Challenge of social distancing in prisons discussed at Commons Committee

• Read the full summarised note of the meeting
• Justice Committee

New powers introduced this week mean up to 4,000 could be released on licence conditions under orders to stay at home, and with electronic tags to monitor them so that they can be returned to prison if they don't.

But there are concerns that releasing those prisoners will not be enough to prevent the spread of the virus within prisons, where 116 inmates were confirmed as testing positive within 43 prisons by Monday evening.

The Chief Executive of the Prison Service, Dr Jo Farrar, confirmed to the  Committee that the prison population would, on present figures, have to be cut by between  10,000 and 15,000, from a current total of just under 83,000 in England and Wales, to allow all prisoners to live in a single cell.

That isn't the Government's aim now, though – prison population is expected to fall with fewer prisoners being jailed by the courts, normal departures from prison at the end of sentences, and plans in place to ‘cohort' those who are, and are not, suffering from the virus, or who are particularly vulnerable.

Few prisoners have so far been released. They include six pregnant prisoners – with plans to release up to 70 pregnant women and mothers with babies. Other new measures to release up to 4,000 offenders assessed as low risk, and with accommodation to go to, are likely to kick in more strongly after the Easter weekend.

During a virtual online evidence session the Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland QC MP, told the Committee the corona pandemic had created “an emergency” in the country and that given the stresses the public faced because of it, they deserved peace of mind on the matter of early releases; those prisoners released early, he said, would be tagged with GPS devices as this “gives the public the reassurance they are looking for”.

The Justice Committee hearing with Robert Buckland took place virtually online because the MPs on the Committee were in their constituencies during the Parliamentary Easter Recess.

The House of Commons has limited capacity to produce publicly-available virtual Committee evidence sessions in quality video or audio, partly because of staff sickness or isolation. The Home Affairs Committee held a virtual session in quality and in public on Monday, for example, but some other Committee meetings have to rely, for the time being, on variable quality broadband connections.

This inevitably means that sometimes the lines of the MPs drop out or cannot be understood. Therefore an accurate, full transcription service would not be possible.

For these reasons the Justice Committee session with Mr Buckland today was held as a private session with the staff of the Committee producing a note which summarised the key points. Committee staff also live tweeted from the session.

Work is taking place to make it possible to stream more Committee sessions in quality and in public so that Committees can continue to work in full transparency with the media, stakeholders and the wider public.

Meanwhile, intensive work is taking place across the wider House of Commons to ensure that the House can continue to scrutinise government actions during the pandemic.

Mr Buckland said he hoped technology would be made available soon to make it possible for all virtual hearings of the Justice Committee to be held live and in public.

The Chair of the Committee, Sir Robert Neill, agreed, saying; “We are completely at one on that”.

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Image: Ministry of Justice