Oral evidence: Prison reform, HC 548
Tuesday 29 November 2016
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 29 November 2016.
Members present: Robert Neill (Chair); Alex Chalk; Alberto Costa; Philip Davies; Kate Green; Mr David Hanson; Victoria Prentis; Marie Rimmer; Keith Vaz.
Questions 1 - 148
Witnesses
I: Sam Gyimah MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Prisons and Probation, Ministry of Justice, and Michael Spurr, Chief Executive Officer, National Offender Management Service.
Written evidence from witnesses:
Witnesses: Sam Gyimah MP and Michael Spurr.
Chair: Good morning, Minister and Mr Spurr. Thank you very much for coming to give evidence to us. We appreciate that. This is of course the first of our evidence sessions in relation to our inquiry into prison reform. Obviously, Minister, we have seen the White Paper that has been published and we will want to ask some questions around that. I know that you are aware of our previous report on safety issues, at any rate, as well as some of the broader issues. Can I ask Members to declare any particular interests—mine are as set out in the register—that relate to the issue of our inquiry?
Victoria Prentis: I am a non‑practising barrister and I practised for many years in the Treasury Solicitor’s Department where I did a lot of work for the Prison Service.
Kate Green: I am a life member of the Magistrates Association.
Chair: You know me as a non‑practising barrister and consultant to a legal firm, not doing any specific prison‑related work.
Alex Chalk: My interests are as set out on the register. I am a practising barrister.
Alberto Costa: I am a practising English solicitor, non‑practising Scottish solicitor and, like my colleague, I was once in the Treasury Solicitor’s Department representing the Prison Service.
Q1 Chair: There is nothing else that is specific. Minister, we have got to this situation, Minister, haven’t we? We have a White Paper that sets out a number of very specific proposals. Against that background, though, we were in Westminster Hall only a few months ago debating the issue of prison safety. Since then, there has been an alleged murder—somebody has been killed in a prison—two people have escaped from Pentonville and there has been what one can, frankly, only describe as a riot, however it is dressed up, in Bedford. It is still continuing to go wrong, isn’t it? What is happening?
Sam Gyimah: Thanks, Chair. You are absolutely right. We had that debate in Westminster Hall, and in the four months that the Secretary of State and I have been in post, as I said and acknowledged in that debate, we recognised immediately on our appointment that the situation in our prisons was challenging, and that stabilising the situation and improving security to deliver the reform that would cut reoffending had to be our No. 1 priority. It is our No. 1 priority.
To do that, Chair, we set about persuading the Treasury, first, to make sure that we had new money to deal with the challenges we face in our prisons. The Ministry of Justice was the only Department, as you are aware, in the autumn statement to get new money—£550 million. In addition to that, in that debate I said there was a White Paper on its way. The guidance I gave in that debate was that it would be published by Christmas, and we got the White Paper out at the beginning of November.
It will take time to turn around what is a very challenging situation. You have mentioned the violence statistics, whether it is prisoner on prisoner assaults, prisoner on prison officer assaults, self‑harm or deaths in custody; all these numbers are pointing in the wrong direction. The Secretary of State, I and Michael Spurr are hugely committed to turning this situation around. We will be going through the detail of that process and what are our plans today, but I believe one thing that could definitely make an immediate impact on what is the game‑changing situation we see in our prisons because of the combination of factors that have led to the increased violence is increased staffing. That is why we have new money of £100 million to recruit 2,500 staff. We prioritised 10 of our most challenging jails and we are halfway on the way to recruiting the 400 staff that we would need there by April.
Q2 Chair: I understand that; I accept the new money and additional staff being brought in. Is it not the problem that you are leaching staff at the other end? Experienced officers continue to leave. Mr Spurr, does that not indicate there is a collapse of morale in the Prison Service?
Michael Spurr: You are right: more staff have left than we would have wanted; there is no question about that. Last year we had a net reduction in staff, which is not where we want to be. That will not be the case in the next 12 months. The turnover rate is 8.5% across the service. That is higher than I would want. It is not catastrophically high, but it does vary. You have 4% turnover in Wales and nearly 15% in Kent and Surrey. That says something about where the pressures are in the system.
The leaving rate for people within their first year was 13.5% last year. Again, that is high, but not as high as it was two or three years ago. It was 8.8% the previous year, 16% the year before that, and two or three years ago it was 11%. It is within a level, but, again, there is a variation, and it is much harder to recruit and retain people in the south than it is in other parts of the country.
