Justice Committee
Oral evidence: Tackling drugs in prisons, HC 557
Tuesday 8 July 2025
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 8 July 2025.
Members present: Andy Slaughter (Chair); Josh Babarinde; Matt Bishop; Pam Cox; Linsey Farnsworth; Sir Ashley Fox; Warinder Juss; Tessa Munt; Sarah Russell; Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst; Mike Tapp.
Questions 45-89
Witnesses
I: Lord James Timpson OBE DL, Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending, Ministry of Justice; Richard Vince, Executive Director (Security), HM Prison and Probation Service; Matt Grey, Executive Director (Rehabilitation), HM Prison and Probation Service.
Witnesses: Lord Timpson, Richard Vince and Matt Grey.
Q45 Chair: Welcome to this afternoon’s Justice Committee meeting, which is an evidence session with the Prisons Minister, Lord Timpson. I will say a little about the session and ask our witnesses to introduce themselves in a moment, but first, Committee members need to do their declarations of interest.
Sir Ashley Fox: Good afternoon, I am the Member for Bridgewater. My interests are as declared on the register.
Dr Shastri-Hurst: I am the Member of Parliament for Solihull West and Shirley. My interests are as in the register.
Mike Tapp: I am the Member of Parliament for Dover and Deal, and previously worked for the National Crime Agency.
Chair: I am a non-practising barrister. I am Chair of this Committee and the MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick. I am a member of the GMB and Unite trade unions, and the patron of two justice-related charities, the Upper Room for ex-offenders and Hammersmith and Fulham Law Centre.
Pam Cox: I am the MP for Colchester. My interests are as declared, except to say that I am the chair of the APPG on penal affairs.
Tessa Munt: I am the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills. My apologies for being a little late. Everything is as declared on my register of interests, but I should also point out I am the vice-chair of WhistleblowersUK, which is a non-profit-making organisation.
Matt Bishop I am the Member of Parliament for Forest of Dean. My interests are as declared. I am a former police officer.
Sarah Russell: I am the Member for Congleton. My interests are as on the register. I am a member of a couple of different trade unions and a solicitor who is not currently practising.
Q46 Chair: Lord Simpson and your officials, would you like to introduce yourselves briefly?
Lord Timpson: I am the Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending.
Matt Grey: I am the executive director for rehabilitation and change in His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.
Richard Vince: I am the Executive Director of Security in His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.
Q47 Chair: Thank you very much for attending today, gentlemen. The principal purpose of this evidence session is to inform two inquiries that are approaching either the end or the middle point. One is on drugs in prison and associated criminal issues, and the other is on rehabilitation and reoffending, so most of the questions will centre around that. However, you come to us in a very busy week for justice, and we are expecting the publication of the sentencing Bill, which is intended to have a significant effect on prison numbers. We have the Leveson report—the independent review of the criminal courts—coming out tomorrow, we believe. We have had Justice questions today, and we have also today had the report from the chief inspector of prisons. We will try to reflect, in so far as possible, on some of those issues.
I have one or two preliminary questions. One of the issues that keeps coming back is the performance of contractors in prisons. A lot of this, although it is not unique, relates to Serco and what is colloquially known as the tagging contracts, but it also about the prisoner escorts contracts. How do you think those contracts are performing and how do you intend to improve them? They are instrumental to some reforms you are trying to make. Tagging contracts are important if the public are to have confidence in the monitoring of prisoners who will be in the community where they would previously have been in prison. If we are to reduce the backlog in the courts, we need to get prisoners to court on time and avoid the very large number of trials that are cancelled or adjourned because of the failure of that service. You are responsible for those contracts; what is your view of them, and how can they be improved?
Lord Timpson: The contracts were inherited and, having come from the commercial world, I have taken a great interest in understanding where public money is spent, and I am very aware of how expensive the contracts are. When it comes to tagging and Serco, it was clear a year ago that the performance was way off where we wanted it to be, which is why they have been fined a number of times and why the leaders of Serco have been in my office a number of times, where they were challenged to improve performance to the extent that now I get weekly updates on their performance.
You are quite right that it is so critical to the running of the organisation, and we need to make sure they are improving. As part of the plan, they have introduced a new software integration from the previous contract holder. Things are improving; they are not where I want them to be, but they are very much going in the right direction. On the scale of the things on my worry list, it is still on my concern list, but it is not on my red-alert list at the moment. By the time we come back from recess in September, I expect it to be in a much healthier state based on what I am seeing on the trajectory. We still have some way to go and we need to keep the pressure on them, but they are responding well.
As for the PECS contract, which is divided into two, the contractual terms mean they are actually performing in the 99.8% success category. One of the issues—not necessarily their issue all the time; it is also our issue—is how quickly we are getting offenders from their cells to the vans to get to court. We are very inconsistent. There are some prisons that average 24 minutes, and there are other prisons that average one hour and 24 minutes. That is something that I am tackling, and I have already done a lot of work on how we present that information to governors and their senior teams.
I am also keen for us to use all the video conferencing facilities we have in prisons, which obviously means that we do not always need to take people to court, although there have been a number of issues around the tech and so on. I have also had a number of conversations with Transport for London specifically around how we get the vans from the prisons around London in quicker to the Old Bailey and to Southwark Crown court. We still have a long way to go on those conversations, but I am aware that we are providing prisoners to the courts and we need to do so on time.
Q48 Chair: This is very basic stuff, and we all know it is a big problem tackling the backlog. I get judges and senior members of the legal profession complaining to me that they are sitting around twiddling their thumbs because a fairly basic act has not taken place: a prisoner has not been transported from prison to court or from court to the dock. Whether it is a private contractor or not, that is a service that is part of your Department and if that is not working, it is difficult to see how the more complex and longer-term solutions are going to work.
Lord Timpson: There are a number of moving parts in how we get someone from prison to court. One of the problems is around the capacity crisis we are in: people are in prisons further and further away from where we would like them to be, and it is about ensuring the most efficient way to get them on the vans to court.
Coming back to my first point, I am very aware of the commercial responsibility that we and our contractors have, and I need to keep the pressure on to make sure that they improve performance. I too have had a number of conversations with the judiciary, especially in London, around the complexities of getting people into court on time and wasted time, and we cannot afford to have wasted time in court, especially with the backlogs we have.
Q49 Chair: Particularly since this is a Ministry of Justice contract, does it worry you that Serco was subject to a deferred prosecution agreement? Had the contracts been let now under the Government’s new procurement rules, it would have at least been questioned, and had it been a criminal conviction they may well have been disqualified.
