Prisons Strategy — House of Lords, 2021-12-16
Topic: Law and Crime
David Wolfson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions. I will respond to as many of the points as I can in the time I have and will reply in writing on anything I cannot deal with orally The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, started off by criticising the fact that we are asking questions, but that is a poor place to start. I do not apologise for asking questions and seeking consultation. We published a prison safety and reform White Paper in 2016 and this White Paper builds on that. We are keen to learn. There are new things and new money in this White Paper, which I will come to, and we make no apologies for asking people for their views On staffing, which I agree is of absolute importance, since the end of October 2016, we have recruited a net increase of over 4,000 staff. In 2020, we accepted all bar one of the review body’s recommendations on pay and, as we announced in October this year, we accepted all of the PSPRB’s recommendations relating to the 2021 pay award. To retain staff in the sites hardest to recruit for, prison officers in the 31 hardest to recruit for sites receive an additional payment of between £3,000 and £5,000 I think everybody around the Chamber understands the importance of education in prison. I acknowledge, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, did, the work done by the former Lord Chancellor, Robert Buckland, in this area. Throughout the pandemic, we have kept education running. The Prisoners’ Education Trust called for major investment in digital technologies in prison. We are developing the digital infrastructure and have reintroduced classroom teaching in prisons in line with government advice on Covid. We absolutely acknowledge that improvements have to be made in prisoner education. The pandemic has obviously not helped in that regard, but we are focused on this and have put new money into it as well On employment, which is absolutely key, there are over 1 million vacancies in the UK at the moment. Employers must look to wider talent pools to fill them and the New Futures Network, which is the Prison Service’s network of employment brokers, now works with over 400 organisations to place prisoners in employment. The Government lead by example: we will hire over 1,000 prison leavers into the Civil Service by the end of 2023 and, as the noble Lord will be aware, in the PCSC Bill, we are focusing on the rehabilitation regime, which is also important for people to obtain employment On the specific question about virtual visits, I can confirm that we are committed to continuing to offer secure social video calling beyond the Covid restrictions. We are looking at future options in line with the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Farmer’s review on maintaining family ties, but the current position is that there are no charges for secure social video calls We will come back to the issue of potting in the new year—I look behind me to see whether my noble friend Lord Attlee is here—so that is a joy which awaits us early in 2022. If I may, I will deal with that at that time Autonomy and flexibility for governors are important and we will discuss with them the appropriate KPIs in this context. However, ultimately, the buck always stops with Ministers I turn briefly—I am conscious of the time—to the points from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. He asked, "Who deserves a second chance?" The short answer is everybody, perhaps with the exception of those who have a whole life order, because that means, essentially, that you are there for life. We can have an interesting debate about whether that means you deserve a second chance, but the nature of that sentence is obviously somewhat different. I agree about the importance of education. Some prisoners may deserve to have the book thrown at them, but all prisoners deserve to have books thrown to them. We think that prison education is very important. As to asylum seekers, can we pick that up when we debate the Nationality and Borders Bill next year Regarding drugs, I am grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, welcomes our strategy. He asked why it has taken so long. As it is the festive season, could I invite him to concentrate not so much on the ghost of Christmas past but to join us in looking to the ghost of Christmas future? We are putting new money in here. We have a £785 million package for treatment and delivery, and we are now investing £120 million of new money over the next three years for drug treatment in prisons. As far as drug treatment out of prisons is concerned, which the noble Lord rightly focused on as well, we are rolling out £80 million of drug treatment funding with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that prison leavers get the support they need. I think I have dealt with his points on prison officer retention and pay On the community service accommodation point, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced this scheme on 28 July 2021. It is a pathway for prison leavers to give them a route from prison to their own private rented sector accommodation. Local authorities will be providing monitoring information to that department alongside wider monitoring information on homelessness and rough sleeping. Overall, we have allocated £13 million to 87 schemes across 145 local authorities. If there is anything more that I can say on that, perhaps I can drop the noble Lord a line. I have an eye on the Clock and am conscious that others will want to get in, so I hope the House will forgive me if I pause there.