Q3 Chair: I understand that. There is a particular issue, regardless of where you are, about experienced people leaving. I understand the drop‑out rate, when people start and it does not work for them. Do you have an analysis as to why it is that those experienced people are going?
Michael Spurr: It is not sufficient. We have a piece of work that we will report in the new year that will give us a more in‑depth understanding about why people have left. You are right about experience. About 20% of our staff are within their first five years. Again, that is not terrible because that means that 80% have served more than five years, but we want to retain those experienced staff. There is a whole range of things that might have led to this situation. Particularly there has been a lot of change. The way we do things now with many fewer staff than we had before has put a lot more pressure on, and we have asked people to work in different ways. There is a whole issue about how we have effectively capped salaries for more experienced staff on what we call closed grades. All those issues are ones that we are looking at and that we are trying to address through a range of different means.
Sam Gyimah: If I could add, Chair, something I have recognised in the few months I have been in post is that the culture of prisons has also changed, so the working environment for a lot of staff has changed. A lot of prison officers will tell you that 10 years ago attacks on, say, female prison officers were unheard of, and now you have prisoners openly talking about potting, which is throwing urine and faeces on a prison officer. So, the culture and environment in which prison officers have to work has changed. We have to wait for the actual evidence that Michael is talking about, but you can see why for some people it has become a less than desirable environment. But we are taking steps, which I would like to go through during the course of this discussion, to deal with the retention rate for experienced but also relatively new staff who leave at about a rate of 13.5% within a year.
Q4 Chair: This culture change, which many of us will accept from our own experience, has not happened overnight. The truth is that under the coalition Government we took too many prison officers out, did we not?
Sam Gyimah: That is a simplistic analysis, if I could say so, Chair. There were efficiencies to be gained at the time, as the Committee is very well aware, but the game‑changing situation and the situation that did not exist in 2012‑2013 is regarding the new psychoactive substances. I have had prison officers tell me that they would open a cell door, and a prisoner who is calm and joyful in the morning, by the evening, if they have taken one of these drugs, becomes incredibly violent and will attack the very prison officer whom they were having a good relationship with earlier in the day.
It is almost impossible to explain how much this has changed the culture but also fed the violence in our prisons, as well as mobile phones, which allow criminal gangs to organise the trafficking of these drugs into our prisons, and with that flow a lot of things. Prisons are communities. There are debts and bullying, and a lot of things flow from having these drugs in prison. This is different from any other drugs that have been in prisons before. It was Nigel Newcomen, the head of the independent Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, who said this is a game changer in our prisons. Those are not my words; those are his words. I think that has led to a lot of what we are seeing.
Q5 Chair: I get that point, but, equally, there is the operational problem, Mr Spurr, that your people have to confront. That is all the greater risk, is it not? The effect of the drugs, the gang culture and mobile phones as a form of currency are made all the worse in a scenario where people are frequently locked up about 23 hours a day, and that is because there is not enough staff for the number of prisoners, is it not?
Michael Spurr: Chair, your predecessor Committee's report that was published just before the 2015 election gave a very detailed and, I think, accurate analysis of what had happened through that period and talked about a whole range of changes. To drive costs down and take money out, we closed a lot of establishments, but we were not able to reduce crowding. That has remained at the same level. It talked about loss of experienced staff, which was a consequence of some of those moves. Then it is absolutely right, as the Minister says, that we have had a load of external pressures that were much greater than we had anticipated when we commenced the change process. All of that is right, and that has meant that at the minute we do not have sufficient resource to be able to tackle the problems that we face.
I am very grateful for two things. The White Paper gives a very clear commitment to restructuring the estate and improving conditions. That means new places that will not be crowded and will lead us to reduce crowding, and that is very welcome. Secondly, we were taking action in response to your predecessor Committee's report about benchmark levels and looking within our own resources to be able to create more prison officer posts. We were going to change the way we operated our offender management model to create more prison officers, but the additional funding for the additional 2,500 on top of that will make a significant difference.
Q6 Chair: The objective is that prisons should be, at least among many other things, humane and decent at any rate. The truth is that in some of our prisons you cannot say that at the moment, can you?
Michael Spurr: In a number of prisons we are certainly not delivering the type of regime and conditions that we would want. Some of that is about the physical state of some of our prisons, which is why the estate restructuring and the additional investment—the £1.3 billion that is coming to invest in the estate—is important. But, equally, I accept in some prisons—it is not true across the estate; I want to stress that there are good things going on in all prisons—there is not as much regime and time out of cell as we would want.