Lord Timpson: I do not know the details of all the rules of procurement in Government. I have been looking in detail at it and I still do not really understand why it is so complex, but we have inherited this contract and we have to make the best of it. We fine them when we can for doing things that are not correct. I know that as an organisation they want to perform well and are pulling out all the stops to perform well, because they have a financial responsibility and a contractual obligation to perform. In so far as what happens in the future, we need to make sure that we get this contract working really efficiently, but we are going in the right direction.
Q50 Chair: From the statements that have already been made, including in the House, it is fairly clear that in the sentencing Bill you are going to accept most of the recommendations of the Gauke review. If that is entirely successful, at best it will allow you not to exceed the capacity of the prison estate over the next five years, possibly 10. You will still be dealing with prisons that are full to capacity. How difficult is it to run a prison system over a long period of time that is running hot at that level?
Lord Timpson: When we got down to less than 500 prison places on a day, that is no way to run a justice system. We inherited a system in absolute crisis and we need to have a justice system that is sustainable, in which prisons are sustainable, probation is sustainable and the court system is sustainable. I believe that the policy plans we have in place will deliver a sustainable system.
Your question was about prisons specifically; we are going to build 14,000 prisons, but you are right that they will be pretty full. The key is how do we reduce reoffending? If 80% of offending is reoffending, the people are just going through the system again and again and we will not get to a point where that growth starts to reduce. I have come into this job to create a sustainable system.
Q51 Chair: Does it not make your job extremely difficult? Let me give two or three examples. There have been reports—Sky News did a report a couple of weeks ago—of prisoners being put into C and D category prisons who, under normal rules, would not have been moved there for several years; they would have stayed in a more secure prison. It gives the potential of escape through day release, and it changes the culture of those prisons. I presume you are doing that because you are fitting prisoners into gaps in the system.
Equally, we just talked about prison escort contracts. Is part of the reason why prisoners get to court late because they are scattered over a much wider area and it takes much longer to bring them in? If you are genuinely trying to improve the rehabilitation of prisoners, which I know you are, is that much more difficult if you have severe levels of overcrowding and less opportunity for people to get into productive activity?
Lord Timpson: As far as moving prisoners into cat C and cat D earlier than they would have been before, we have to do it because if we do not we will run out of space in our prisons, and if we run out of space in our prisons, the police cannot arrest anybody and we have a complete breakdown in the criminal justice system because we just do not have enough prison places. The previous Government only opened a net of 500, which does not work when the prison population is growing by 3,000 a year at the moment. Those who move to cat C and cat D earlier than they would have are risk assessed, and from the data that I have seen so far, the levels of absconds have not changed and it is working well.
On prisoners being scattered around and how that works with the vans getting them to court, I completely agree. Last week I was in Eastwood Park prison, which is a women’s prison just north of Bristol, and there were a number of women who, rather than use video courts, needed to come from courts in Truro or down to courts in Truro in the morning. That is a long way for anybody to go to get to court on time and then back again at night. The capacity crisis creates further problems because people are just not where you really want them to be.
Is rehabilitation harder in full prisons? Yes, 100%, because we want people to be in purposeful activity, education, have time to go to the gym, have visits, go to the library, and all the things they need to do that will help them when they get out to stay out. It is much harder for staff when the prison is 100% full; you are basically just trying to make sure people get clean pants, three meals a day, and a shower.
Q52 Chair: Finally from me for the time being, and to lead us into questions on drugs in prisons, you will have seen that the headline from the chief inspector’s report today is about drugs. He clearly believes that that is one of the most serious problems affecting prisons per se. The knock-on effect is an increase in violence, a decrease in productive activity, and prisons where up to 60% of testing shows a positive result. Given that drugs are endemic to that level, and given the association with other criminality such as the use of drones to bring contraband into prisons, how are you best placed to tackle those problems at the moment, and are they a priority for you, as the chief inspector says they should be?
Lord Timpson: Charlie Taylor and his team are exactly right that this is a serious problem. They do a fantastic job throughout the whole year visiting prisons where there are significant drug issues, and lots of others where there are not significant drug issues. I was fortunate to be invited along on an inspection last week at Eastwood Park, with Charlie Taylor and his team, and it is clear that they do a very thorough and excellent job.
Charlie highlights overcrowding as a systemic problem in the system. When we came in to Government, it was the worst I have seen it in 20 years. I believe things are starting to turn around. I have seen a lot of work under the bonnet that my colleagues and I have instigated, which is starting to work, but we need the sentencing review and the ongoing ministerial oversight.
The fact that I have run quite complex organisations before makes it probably easier than for other Ministers, because there are a lot of moving parts to the way prisons and probation work. We need to have a sustainable system. There are areas of progress that are really positive, but drugs are like a drain; it is like pulling on the reins all the time of the progress that you are trying to make.
As well as getting drugs and other things sorted, we need to get capacity sorted. Those are two big concerns for both the inspectorate and me. I am sure we will come on to this, but when it comes to drugs it is about not just the supply but the demand. Why do people want to take drugs in prison? We need to address that as well as the supply.
The inspectorate highlights that there are a number of good things happening in prisons at the moment, and I am sure as part of your work you have seen examples of that. I know Cardiff scored very well on purposeful activity recently. Humber and Oakwood are doing very well on drug control and overall performance. Hatfield and Kirklevington Grange are doing well. Some weeks, Hatfield has 99% of available prisoners out in work, which is incredible. Rye Hill is doing really well on purposeful activity.
When I went to Eastwood Park two years ago, the inspection was poor, but the inspection that I attended recently was significantly better. The reason why it is significantly better is because we are pulling on the levers on leadership, standards, recruitment and training, and how we link in with other agencies. While in some ways the latest report is a challenging read and they are right in what they say, I believe that we have the right plan in place, and the sentencing Bill is a really important part of that, as has been the spending review. Manchester and Long Lartin still have lots of significant problems. Hindley, which has been mentioned already and is a prison I have been to before, has significant drug problems.
One of the areas that I am really focused on, alongside drugs and capacity, is leadership, and I know that is something that the Committee has raised before. Consistent, creative, well-supported leadership is going to make a big difference, as is recognising that good behaviour is a motivator for change. The progression model is something that I believe is a really important part of that, and leadership links in with that. We have to sort out drugs in prisons because it leads to debt and violence and brings the drones in. We need to look at international comparisons and work with our partners internationally, because they have very similar problems to us. We need to have a sustainable justice system because without that, it is much harder to tackle the drugs and the associated problems with it.
Q53 Chair: You mentioned the operation system that will be introduced under the sentencing Bill; could you explain one thing about that to me? The starting point—dependent on behaviour—for most prisoners will be release after completing a third of their sentence. What part does purposeful activity play in early release if it is effectively governed by behaviour alone?
