My Lords, in this debate the Government have three big questions to answer. First, have they failed in their duty of care to prison staff and prisoners? Secondly, have their actions to date been too little, too late? Thirdly, are the Government’s actions sufficient to safeguard the public from the community spread of coronavirus, and have they adequately ensured that the safety of the public has not been put at risk?
I thank all the organisations that have provided me with supporting evidence to understand these key questions, in particular the Howard League for Penal Reform, the Prison Reform Trust and Women in Prison. I also acknowledge that the Government have limited room for manoeuvre, given the systemic problems over many years in our prison system—problems of overcrowding, maintenance backlogs and inadequate support to prepare people for release.
On my first question, of whether the Government have failed in their duty of care, we have just to look at the statistics on virus transmission to identify the scale of the problem. The first reported coronavirus case in a prison in England and Wales occurred on 18 March. By 1 April there were 88 cases among staff and prisoners. By 8 April that number had risen to 177; by 15 April it had risen to 300; and on Tuesday this week it rose again to 534. These figures demonstrate an exponential rise and no sign of a flattening curve. In fact, in the last week alone, the number of cases has risen from 269 to 534. That is six times higher than it was on 1 April. Sadly, prisoners, prison officers and staff have died from coronavirus. I ask the Minister to provide us with the latest details.
Isolation, social distancing, testing and wearing of protective equipment are the actions we would expect to be undertaken by the Government to protect prisoners and staff alike. Our overcrowded prisons make it very difficult to isolate or to develop social distancing. By way of example, Swansea, the most overcrowded prison in England and Wales, is supposed to hold no more than 250 men, but at the end of February it held 436. The Government’s response is to create three cohorts of prisoner and to try to isolate one from the other: those with coronavirus symptoms; those who might have been exposed to the virus or are new to prison; and the vulnerable group to be shielded.
To create the space for this to happen, the Government announced that they would build 2,000 temporary cells. How many of those have now been built and how many are occupied? Also, how many prisoners are currently required to share a cell or sleep in a dormitory? Is the wearing of PPE compulsory for staff? Can the Minister confirm reports of woefully low numbers of available equipment?
For example, in our largest prison, HMP Berwyn in Wrexham, where 60% of the cells are designed to hold two people—built in breach of United Nations minimum standards—social distancing is impossible. I am afraid that the conclusion reached is that, because of a failure of testing, availability of PPE, isolation and social distancing, and the exponential rise in coronavirus cases, our prisons are incubators, pumping the virus and spreading it to the communities both within and outside their walls. For the 17,000 prisoners sharing cells, whether the virus is contracted is truly a terrifying lottery.