Q7 Chair: I understand both you, Mr Spurr, and you, Minister, probably have seen one instance reported very recently on social media about a young man of 18 in prison; his mother is terminally ill—she is dying. They cannot let him out to go and see his mother before she dies—they are going to turn the life support machine off—because there are not enough staff to provide an escort. That is neither humane nor decent, is it?
Sam Gyimah: As you point out, Chair, we want to deliver safe, decent and secure prisons, and the staffing challenges, without talking about that—
Q8 Chair: That scenario is not humane or decent, is it, Minister?
Sam Gyimah: In terms of the specifics of it, I am not familiar with every decision that was made in that particular situation, but I think what we want to do and what we decided that we are going to be able to do with our reforms is that every prison officer would be looking after six prisoners. That will give them enough of a caseload to challenge and provide the support that is necessary and needed in our prisons. That is not happening at the moment, and so the staffing numbers that we are talking about in terms of recruiting an extra 2,500 is not a figure we have plucked out of the air. It is a figure based on evidence that would allow us to deliver the kind of decency that you have pointed to in your question.
Q9 Chair: Mr Spurr, were you aware of that particular case? It was quite widely reported.
Michael Spurr: I was not aware of the case and I have not looked into it. If the case was as reported, I would agree with you that I would have expected that young man to have been able to go and see his terminally ill mother, but I do not know the detail of why that did not occur.
Q10 Chair: If the appropriate people brought facts to your attention, no doubt you would.
Michael Spurr: Yes.
Q11 Victoria Prentis: We understand that you realise that there are significant challenges in the Prison Service at the moment, and, broadly, this Committee welcomes the White Paper. However, you cannot wave a magic wand and make everything better overnight—we accept that—but there are some things that could be done very easily to enable us on our Committee to do our job.
We asked in our report for quarterly statistics, and you agreed, Minister, to give them to us every six months. We now wonder on this Committee in view of the ongoing situation in our prisons—possibly we might think worsening situation—if you would agree to provide us with monthly updates on prison safety along the indicators that we set out in our report? Would that be something you could look at, please?
Sam Gyimah: Absolutely. I am definitely willing to share what would be management information with you; it is not audited and independent, but I am happy to share that with the Committee. As it happens, I look at this data twice daily. There is a twice‑daily prison pulse meeting that I have with Michael Spurr, the permanent secretary, and a number of our senior members of the team in the MOJ looking at what the challenges are in prisons, looking at incidents in prison, looking at assaults and all the key statistics, but also trying to understand what we can do on a daily basis to support prison governors to avert some of the situations that we see. Sometimes it could be as simple as making sure that, on the facilities management side, they are getting a swift response to broken showers or something like that. It may be to do with food, and in some cases it may be to do with a transfer of a difficult prisoner. I look at that twice a day. I would be willing to share some of this information with the Committee on a monthly basis.
Q12 Victoria Prentis: That would be very helpful indeed. One of the main points made by David Cameron in his speech in February this year was that we really lack data and analysis of that data in order to keep our prisons safer. We are pleased, Minister, that you have that information. Along the lines of the indicators set out in our report, we have not really had constructive dialogue about whether those are acceptable, but if that is something you could look at very soon that would help us.
Sam Gyimah: Absolutely. We can have a separate session on that. One change that we have instituted as a new team is bringing the analytical function from NOMS into the MOJ to begin to use data to drive the decisions that we are making, so I am happy to do that.
Q13 Victoria Prentis: If you could commit, Minister, to sorting that out with us perhaps in writing in the next few weeks, that would really help. Also, we will be asking, I am sure, for individual updates on the 10 prisons. Is that something you are happy to look at as well?
Sam Gyimah: On the 10?
Q14 Victoria Prentis: On the 10 reform prisons.
Sam Gyimah: The additional funding. There are currently six reform prisons. Ten of our most challenging prisons have funding for staffing, and I will be happy to provide information and so on in terms of the recruitment drives for those 10 prisons.
Q15 Victoria Prentis: That is very helpful; thank you. Can I move on to talk about your relationship with the POA and the Prison Governors Association? Clearly, things are not great at the moment. It has been widely reported that there was effectively a strike, and that was effectively stopped. Could you share with us whether you have had discussions with both of those organisations about their concerns about safety, and could you tell us what their main concern is at the moment?