Lord Timpson: Standard determinate sentences in the Gauke review suggest that the first third is in prison, the second third is in what I term heavy probation and then in lighter probation. If people are badly behaved, are caught with drugs or phones, or assault staff or other prisoners, then they could have days added on as part of their adjudication. We know that the more purposeful activity prisoners have, the more education that is available and the more time out of cell they have, the less likely they are to want to take drugs or be violent, and it creates a more proactive, stable regime. While it does not relate directly, it has a very important role to play.
Q54 Chair: But there is no incentive in your regime to take part in education, work, or other purposeful activities.
Lord Timpson: When you look at the Texas model, prisoners go what I call down the hill: for every week someone is well behaved they get time off their sentence. We are going up the hill because that is what we decided was the right way based on the structures that we have. So bad behaviour means that you stay in prison for longer, and that is how it should be, I think.
Chair: I have taken too much time. We will go to Neil Shastri-Hurst.
Q55 Dr Shastri-Hurst: Thank you very much, Chair. I will focus on the drivers of demand and the implications that arise out of that. In HMIP’s 2024-25 annual report, 19% of men and 9% of women reported that they had developed a drug problem in prison. Can you set out what the MOJ’s short-term and long-term vision is for creating a prison environment that prevents the development of new drug problems, but also supports a drug-free lifestyle?
Lord Timpson: There is a lot there. Would you like me to focus on demand specifically?
Dr Shastri-Hurst: Yes.
Lord Timpson: When half the people coming into prison are already addicted to drugs, the problem we see in prisons is the same problem we have on our streets. We need to work in the prison with our health partners on the public health angle. For some people—I have employed lots of these people—who go into prison, it is the first opportunity they have had to have a drug-free life, and they have worked with the health partners. There needs to be not just the wraparound health support, but an environment that gives them an incentive to change their ways. Some of that is drug-free living areas, and some is around the incentives that we are hoping for on the progression model. Some of it is around, for example, NA meetings and AA meetings. We have AA meetings going on in 74 prisons at the moment. In fact, as part of my research, I went to an AA meeting as a visitor to understand how it can be so helpful. One of the things that is underestimated is how much alcohol is a problem in prisons, as well as drugs. We then also talk about steroids, which are another part of the problem.
From a short-term perspective, we need to make sure that our drug testing is up to scratch. We need to do more drug testing in prisons and not just random ones—some people want us to test them on a more regular basis so they can prove that they are not taking drugs. We also need to look at technology. A few weeks ago, we did a roundtable with about 30 tech companies that were interested in the justice sector, and we picked seven to look at their specific examples of products and ideas that they can bring to us. Last week I was part of a “Dragons’ Den” with those seven companies. There are some really interesting, not massively expensive, pieces of kit and interesting bits of technology that could help.
We need to help people to transition through when they leave, because there is no point doing a really good job with them in prison if when they leave and go through into the community—maybe to an approved premise—it all goes wrong pretty quickly. We need to make sure they are robust enough and have support networks around them. I see the role of prisons as to help people to stay off drugs, but we need to make sure we get that soft landing in the community as well.
Q56 Dr Shastri-Hurst: What is your KPI in terms of delivering that? What is an acceptable amount of drug use in prison? I know you will say none. What is the timescale for getting it down to where you feel it should sit? What are the consequences of not hitting that target?
Lord Timpson: There are drugs in every prison. In some prisons it is very minimal; in others it is rife. There are some prisons where it is contained very well and in others it needs to come down significantly. I do not have a prison-by-prison figure in my head, but in my view we have a very strong evidence-based plan that will bring the number of positive drug tests down. But you have to do that hand-in-hand with capacity, because I do not think it will work if you are running prisons at capacity. Today it was 98.2% full, which is pretty good for how we have been over the last few months. I do not have a specific percentage, but I am interested in the trends and we need to make sure that it is a long-term decline, because in some prisons you will see a real spike, which might be based on more drone activity or problems with the maintenance of the building—windows are broken—or certain prisoners who are in that prison. It can be quite spiky, but I am interested in the overall trend.
Q57 Dr Shastri-Hurst: You have mentioned capacity being an impactor on being able to reduce the number. Do you have a capacity figure in mind that you think is the maximum in order to deliver effective drug prevention in prisons, beyond which it becomes a declining exercise?
Lord Timpson: It is a combination of capacity and staffing levels. We aim for a 95% staffing level in the prison and that those staff are skilled and experienced. It is a combination of lots of different factors. There are some prisons that can cope pretty well at 99% full because they have full staffing, experienced leadership, the building is in good condition, and the prisoners are a more settled type of prisoner, but there are others where it is much more challenging to run it at 95%.
Q58 Dr Shastri-Hurst: We know there is evidence that there is a pretty lucrative drug market in some prisons, which can lead to negative effects, particularly around debt and violence. What are you doing as a Department to reduce the profitability of drug dealing in prisons?
Lord Timpson: You are right that some people’s cell is an office and they are running a big drug dealing illegal business as part of their serious organised crime activities, and they have a captured market. I am going to hand over to Matt if that is okay, to go through the details of the policy.?
Matt Grey: In terms of drugs and the illicit economy in prisons, there is a big driver: it is highly lucrative, you have a captive audience, quite literally, and the cost of producing some of these synthetic cannabinoids, for example, is quite cheap, so you have a return on your investment. There are essentially three prongs you need to take to address it. One is to look at your supply lines. Richard will no doubt answer some questions on security and what we are doing to put in place the right barriers to suppliers in prisons and tackling the routes of incursion.
Secondly, as you started with, you also need to tackle the demand, and we do that through looking at how we provide the right treatment in prison. The treatment is commissioned by the NHS, which is putting a huge amount of effort into improving the treatment available in prisons, and we are seeing a huge number of starts in prisons, and timely starts as well: we are identifying people with drugs needs early, and NHS colleagues with our support are getting them to treatment early.
The third part is what we do around recovery and how we support it. We have put an awful lot of measures in over the past few years to try to make more recovery-orientated prisons. It starts with understanding how we train our staff effectively so they can spot people with drugs needs and think about how to be more supportive of them. It is about making sure we have the right wing arrangements, so that we can put people in places where they are safer and they are away from the gangs who are trying to get them to take drugs. It is about making sure that we have the right mutual aid and support for individuals who want to recover. It is also then about making sure that when they are in those supportive arrangements, they are getting the right psychosocial support from the NHS.
Finally, we are looking at how you release them, because we know a lot of prisoners go through the revolving door. When they are coming out to release, it is important to make sure that they get continuity of care as they go into treatment in the community, in the hope that they maintain that treatment and the likelihood of reoffending is reduced. You need to look at the whole system. You cannot just build higher walls and put more drones in. It needs to be allied with better and enough staff and with the right interventions, both health-wise and recovery-wise. We are trying to take that whole-spectrum approach across the system to try to achieve that.
