prison Service is vital to the criminal justice system. What else has brought what is wrong in our prisons to our attention over the years, as well as what is right? The current prison inspector, Anne Owers, has exposed some realties of prison life, warts and all. She is an independent specialist. If this inspectorate is subsumed into others, that specialism will inevitably be diminished, as will future inspections and the respect for human rights the inspectorate upholds.
In another place, my honourable friend Hazel Blears, when a Home Office Minister, said that;
- “we have given an undertaking that we will not abolish the role of the prisons inspector until we are satisfied that the new combined inspectorate can deal with such issues properly”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/3/06; cols. 690-91.]
Finally, I consulted the Prison Officers’ Association, which represents prison officers and others in prison establishments, on these proposals. One might think that it would welcome its inspectorate being diminished, but it does not. Its general secretary, Brian Caton, wants to continue working with Anne Owers as he does now, to ensure that outrages, as outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, do not occur in our prisons in the future.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I hope that this group of amendments will either persuade the Government to adopt them, or that they will ultimately be carried. I am fortified anew in that view by powerful speeches; not only that of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, but also the two speeches that were sympathetic to it from both sides of the House.
For the past two decades, the existence of the independent, standalone Chief Inspector of Prisons has been celebrated here at home and greatly admired abroad. The reason is clear: the post and the people who have held it have been able to shine lights into corners where none would otherwise shine and where all too often horrible conditions of ill treatment have been perpetrated in our name on people deprived of their freedom with no one else to help them. That is why this post and the way in which it has been filled has been celebrated at home and greatly admired abroad. The chief inspectors have gone where they wanted and spoken to whomever they wanted. They reported direct and publicly—which was very important—to the Home Secretary on what they found. In doing so, they have very often been a thorn in the ample flesh of Ministers in successive Governments, which is why I strongly suspect that the Government want to reign them in through the Bill.
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Of course, Ministers do not put it quite like that. Like other noble Lords, I have been looking at the Government’s policy statement Inspection Reform: Establishing an Inspectorate for Justice, Community Safety and Custody. In the summary on page 3, the Government say:
“A focused, joined up and streamlined inspection regime is needed if inspection is to fulfil its aims and provide the independent scrutiny required by Ministers”.
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That may be what is required by Ministers, but I judge that that is not what is required by prisoners, those who administer prisons or those who are concerned by their performance. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, described the views of the Prison Service. I am not aware that in any of those quarters there has been any call for the activities of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, or his predecessors to be streamlined. It is a frightening choice of words: one streamlines in order to secure a smooth passage and to minimise resistance.
As for focus, I do not believe that conditions in prisons are of secondary importance. It is conditions in prisons, not the system—as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has just put it—that require the inspector’s exclusive focus. However much turbulence the announced and unstreamlined arrival of the inspector may occasion, surely we can all agree that prisons are quite different in character from the other 10 inspectorates at present in the public sector and that they always will be. That can be seen from the extraordinary inappropriateness to prisons of the following sentence in the policy statement:
“A single inspectorate will highlight the perspective of the service user by providing a single fulcrum for assurance and improvement in every aspect of their experience of the delivery of the system”.
That is a sentence worthy of a prize from a chief inspector of reach-me-down clichés.
I do not think that prisoners—whether or not they view themselves as “service users”—will feel reassured in any significant way by the proposed change to the system that has produced Judge Tumim, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and now Miss Anne Owers as inspectors of courage and gloriously unstreamlined independence. Instead, will they not see—and be right to see—the heavy hand of the Chancellor? After all, it was he who announced in March last year that the Government intended to reduce the public sector inspectorates from 11 to four. Why the Chancellor? Was the then Home Secretary not available that day?
I respectfully say that the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was the most devastating that I have yet heard in this House. I trust that the Government will think again.
Lord Dubs: I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, the arguments that he used and, indeed, the arguments that have been heard around the Committee this evening. I should like briefly to add my thoughts.
I doubt very much whether a single Member of the House will support the Government on this issue. I would be very surprised indeed if one did. These are important issues. I have always felt that at a time of an ever increasing prison population, with reports of violence, racism, suicides and murders in our prisons, the one assurance we have is of a highly efficient and motivated Chief Inspector of Prisons who will go and fearlessly report on what she or he has seen. I felt slightly more relaxed about the state of our prisons because of the work of successive chief inspectors.
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That is not to say that more improvements are not necessary, but chief inspectors have the power to do that. They have the power to do that because of their total independence and their ability to report directly to Government and to the wider world, and because they have not been constrained or trammelled by some of the bureaucratic rigmarole which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, has quoted so effectively.
It has been a strength of this country and our penal system that we have welcomed—until now—reports of chief inspectors of prisons that have been distinctly uncomfortable for Government. Surely, as a country we should not be ashamed of that; we should say we are proud of it because it is such an essential safeguard.
I can understand the words that are used by the Government, but I cannot understand the reasons for this proposal. And it is my Government. I have supported this Government on most things since 1997. I feel absolutely dismayed and let down that they are being utterly silly. I can think of no good reason—I have heard none and I have read none—why this should be the case. I am depressed at the thought that we will have to have this debate. Let us hope that before we get to Report the Government will think again.
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