Sam Gyimah: Yes. Taking the PGA first—the Prison Governors Association—I meet with them quite regularly. In fact, I met with their representatives in the last two weeks to discuss their concerns. They have concerns around being able to run safe, decent, secure prisons, and what they need to do that; making sure where they have staffing needs that they have the staff available; and health and safety. A lot of them also have complained about the facilities management contract that Carillion holds and the speed of response. If a prison governor says to a given prisoner, "If you behave yourself, this will happen," they want to be able to sort it out; if there is a window that is broken, they will be able to sort it out.
On each and every one of these issues, I have instituted action to deal with it. With Carillion, I called the senior management into the Department and gave them until the end of this year to address that problem. I have had Mike Driver, our finance director, meet with their executives and work out a clear plan to make sure that we are delivering for prison governors on that. On staffing, the new money that we have will go a long way towards addressing that, but we are even going further than the new money. As of January, in 28 of our prisons where it is difficult to recruit, we will be introducing governor‑led recruitment. Governors will be able to market to attract candidates themselves; they will be involved in the candidate‑management process.
Q16 Victoria Prentis: Will there be extra money for governors to boost pay? For example, if they are trying to recruit from the armed services, which is something that is mentioned in the White Paper, people in the armed services of a similar level earn a little more. Is that something that governors will be able to boost as necessary?
Sam Gyimah: We are looking to allow governors to do what they cannot do now, other than in our reform prisons system, which is to market to attract candidates; we will provide them with all the marketing collateral they need to be able to do so. They can run open days in the prison.
Q17 Victoria Prentis: And higher salaries where necessary.
Sam Gyimah: That already exists. For example, in some of our difficult‑to‑recruit places there is a pay supplement that could be paid and retention bonuses that could be paid in some situations. This is a big change. I cannot say it loudly enough. Currently, someone can apply to be, and end up as, a prison officer without ever having visited a prison or seen the people they will work with. I believe that, if you are going to increase the throughput in terms of our recruitment process, making it more local and putting prison governors at the heart of it, to complement what we do nationally, is important. Those are some of the things, to answer your question, that have been raised by prison governors that we are responding to.
In terms of prison officers, which is the second part of your question, health and safety is an issue that they have raised, but we are also in negotiations with them around pay, pensions and retention. I am glad that the unlawful strike was brought to an end, but, more importantly, I am pleased that we are back at the negotiating table talking about how we can resolve those issues for brave prison officers who do a difficult job in quite challenging circumstances.
Q18 Victoria Prentis: Are you meeting them regularly?
Sam Gyimah: I meet with them regularly; the Secretary of State meets with them regularly; I know Michael does as well, and in the last week or so we are in active negotiations with them.
Q19 Victoria Prentis: I have one more quick question. What discussions have you had with private prison leaders about their staffing and whether there had been any contractual changes as a result of recent discussions?
Michael Spurr: I am meeting with private providers tomorrow, all of them together, and, yes, we do have regular discussions with our private providers. The new model that we want to introduce, which will provide more personal time for officers to spend with prisoners, will apply to the private sector as well as the public sector. Many of the same issues that are giving difficulty in public sector prisons are there in private sector prisons. Violence crosses sectors, which is why the solutions have to cross sectors, because we are all facing the same threats and pressures across the whole system. So, yes, I do talk to private providers; yes, they will be part of the whole way in which we are going to tackle the issue, and that includes looking at what staff they need to ensure we give enough time individually to prisoners, which is part of the proposals in the White Paper.
Q20 Chair: That is very helpful. Perhaps, Minister, in due course you could write to us about the detail of the pay supplements and retention bonuses, because in an area like London, where I am a Member of Parliament, there are real pressures around the rival occupations in the job market.
Sam Gyimah: I think it is £4,000.
Q21 Marie Rimmer: Minister, in your recent safety and custody bulletin, it is reported that assaults have increased by 34%. Over 3,000 of them are serious assaults. On staff it is up 34%, and prisoner on prisoner it is up 32%. Prison suicides are at their highest since records began. There is a series of new measures to improve safety in your White Paper. How are you monitoring the impact of the recently announced measures, and how quickly do you expect to see an impact on these safety indicators and a reduction in the incidents of the nature we now see happening on a worrying, frequent basis? Just last week a prison officer, not obviously in these figures, had half an ear bitten off. Could you please give me some information on that?
Sam Gyimah: Yes; thanks for the question. In terms of the measures, you are absolutely right; we published the White Paper but we are acting on these issues now. For example, we have trained 300 sniffer dogs to be able to detect these new psychoactive substances; we have been using them in our prisons now; we also have mandatory testing. This allows us to identify prisoners who have taken these psychoactive substances and, where they deserve punishment, they are punished, but also where there is a need for treatment that treatment is given.