Q59 Dr Shastri-Hurst: You mentioned synthetic cannabinoids, and you have talked a little about how you reduce their availability. We know that when people take them, their behaviour can be unpredictable and can be increasingly violent. What steps are you taking to manage the behaviour of prisoners who are under their influence? In particular, what are you doing to protect staff when those situations arise?
Richard Vince: Synthetic cannabinoids can, as you say, lead to some very violent behaviour. People who are found to be or suspected of being under the influence of them will be supervised by prison staff, who have protective equipment if that is required, but actually the supervision will come from the nursing staff, because there is a medical side to this, as you know. One of the primary impacts is the number of people who will have to go out to hospital, which impacts on the regime, which can further lead to boredom and the reason why people might decide to take substances. Those are the processes we would use with synthetic cannabinoids.
Q60 Dr Shastri-Hurst: Inevitably, much of our focus is on illicit drug use, but there is also a not-insignificant prescription drug misuse problem in prisons. What assessment has the Department made of the scale of that issue?
Lord Timpson: Our healthcare partners are working with us to identify where the problems are. Some of it is around how we supervise people getting their drugs, to make sure that the queues are managed and people are not passing drugs between each other. In fact, when I was in Eastwood Park last week, I had a conversation with the governor around how significant a problem it is. She said that it is a problem, but it is not their biggest drug problem; it is something that spikes up and down depending on who is there and what their prescriptions are.
I will just mention steroids. It is not at the level of synthetic opioids, but one of the concerns I have around steroids is that I do not want prisoners bulking up so their body becomes a weapon and a threat to others. I know in some prisons it can become quite a big drug of choice that people take.
Q61 Dr Shastri-Hurst: We know that sometimes really tragic events happen, and the prison and probation ombudsman was notified of 104 deaths linked with drug taking in prison between 1 January 2020 and the end of last year. What steps are you taking to reduce any further deaths and code-blue events?
Lord Timpson: Nasal naloxone is now in 90% of our prisons for people taking opioids or synthetic opioids. We have, I think, 8,000 staff who are trained on how to use it, which makes a big difference to saving people if they get there quickly. Staff in prisons are well aware of these problems because they see them all too regularly. It is part of being trained in self-harm and suicide training, and how the Samaritans and listeners work on the wings. We need to identify the risks and try to support people before these things occur, but it is a really sad situation where people are dying in our prisons due to drug overdoses.
Q62 Dr Shastri-Hurst: You say 8,000 staff are trained; how regularly are they getting refresher training and what are the plans to expand that across the service?
Richard Vince: The training is relatively brief for naloxone, so that can be done very rapidly and people are refreshed on an annual basis. We are also looking at mandating the carrying of naloxone for all staff, as they do in the probation service and other organisations.
Q63 Dr Shastri-Hurst: In terms of ensuring that staff on duty are qualified, is there a minimum level of how many have to have undertaken the training on any particular shift pattern?
Richard Vince: Not at this stage. We want to mandate the carrying of naloxone. At the moment we are doing it on a voluntary basis, so staff are coming forward because they want to carry naloxone and be trained with it. We are quickly moving to a point where we will mandate it.
Dr Shastri-Hurst: When do you think that point will be reached?
Richard Vince: I am unclear.
Q64 Tessa Munt: Can I just go back to something you said a little earlier? You said, “This prison’s good at this and this prison’s good at that.” It seemed like everyone can do one thing well, and do it very well, but there does not seem to be a collective, “This prison’s got it all right.” I know there are some that are excellent, and it is probably to do with the interest of staff or prisoners or the leadership or whatever, or maybe to address a particular problem in a particular place, but it does seem that it is really good here and it is really good there and it is getting really, really good here from a very low base, or whatever. I understand it is improvement, and I do not want to decry in any way that improvement, but it feels as though everyone can do one thing or concentrate on one thing, as opposed to the whole shebang.
Lord Timpson: Some of our prisons are world-class prisons from when you park in the car park to when you meet the most vulnerable prisoner, but too many are inconsistent. From my experience, a high-performing organisation has much less inconsistency. One of my jobs is to raise the level of consistency across the board, because it is no good if one prison is brilliant at education but then drug rates are really high; we need to make sure everything improves. That is why so much of the work we need to do is what I describe as under-the-bonnet work. It is about the grind of recruiting great staff, training them up, strong leadership, high standards and sorting out the capacity crisis.
One of the things I am really keen on, for example, is governor tenure, to make sure that our governors are in their prisons for a length of time. For example, the governor in Eastwood Park has been there now for three years. She went through the first inspection, which was poor, she took the advice from the inspectorate about what needed to be done to fix it, and things have improved significantly, although there is still more work to do. I completely agree that there is too much inconsistency and we need to get to a higher level of performance across the board.
Q65 Mike Tapp: You have touched on the deterrents, and on looking after the environment and health to stop people taking drugs, which is a positive approach, and you said it is not all about building higher walls, but of course security is important for a prison. As you know, it can be a bit like whack-a-mole: when you close one route, another opens. Would you say there are sufficient resources to deal with the new entry points as they arise?
Lord Timpson: I do not want to keep repeating myself, but the prison estate we inherited was very dilapidated, under-invested in and completely full, and we have already spent hundreds of millions of pounds on maintenance. We have an extra £40 million to spend on prison security for netting, drone security measures, new windows and so on, which will make a big difference. You are right with the whack-a-mole theory; sometimes prisoners move from certain prisons and you get more drones following them.
We need a consistent security standard across our estate so that we tackle not just drones coming in—which is a significant problem—but the other ways that drugs and illicit substances come in. That is why we have more X-ray scanners and have upped the level of vetting for staff. I will ask Richard to give us an update on what has happened in Manchester; I know the Committee was well aware of the significant drone and drug problems we have had and still have there. We know the levers we can pull—for example, in Manchester we hopefully have planning permission going in soon so that we can put up some new netting and other things. These things take time, but maybe Richard could update us on that.
Richard Vince: Manchester is an interesting example. To your colleague’s previous question, it was always a prison that performed at the very highest standards, and then we saw a rapid deterioration. That was largely due to serious organised crime and a very strong market for drugs going into Manchester, primarily through drones but, as you quite rightly say, there are a number of other routes in. Actually, as you close one, you get a displacement to another, so you have to concentrate on the security risks across the full range of routes to ingress.
What we were seeing at Manchester was that there was some intensive work with partners in the community—law enforcement and intelligence agencies—to tackle serious organised crime and do a surge of activity around drones. That had very positive outcomes, and we are currently evaluating whether those outcomes are going to be sustained.
We are also looking at some physical measures, such as new windows; you will have seen the picture from HMCIP, where people had burned through the window to bring substances in. We are now testing a new design of window that we think they will not be able to do that to, but we need to make sure. We are putting grills over the windows and netting across exercise yards where traditionally drones would land very big packages. We are also concentrating on the counter-corruption work, the quality of searching going into the prison and the checking of mail with the testing machine. It is about that full range.
