I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a duty on Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and private prison operators to minimise violence in prisons; and for connected purposes.
I will endeavour to follow your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, about good temper and moderation.
I would first like to express my gratitude to all staff working in prisons. It is an incredibly challenging job, and even more so with covid and the many challenges they face with the latest omicron wave. Over 90% of prisons are currently outbreak sites, and I am told by the Prison Officers Association trade union that this is up from just three establishments a month ago. That has caused critical staffing shortages, as well as all the dangers to public health that follow.
On top of this recent threat to the health of staff and prisoners, there is the ever-present threat to their safety from prison violence. The sky-high level of violence plaguing our prisons makes rehabilitation inside practically impossible, meaning that offenders often leave prison more damaged and dangerous than when they arrived. That leads to more reoffending, costing tens of billions of pounds a year and causing misery for millions of victims and their loved ones who have to live with the consequences of even more crime. The prison lockdowns throughout the pandemic have thankfully reduced assaults from the all-time highs that we saw in 2019, but Ministers must now learn the right lessons and not rely on long lock-ups in future or revert back to a business-as-usual approach.
The new “Prisons Strategy” White Paper is a golden opportunity for urgently needed change if Ministers will only commit to doing whatever it takes to tackle both prison violence and, indeed, the causes of prison violence. My Bill aligns with the White Paper’s stated aim of reducing prison violence and uses the paper’s framework of key performance indicators—“management targets” in common parlance—to achieve this. KPIs are already used in private prisons to reward or penalise their operators, but the Government’s new strategy extends these targets and adds new ones to public sector prisons too. It is obvious that the new KPIs need to include safety for both prisoners and staff but, curiously, this commitment is entirely missing from the White Paper. My Bill seeks to correct that omission. It would enshrine a statutory duty on prison management—whether in the public or private sector—to minimise violence. If KPIs are the Minister’s preferred method of choice, that is the method we will use here too.
Currently, the only prison safety targets involve serious assaults, and such assaults must involve hospital treatment. This needs to be extended to all kinds of violence, if Ministers are serious about a zero-tolerance approach to bad behaviour. Penalties could include fines for both public and private sector operators, with the money raised going towards making injury compensation schemes fit for purpose by widening the scope for claims, removing the unfair barriers throughout the process, and lifting awards to reflect the bravery and commitment shown by prison officers and other staff working in our prisons system.