The evidence tells us that, when mandatory testing was introduced several years ago against different sets of drugs, it had an effect in terms of deterring people from taking these drugs. These drugs are now illegal. So that is why we are doing that in terms of dealing with NPS.
With regard to mobile phones, they are used either for criminal activity to organise and get these drugs into prison or by some people to terrorise their victims, but also many prisoners would use them as a way of posting things on social media. Mobile phones are illegal in prisons. Since our last debate, we have made progress with the mobile network operators, and we have come to an agreement with them whereby we will be able to deny and disrupt mobile phone signals in our prisons. We are starting in three prisons. I cannot go into the detail obviously because of the security reasons that underpin that, but that is significant progress as it will enable us to disrupt the criminal activity that underpins getting these things into our prisons. The mark‑up on these drugs in prisons is sometimes 10 times the street value, so by denying and disrupting mobile phone signals we stop that as well.
But, practically, what Michael and I and the rest of the team in the MOJ do daily is to realise that the situation is incredibly unpredictable in our jails. As I alluded to earlier on, moving a particularly difficult prisoner into a new prison can have a destabilising effect on the prison regime. We saw this in Lewes and we saw something similar in Bedford. So, by having these twice daily meetings and speaking to governors in jails where we know the situation is problematic, we can identify problems and deal with them immediately. Those are some of the things we are doing.
In addition to all of these, staffing and dealing with the staffing problem would help to bring forward an immediate impact in addressing all of this, and that is why staffing has been a big priority for us. But I will end by saying that this does not mean that reform somehow sits somewhere else. I also believe that, ultimately, delivering on the great reforms that we have outlined in the White Paper would help deliver safe prisons.
Q22 Marie Rimmer: Can I come back, Minister? I have read all of that in the report and I understand it, and I understand the problems that are there. Could you answer my question, please? How quickly do you expect to see the impact on these safety indicators on the reduction of these horrible, horrendous incidents in our prisons? How quickly do you expect to see that?
Sam Gyimah: If you are asking me to give you a timeframe, the best answer I can give you is that it will take time, but we are taking actions today to make sure that we deal with prisoner assaults today, that we deal with violence in our jails today, but also where prison officers are assaulted today that there is swift justice. For example, I am looking at making sure that, where there is an assault against a prison officer and someone is prosecuted, that they get a consecutive rather than a concurrent sentence. So we are taking a lot of actions today to deal with the situation. But, in all honesty, these problems were a long time in the making and I would be kidding the Committee if I said that somehow the situation could be turned around within a very short timeframe. It will take time.
Q23 Marie Rimmer: The violence reduction project is due to come to an end in December this year. Why do you think the project does not appear to have been successful in achieving a reduction in the violence to date, Mr Spurr?
Michael Spurr: The project led to a whole range of things that we are now doing that we believe will make a difference to violence. In normal circumstances, I would have expected a lot of the work that the project had done to have stabilised and reduced the levels of violence. In reality, I do not think that has been the case, because, frankly, the pressures that we face, both in terms of the type and complexity of the people we are dealing with, the mental health problems that they bring with them and all the other issues, have meant that it has been greater than we could have anticipated, and that is why the additional staffing in addition to all the work that we have done on the violence reduction programme became an absolute necessity recognised by Ministers and by the Treasury. But there is a whole range of things we are doing as a result of that violence reduction project.
They have identified for individual establishments a whole range of tools, including where violence is taking place, to be able to reduce that risk—for example, what particular situations are most likely to lead to violence in individual jails, identified by local establishment level. It has led to the roll‑out of body‑worn cameras that are now being used much more extensively across the estate as a result of that project and in terms of the evaluation that was done with it. It has led to the development of a whole range of things such as the work we have been doing to train dogs to sniff NPS and so on. It is not that that project has not delivered a whole load of products that will help us reduce violence; it absolutely has done that. It is not closing because we have given up on violence; it has done the work we wanted it to do in identifying a whole range of measures that are now for governors to implement, and that will be supplemented by the additional resource we have that is going to be so vital to making the change.
Q24 Marie Rimmer: What does your evaluation of that project illustrate makes the single biggest difference to reducing violence?