We also tested some additional staffing resource that enabled the officers to respond immediately to any incursions they were picking up. The initial outcomes have been very positive, but it is the sustainability that we are now assessing, which will be a model that we will look at further on in other prisons as well. I would say serious organised crime—certainly in Manchester—was the big one, and then the advances in drone technology just advanced it so quickly, and that continues.
Q66 Mike Tapp: How does it work across the whole prison estate, working with the National Crime Agency? Is there a specific operation that feeds into mapping the networks nationally, and is there action off the back of that?
Lord Timpson: We have had some really good conversations with the National Crime Agency since we came into Government a year ago—I know it was a year ago because my pass did not work in the MOJ yesterday because they only give Prisons Ministers a 12-month pass. I am really pleased that the NCA has now directed the police across England and Wales to work with us on tackling the drone problem; that co-ordinated approach is very much needed.
Q67 Mike Tapp: Do you think there is a requirement for a specific national operation to target these networks, from the National Crime Agency?
Richard Vince: Yes, and the National Crime Agency and the police would agree with that as well, hence the directions from the NCA over the last 12 months. We have developed really good working relationships with law enforcement and NCA, which is going to have an impact because that is also sharing intelligence and knowledge. Where we have been tackling drones without fail and have the support of police and other law enforcement agencies, we get so much better outcomes and see people arrested and convicted and not able to make and fly the drones.
More widely, serious organised crime and drones are not unique to the UK; we also now link in through a variety of jurisdictions in Europe to understand what they are doing with serious organised crime and the technology and approach they are using with drones and other forms of ingress. We are continuing to do that and will be in Italy soon, which has a long experience of managing serious organised crime. The French Justice Minister met with the Lord Chancellor to talk about serious organised crime in the UK. We need to pull all that learning in and be part of that wider international response to this, because it is international: the serious organised crime networks do not just work in the UK. We are looking to access knowledge, intelligence and co-operation both in the UK and more widely.
Lord Timpson: I attended a day’s conference in London with the Dutch equivalent of the MOJ, on tackling serious organised crime, and I have been out to Spain. We all have similar problems, so it is really important to work internationally, certainly on technology and countering drones. The organised crime networks work internationally as well.
Q68 Mike Tapp: I am sure if there were a nationwide operation, the local police would be extremely happy to receive the information to kick the doors in, essentially, which would be very helpful. Earlier, you touched on tech products and physical security measures expanding. More specifically, is there enhanced searching and protocols for those who are returning from court or temporary release, to ensure they are not bringing in contraband?
Lord Timpson: You are right: it is a problem. We hear stories about people wanting to be recalled for 14 days so they can bring contraband into prison, often secreted in their bodies. That is why we have more X-ray scanners in prisons, which makes a difference. We are training staff on how to search properly and use all the kit that we have available—we have a drug team and everything. On the “Dragons’ Den” day we had last week, we saw that the technology for drug detection is clearly enhancing quickly. It is not just the justice world that is interested; for example, the airports and airlines are really interested in it as well. Maybe I will hand over to Richard on the detail of what we are doing that is new.
Richard Vince: The answer to your question is yes. Obviously, prison staff can require the prisoners to submit to a search at any point; they have reasonable grounds to require them to do so. For people coming back into custody, we now have 99 X-ray body scanners. All adult male, closed prisons now have those, and that is supplemented. We have detection dogs and the searching. We also have crime in prisons work now, so we are much more effective at getting a criminal justice outcome for people who bring drugs into prison, particularly if it is with the intent to supply. We are putting pressure on all those points.
Q69 Mike Tapp: Can I clarify whether those returning are flagged as high risk?
Richard Vince: Returning under what circumstances?
Mike Tapp: Court or temporary release.
Richard Vince: Yes, they would be subject to searching.
Q70 Mike Tapp: Back to drones, which we have already spoken about in some detail. The data on drone sightings at the moment is obviously heavily reliant on staff actually seeing them. Are there any alternative methods coming down the line to accurately detect and then record those sightings?
Lord Timpson: I know you have had a private briefing from Richard and colleagues on drone security, and I am afraid there is not much I can really add on the technology point of view. I will just reiterate that we need to use tech, but we also need to use our staff, and we come back to the point about why people are bringing drugs into prison. It is not just about the supply; it is the demand as well. That is where technology can also help us. It is around technology but also around windows and nets—the basics—and looking for drones when they come around the prison estate. There are a number of things happening, but as we improve, the technology on drones also improves, so this cat and mouse game is something that we are really aware of. As Richard reiterated, this is where the international discussions we have are really important.
Q71 Mike Tapp: It is good to hear there is work there. Do you feel that there is a risk that there could be a prison escape, given that some drones can now lift a person? Has that been looked at?
Richard Vince: Yes. I have certainly seen drones that could lift what you might call a moderate-sized person, so that is feasible. Equally, we are particularly alert to and concerned about the prospect of firearms or explosives being delivered via a drone. We are very alive to all those things, but there is that risk. We have had a 12 kg package delivered by drone, as the chief inspector highlighted.
On the issue of technology, of course I completely agree with the Minister: the advances in drone technology make it very difficult to keep up with countermeasures that might be electronic. Of course, we then have to do it over a vast number of sites as well. I would emphasise the need to engage with partners nationally and internationally on serious organised crime. If you can afford to strap 12 kg of drugs, mobiles and such like and risk losing that, you have probably got some considerable financial backing behind you.
Q72 Mike Tapp: I do not want to dwell on this too much, but for me it feels like the emphasis needs to be on detection, because you are right that things like jamming can be overcome. Is there much work going on in radar and so on?
Richard Vince: I do not think that is something I could go into here. We covered that in the closed session. We have technology that acts as part of an overall response to drones and ingress of drugs more widely, but it would be imprudent of me to go into those details, if that is okay.
Q73 Mike Tapp: That is understandable. We will move on to staffing, which is an issue that is perhaps sometimes downplayed as to just how bad it is. You mentioned earlier that there was increased vetting. What measures are in place with that vetting? What level of vetting are staff receiving?
Lord Timpson: I do not think anybody joins the service as a prison officer already corrupted. I believe some are manipulated by people for their own benefit, and then these people are in a very difficult position, get corrupted and criminalise themselves. We have had one example where a health worker brought over £1 million-worth of drugs into Lindholme prison and got a 10-year and two-month sentence for that, so it happens.
We are doing a lot of work on counter-corruption and training staff on how they can be manipulated. The vetting has an important part to play in that, but I genuinely believe that prison officers do a fantastic job and that 99.9% of them turn up to work to help people to rehabilitate themselves and keep our streets safe from fewer victims. But some get corrupted. The vetting is an important part of that process. We have been looking at vetting generally, but maybe that is a conversation for another time. It can cause operational restrictions, but we are also aware that we need to set the bar really high. Maybe Richard could update us on vetting.
