Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-07-06
Topic: Law and Crime
Alan Mak (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart). He has made an excellent speech, and I know that he comes to this issue with a lot of experience at the Centre for Social Justice. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) on her hard work in taking the Bill forward, and also my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey) on the work she did to initiate the Bill. The fact that it passed unamended in Committee reflects its simplicity and its importance, as well as the hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes, and I hope she will see its passage through the House today The Bill is of particular interest to me as I have recently served as Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Ministry of Justice. I welcome its provisions, because I believe that giving the Secretary of State the power to authorise public communications providers to disrupt the unlawful use of mobile phones in prisons is an important public policy objective. These powers are in addition to those already on the statute book that allow prison governors to interfere with such mobile phone communications. I am pleased to support the Bill today. I believe that it will strengthen our prison system as well as meeting the challenges associated with advances in mobile technology and wider criminal activity. I echo the sentiment of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes that 13,000 mobile phones and 7,000 SIM cards being found in our prisons in 2016 was simply too many. That is why I commend her for bringing forward the Bill, and I am sure that it will find support on both sides of the House When I served at the Ministry of Justice, I was able to witness the use of mobile phones in prisons when I visited HMP Pentonville. I spoke to the governor, the deputy governor and prison staff there, and I was also able to speak to some of the prisoners, which enabled me to understand some of their motivations. I also understand the difficulty that prison officers have in curtailing the use of mobile phones in prisons. That is why the Bill is so important. The unlawful use of mobile phones in prisons undermines the safety and security of prisons and enables criminals to direct illegal activity from behind bars, including organising violence and drug smuggling. It also harms the rehabilitation process for prisoners, as we have heard from a number of speakers today Reoffending rates are still too high. This costs the economy around £15 billion a year, but it also means wasted talent and broken families. There are complex reasons for reoffending, and it is not solely down to the use of mobile phones in prisons, but there is no doubt that that can be a seriously contributory factor. Unfettered access to the internet can have a damaging impact on the rehabilitation process, through the glamorisation of life behind bars on sites such as Snapchat and Instagram, as well as through more sinister activities such as organising crime from within prisons and associating with former criminal networks. Prison officers have told me that such damage is most pronounced when they are attempting to break down the gang culture that pervades many of our prisons, and the cycle of violence that often comes with it. If a gang member on the inside remains in close contact—speaking daily—to those outside, and perhaps even continues his activities while in prison, how can we expect to break the cycle of bad behaviour and the gang culture? In order to change lives it is vital that we change the habits of prisoners and break their contact with their criminal fraternity Equally, for prisons to be at their most effective, it is important that they work as a true deterrent. In our modern society, where we depend so much on our mobile phones to manage our finances, order food, read the news and update social media, the loss of liberty on the inside should be a truly frightening prospect, entailing tangible disadvantages that are truly punitive. With the proliferation of mobile phones in prisons, being cut off from the outside world has essentially become completely irrelevant, and we need to reverse that process. That is why the Bill is so important In fact, the use of mobile phones in prisons is not only harmful to prisoners’ rehabilitation, it could also trigger other bad behaviours, for example encouraging prisoners to disregard authority and other prison rules. I fear that more videos watched on social media from inside prisons will simply make people less afraid of jail and diminish the impact that jail has as a deterrent Other hon. Members have reiterated the importance of ensuring that prisoners are able to stay in contact with family members so that they can maintain relationships and bring stability to their lives, especially after they leave prison. I am delighted that the Ministry of Justice is taking action to ensure that that is the case and that the Bill would not diminish that ability. For example, I am aware that prisons such as HMP Berwyn, a category C prison in Wales, already offers close to 24/7 access to PIN phones, so that prisoners can call their loved ones. As a result of such measures, the use of mobile phones will no longer be necessary I commend the Ministry of Justice and the Minister for ensuring that prisoners who are found with phones in prison are subject to increased sentences. For example, John Grimshaw, who was found with two handsets, a phone battery, a SIM card and keypad in his cell at HMP Manchester received a harsher sentence—I think it was an extra year. It is right that we continue to punish those in the prison system who are found with illicit mobile phones I support the Bill because it would set out a framework to allow the Government to future-proof the prison regime. As the fourth industrial revolution accelerates, technology that blocks signals and mobile phones in prisons will soon become more cost-effective and have more impact. Therefore, the regime created by this simple but effective Bill will be important to ensure that our prison regime is secure for the future. I hope that the Minister and the Secretary of State will work closely with telecommunications companies to ensure that they bring forward the right equipment and mobile phone detection software to ensure that we can protect prisons, to make them safe and to allow prisoners to be rehabilitated. I strongly support the Bill and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes on her hard work.