Richard Vince: We have had what I would consider an ambitious vetting reform programme running for about two and a half years now, which has put far greater controls in place and far more detailed assessments of individuals who are applying for vetting. Again, it would be imprudent to go into the nature of the inquiries that are made for individuals.
Where we are moving now is to lifelong vetting, so that you are not just vetted when you enter the organisation: it continues through the period of your employment, particularly if you move to a job, for example, in security, where you would expect somebody to have a higher level of vetting than previously. Our investigations on initial vetting are far more robust than they were a couple of years ago. We have managed to do that without impacting the time to hire, because we obviously need to bring people into the organisation, and HMPPS has invested very heavily in the lived experience that people can bring to the organisation. We have been able to work through appropriate vetting for that.
It has been and is an ambitious reform programme. It works hand in hand with the work we do on counter-corruption, which is two strands. The first is prevent, so picking staff up when they first join the organisation and explaining to them how you can be corrupted and the things to look out for. We have a lot of very charismatic and wealthy people in custody, so that can happen and we see that happen.
The other is pursue, where we identify people who have been corrupted and push for those convictions. We have had very significant, positive work there. In 2024, we had 183 positive outcomes from the corruption unit, leading to 54 criminal justice outcomes, 76 dismissals and 53 exclusions for non-directly employed staff. So that counter-corruption work is really working, but importantly it is stopping people getting corrupted in the first place. We are equally good at finding them and pushing for a conviction if they do not take that training and advice.
Q74 Mike Tapp: Who conducts the vetting?
Richard Vince: The initial stage is carried out by SSCL, which is a shared service contracted provision. If they trigger any of the initial checks, that will go to the personnel vetting service that sits in the directorate of security at HMPPS.
Q75 Mike Tapp: This might not be a simple question to answer. If you had to compare it to, say, police vetting, would you say we are at SC, CT or DV level? Where would you say it sits?
Richard Vince: I am not sure we can draw a direct comparison because we use all those levels of vetting depending on somebody’s employment. All the work that we are doing on vetting reform has been informed by the Galetto and Casey reports and others that flowed from the terrible circumstances we saw with a number of cases in the police. That is what is informing the standards that we are looking to exceed. We work with other organisations on those standards of vetting.
Q76 Mike Tapp: Do you think it should align with other standards of vetting like the police?
Richard Vince: Personally, yes, and that is the position of the organisation as well, which is why we are going for the lifelong vetting and so on. The nature of the vetting will differ, because obviously it is a different organisation, but it is the first line of defence for us and should be of a very high standard. We have had complete support in doing that.
Q77 Mike Tapp: It is different but the threat is very similar. Are those who are conducting the vetting looking at things like debt that can lead to that corruption? Are they going into that depth?
Richard Vince: There is a range of indicators that we use to show that somebody should not get vetting, but it would probably be imprudent to go into those, if that is okay.
Q78 Mike Tapp: On adjudication, you talked earlier about adding days to people’s sentences. Can you go in a little deeper on what penalties and deterrents are in place for prisoners found with illicit items?
Lord Timpson: There are already well-established processes in place in prisons for people who are enhanced, standard or basic based on their behaviour. There is also an adjudication process that has deteriorated significantly since covid. But you are right that in the new progression model we need a really robust adjudication process.
I have virtually lost track of days but it was either yesterday or Thursday last week—I cannot remember—that I had a call with five governors around how they do their adjudications. I picked a sex offender prison, a cat A, a cat D, a women’s prison and a cat B local. What is interesting is that they all have different requirements for adjudications and their prisoner cohort responds differently to them. For example, one governor was talking about how young men in Isis prison respond far more to the adjudication penalties that they can give than, for example, people serving lots of life sentences.
What is clear from my point of view is that when someone does something wrong in a prison, they need to get punished quickly—for example, by adding on days, which is something we are very keen on. The punishment needs to fit the crime they do when they are in prison. We really need to be far more consistent on that.
Let me give you another example from Manchester. I have been there twice since doing this job, and many times before; in fact, I went there a number of times when Richard was the governor. Pre-covid, a judge used to come to do the adjudication every Friday, and it was the same judge virtually the whole time. It happened quite quickly and people got punished for the things they did wrong or were found not guilty of the charge. Now they have a big backlog and it is a video call once a month, so a number of people know they are going to get timed out, or there is such a backlog we may lose some administration and so on. I am well aware that the adjudication process needs to be absolutely on its game, and that is why I am doing a lot of work on it at the moment. You are spot on about that.
Richard Vince: Beyond the sanction of 42 additional days that can be awarded by the independent adjudicator, where offences reach a certain threshold, those can be referred to the police, particularly where there are acts of violence. We now have crime in prison co-ordinators working across the areas, which is helping governors to put together the evidential basis and with the preservation of evidence to provide to the police to lead to prosecutions. If you take London and the south-east between 2023 and 2024, where they had the crime in prison co-ordinators they saw a 152% increase in the number of investigations accepted by the police. We have got much better at preserving, collecting and presenting evidence so that there is a consequence to people’s actions.
Matt Grey: In thinking about how governors deal with it in the round, obviously if prisoners breach the rules and are in possession or under the influence of drugs, there needs to be that robust adjudication process. Our current adjudications policy also allows governors to think about what support they can offer people. We know that people who are trying to recover from drugs will slip occasionally, so it allows them to also direct people into more rehabilitative interventions, such as more treatment from the NHS. It gives governors more of a rounded ability to ensure that they are taking proper, robust action on the security risk presented by the individual and where they got those drugs from. It also gives them the ability to think about how we stabilise that individual as quickly as possible and get them back on track so we are supporting them back into recovery as well.
Q79 Sarah Russell: You mentioned people wanting to come into prison on a 14-day recall so that they can sell drugs. How do you disrupt that? Given the street value versus prison value of drugs, that is going to continue to be an attractive prospect.
Lord Timpson: It is a problem that is a result of addicted people—often hyper-prolific offenders—going in and out of the system again and again. That is why in the independent sentencing review, the idea of intensive supervision courts, for example, is really important. What can we do to divert these people away? They are bringing drugs into prison because they want to make money out of them and take drugs, and they are part of low-level organised crime group work. We need to look at not just the supply but the demand. Maybe I will hand over to Richard on what we actually do in prisons to try to prevent that and how we manage that risk.
Q80 Sarah Russell: To be fair, you have talked about reducing demand, but how are we going to do something about this in the short term?
Richard Vince: To be clear, there are people who will be coerced into doing this as well. The issues that affect prisons do not work in isolation from the community; sometimes we can be aware that this might happen. Somebody coming into custody will be subject to that enhanced gate security: the X-ray body scanners, searching and other measures that we have in place to identify whether somebody is trying to bring something in concealed about their person.
Q81 Matt Bishop: You touched on this earlier, but with regard to the announcement of the £40 million investment in the security measures, what are your timescales for implementing the new measures?
Lord Timpson: It is quite hard to spend £40 million very quickly, but we are fortunate that we have lots of demand for that money. It is around some security measures that we cannot talk about; there are others—for example, netting and windows—that we can. If we take Manchester as an example, that is what is needed and that is what is happening. There are a number of prisons where we want to spend this money and I get weekly updates on them myself; I had one on my desk this morning. I know from running a business that there are certain things that if you want them to happen, you have to monitor them all the time. It is about procurement but also about me instilling a sense of speed in the organisation to get these things happening far quicker.
Let me give you an example. One of the subs today was around the fact that getting ready for planning permission could take up to 16 weeks. Well, let us do it in eight. I am well aware of the speed, because every week that we do not have this security in place that makes it easier for people to bring in illicit substances. I am also aware of the window design. I do not want to get too technical but the design of the windows is very important, because we do not want to spend lots of money on windows that can then just get overridden. We know there are 32 prisons where we want to invest quickly in upgrading our security measures, we know what we need to do and what the cost is, and we are getting on with it.
Q82 Matt Bishop: We have heard evidence today and previously about how effective the netting can be at prisons; we have touched on it several times today. Do you think there are sufficient staff numbers to supervise the netting areas?
Richard Vince: Netting is always a slightly contentious issue, because we have seen examples where netting is being broken through. Overarching all this is that this is a very lucrative market being run by serious organised criminals who are very determined. These physical measures can take you so far, but they are not the single solution in the same way that technology is not the single solution to drones. There has been a lot of research done into the type of defences that we need, whether it is netting or another type of defence that would prevent, in particular, drones from being able to get into certain areas of the prison.
Some defences are being fitted and tested; there has been a push from the Minister to test that and proof it very quickly. At the moment, we are waiting to see what the best option is going to be. Netting works; we are just looking for the most robust form, whether that is some sort of grill or wires. Those are all in the mix; they are there and we are testing them. There is a danger and temptation that we run to spend the money without making absolutely sure we have the right kit so, quite rightly, MOJ is running tests against a number of options on netting.
Lord Timpson: Just to be clear, we know where we want to put that netting when we have the exact solution ready. When I went to Spain and spoke to other international partners, they were asking us the same questions that you are asking us; we are in a similar boat.
Q83 Matt Bishop: In regard to your “Dragons’ Den” event last week, I know it is quite soon afterwards but does the Department plan to implement or take forward any of the innovative ideas that you saw?
Lord Timpson: Very much so. It was not just a day out to see what is around; we are in the market to buy solutions that are going to make a significant difference. I am interested in what we can use at scale and am very interested specifically in probation. I know this is not the specific conversation for today, but a lot of the technology that we saw could make a dramatic impact for probation officers, how they go about their work and how we manage offenders in the community. When we punish people in the community—a punishment outside prison—we need to make sure that it is really robust and the technology is developing very quickly.
So far as prisons go, there were some really interesting examples around drug detection and some really good examples around how we manage the officer’s role on the wings, for example, with in-cell technology, how we use it and how we can educate prisoners in their cells with terminals and so on. There was some really good stuff, and I plan on this being not just a one-off but a regular thing, because we will really benefit from technology and become more efficient as well.
Q84 Matt Bishop: What training is provided to staff to identify and respond to drug smuggling tactics and suspicious behaviour?
Lord Timpson: We are doing a whole piece around staff training called the enable programme, which has already been mentioned. Before I came into this job, I did a whole project on prison officer training and I know searching is part of it. I have done some searching myself in prisons; the last time I was in Preston prison, where I did a couple of days. I did some cell searches and there is a methodical route that they do. It is also about how you use X-ray machines and body scanners and have evidence.
Something that we need to develop more is a culture of training in the organisation. When you are short-staffed, the prisons are full and there are drugs and so many other problems, so training is put on the back foot. That happens in all organisations, but we need to put training at the front of the list, because our staff deserve all the skills and training that we have, which will enable them to do their job better and prisons to get safer.
Richard Vince: I would add that the relationships that staff develop with prisoners can really support identifying when there are behavioural changes or indicators that something is wrong or something wrong is going on. The capacity crisis has made that much more difficult, but that has been a great focus in pushing on what we call key workers, which is the ability of staff to really understand the people they are working with. That helps an awful lot in identifying where we see clear indications of change.
Q85 Matt Bishop: I hear the message about training when it is busy and 100 mph all the time, but is training mandatory and refreshed regularly?
Lord Timpson: There are certain amounts of training that are mandatory and refreshed, and others that are more specialist and not everybody does them—for example, dog handling. What we are creating is a whole review of the curriculum. We are setting up a group of experts who will manage each different part of the curriculum and review them regularly—for example, on a two-yearly basis. A problem we have at the moment is that when there is a new problem it is, “Right, you’ve got to train everybody quickly,” and that is how we address this problem rather than it being a more controlled, methodical approach to training.
I also want officers to have far more time being trained. For officers who join the service, seven weeks of training is not enough in my view. It takes much longer to understand the complexities and to deal with the most complex people in the country. So it is a combination of what is mandatory for everybody, that we need much more thorough and thoughtful training and that we need to adapt. For example, you see with the different drugs coming through the system that we need to be aware of how we can manage that, when people are taking it and how we can treat them.
Q86 Chair: You mentioned that it is your year’s anniversary in the job. I wonder whether you have a moment to reflect on how you think it is going and where it is going.
If we stick with the drugs issue, two things occur to me. One is that you are not quite halfway through the previous Government’s 10-year drugs strategy, which aimed to reduce overall drug use to a 30-year low. From what we have heard, it appears it is going in the wrong direction. Equally, we are still in the implementation phase of Dame Carol Black’s review, so how is that going? In particular, she recommended that there should be incentivised substance-free living units in every prison, which clearly is not the case either. How would you assess your record on those points thus far, and how are you hoping to do going forward?
Lord Timpson: I do not think I should mark my own homework and give you my own appraisal, but we have achieved an awful lot in 12 months. We have stopped the prison system collapsing and have a really good policy plan in place through the David Gauke review, and extra funding from the spending review, which is a three-year review that will give us a lot more stability. From my experience of running organisations, the plans and leadership we have in place will work and are already working. We are being very open with everybody on our challenges and what we are doing to address those challenges. We are building prison places at a rate that no one has done before, apart from the Victorians. I personally am very vocal that it is not just about prisons; it is about probation. If we do not sort out probation, we cannot sort out prisons.
I would like to think that we have achieved an awful lot in saving the system over the last year, but this is a long-term problem. I am taking a long-term view of what needs to be done because it needs to be a sustainable justice system. So I am not going to give myself a mark or anything like that, but I am really proud of what we have achieved. We really took on a hospital pass in a crisis in the prison system, and the team has done an amazing job in managing to not run out of prison places. I work with some of the most talented people I have ever come across and we owe them our gratitude for making sure we did not run out, but we have a long way to go. As I said to some colleagues earlier, I am seeing the green shoots of what we have been trying to achieve, but we need to keep going consistently, keep maintaining our staffing levels, training our staff and building prisons. The probation piece is something I am sure we will talk about in the future.
The principles in the “From harm to hope” 10-year plan are right. Things keep changing—for example, the complexity of drugs. We need to adapt to those new threats, with the synthetics and so on. When I first came in, I recognised how big a problem drugs were, so I set up a drug and alcohol recovery expert panel—we have never had one before—which Dame Carol very kindly agreed to be on. We are developing our policies on what we are going to be doing on drugs.
We need to be working hand in hand with our health partners too. The experts who are on our panel have a very clear view that it is about incentivised substance-free living wings, of which we have 82 and we need to do more. We have drug-free living areas. There are a number of things that we are doing more of, but we need to work with the advisory board and look at all the evidence. Dame Carol’s work is absolutely spot on, but it is also about when people leave prison and that soft landing piece. If it is okay, I will hand over to Matt on the last bits of the jigsaw.
Matt Grey: In terms of progress and “From harm to hope”, over the past few years there has been some genuinely meaningful progress that we cannot walk back from now in terms of the cross-system join-up we have developed between ourselves, the NHS and crime partners. At the ministerial level, that has led to the drug strategy ministerial forum, which is really powerful. That has also helped us to really understand our priorities and how the system works to enable the priorities, and “From harm to hope”, with the national outcomes framework, which sets both national and local priorities.
The key for us is seeing improvements in continuity of care—the progress we are making with people released into the community. We have seen a real increase in people receiving that treatment, from 38% to 54%. That continuity of care has also been adopted in the Deputy Prime Minister’s local government outcomes framework, so we are seeing that really start to embed in the DNA that the Government are trying to deliver.
Practically, we have made huge progress. As Lord Timpson pointed out, we have rolled out ISFLs in 85 prisons. We are not looking at doing any more nationally at the moment, but we will support governors if they want to do that. The next step for us is to improve the consistency and quality of those. The work we have been doing to try to enable healthcare has been genuinely transformative. We have seen a 14% rise in people accessing NHS substance misuse services in custody in the past year, which, given how much other pressure we have had, is a really impressive piece of work. We have also seen a 7% rise of people undertaking treatment in custody, which again is a real achievement. We are seeing a good number of people being discharged from that treatment, so they are entering recovery while in prison.
The next phase for us is to really double down on what we are doing on recovery and building on what Dame Carol set out in her report, which the independent sentencing review will help with. Two key areas for me are, first, rolling out more mutual aid. We are seeing Alcoholics Anonymous operating in 76 of our establishments now. As Lord Timpson pointed out, the drug and alcohol recovery expert panel has been really helpful at getting us to start thinking about how we do more on community diversion, so that they do not come in in the first place.
Another key area is using testing more effectively, so not just testing for security but thinking about how we incentivise testing to get people to say, “I’m on the path to recovery,” and how we provide that recovery support and make sure we have that continuity and resettlement. You heard from Kate Davies—my opposite member in NHS—talking about the money the NHS has put into supporting Dame Carol Black’s recommendations as well. We are making very good progress in a lot of areas. There are still challenges, but there is very positive progress between ourselves and the NHS, and on making improvements to that recovery.
Q87 Warinder Juss: Lord Timpson, you mentioned earlier that if we increase the level of purposeful activity, education and time out of cell for prisoners, they are less likely to go towards drugs. How successful do you think we have been so far in increasing the levels of purposeful activities, having a decent education system and enabling prisoners to spend more time out of cell?
Lord Timpson: Education participation is up. In 2023-24 it was up 7%, and that was during this capacity crisis. One area that we have struggled with in the past is dilapidated buildings. I have been to too many prisons where the workshops are not working because the roof has collapsed and has not been repaired. The £300 million we spent last year on dilapidation went some way to helping with that. For example, I was in the Isle of Wight—I do not think many Prisons Ministers get to the Isle of Wight or Haverigg, but I have been to both—where the laundry is not working because it needs a new boiler and the roof needs repairing. For the last year and a half, the laundry has been going off the island every other day. It is basic things like this we need to put in place to give job opportunities for people so that they can learn more skills, keep busy and are not idle.
Q88 Warinder Juss: In terms of purposeful activities, has there been any expansion?
Lord Timpson: I do not know the exact figures on personal activity. We can get back to you on what the actual facts are, but we do not measure time out of cell. Some 67% of prisoners are in at least half-time activity per week. What is clear and the direction we need to go in is that we want busy prisoners in prisons. When you go into a prison, you can tell if it is busy. For example, I was in Forest Bank, where education is really popular. It is a busy, difficult prison, but the classrooms are full and people are really enjoying their education. The knock-on effects of that are significant.
Q89 Pam Cox: You have been the Prisons Minister for a year, as we have discussed. You mentioned your red-alert list; what is still on that list?
Lord Timpson: There are a number of things on my red-alert list. One is the security and safety of staff. Our staff turn up to work really hard, not to get assaulted. Assaults on staff are still too high. As you know, we have had some very high-profile attacks on staff recently, which is absolutely shocking and disgraceful, and the people who do it need to be punished for what they have done. So instability in the prisons is something I am concerned about.
Capacity is something that you never forget when doing this job. The first email I get every day at 6 am is about the number of spare places we have in the male and female estate. It is that important to maintain the capacity. The Chair mentioned a number of things about Serco and the performance of our partners, which we need to keep very aware of. I am interested in staffing levels because when a prison does not have enough staff, it is harder to maintain the regime. I am interested in leadership in prisons and probation and the stability of that leadership.
This may be something that you think is a small thing, but it is a big thing for me: I am also interested in succession planning. I am sure Richard and Matt will bore everyone rigid with how important it is to have a strong line of great governors and probation leaders coming through who can grow into those roles. So it is a combination of capacity, safety and prisons operating well.
I read all the inspection reports. I meet regularly with Charlie Taylor and Martin Jones and take their reports seriously. I read every IMB report and visit prisons and probation units. I am always interested in visiting the prisons that we believe are problematic and the ones that are doing really well; those are the ones I really try to focus on
Pam Cox: I am sure we can return to your red-alert list in the course of our inquiries next year.