Michael Spurr: Relationships—relationships between staff and prisoners—and that is why, as the Minister said, when we were looking at how resource should be used, we developed a model that says we are going to put that resource into prisoner officers on the landings, who will have more time. We did not build enough time into our benchmarks, as you have heard before, for staff to spend time with prisoners. All the work had said, and if you talk to commentators outside, that it has been that squeeze in ability to deal with things early with prisoners, to be able to engage with them, to get a personal relationship with them, that has been most missing over recent years. That is why we are investing in staff time to spend with prisoners.
Q25 Marie Rimmer: Has the single biggest cause of that relationship breakdown, or not being able to build it, been the staffing numbers?
Michael Spurr: I have said to you that we have not had enough staff to be able to do all that work.
Q26 Marie Rimmer: There was a reduction of 7,000, and you are trying to recruit 2,500.
Michael Spurr: Yes, but we have also closed through that period 18 prisons. It is quite important to recognise—and I mentioned that earlier—that, in terms of taking cost out of the system, one way was to reduce the number of prisons without increasing crowding. A number of staff who were working in prisons are obviously not required because those prisons do not exist any more or are not running any more. As to the additional staff that we are putting in place, as I said, we were already looking to increase the number of prison officers within my own agency resources. That was going to lead to a significant number of additional prison officers, just short of 1,000. There is now new money for another 2,500 on top of that. That will make a big difference and enable us to implement a model that does, as the Minister says, give each individual officer six named prisoners to work with. That is a significant change that we will implement over the next two years.
Q27 Chair: It comes to this: benchmarking needs to be revisited, does it not?
Marie Rimmer: Absolutely.
Michael Spurr: That is what your predecessor—
Q28 Chair: It is what we said before.
Michael Spurr: Your predecessor Committee said that the principles of benchmarking were right and that there was general consensus about that. I agree with that analysis. The ratios are not right for what we need now. We were already amending them in response to the changes. We are now able to amend them significantly because of the additional resource that the Government have provided.
Chair: That is fine; thank you.
Q29 Marie Rimmer: The prison population has changed somewhat inasmuch as we have many more elderly, sick people and people with mental health issues in our prisons. Surely, more consideration must be given to that when looking at benchmarking and ratios of staffing.
Michael Spurr: We have to have the right ratios for the type of population we have; I think you are absolutely right.
Q30 Marie Rimmer: And the training.
Michael Spurr: Yes.
Q31 Marie Rimmer: How frequently are cell searches currently taking place, and how does that compare with the rate of cell searches annually over the last five years?
Michael Spurr: I do not have that figure. Cell searching is something that is determined locally within the local security framework and governors have flexibility to determine levels of cell searching; so it will vary by establishment. You would expect—and I know—that in high‑security prisons we have routine and regular cell searches because of their nature. Obviously in open prisons it is very different. I do not have the aggregate figures with me. I do not know, Minister, if you want to say something.
Sam Gyimah: I do not have the aggregate figures, but I do know, having spoken to governors at local level, that it is done on an intelligence basis. Governors get a piece of intelligence about some contraband and then they act on that. What we have done, what we are building on and you would have seen this in the White Paper is to build on that capability to have a regional and national intelligence capability as well so that we can identify trends. For example, NPS started in one or two jails, and if we had the intelligence capability that we are building today and putting £3 million in, you would have identified that this was an emergent threat and therefore you should deal with it in a specific way. I believe that having a national intelligence and search capability, as well as a regional and local one that is intelligence‑led, is the way to deal with these problems.
But there is also another aspect and a reason why the work we are doing with mobile network operators is important. When it comes to some other piece of contraband, such as technology, if technology is the problem, then the way to defeat it is through technology. There are so many movements in and out of our jails that the best way to deal with it is to have a technological solution so that these phones just do not work, because you cannot replicate that at any meaningful human level, given what people are trying to do in terms of getting these within our prisons.
There are also practical things. You have talked about searching. I was at Leeds prison two days ago. Practical things such as making sure that the netting is in the right place, having CCTV in or around the perimeter, making sure that in that case the windows had grills rather than plastic windows, all made a difference. The governor said to me that some prisoners were using their hot kettles to try to burn a hole in the window so that someone could throw something over the wall and they could use a piece of string to get it in.
We are doing all the little things we can. I think your question is trying to point to how you deal with contraband. We are doing all those things. We need capital to deal with the physical infrastructure of a prison, to improve it, but also intelligence‑led searching and intelligence more broadly at a local, regional and national level.
Q32 Chair: You made the point about damage done and so forth, and you referred to the inadequacies of the contract with Carillion in particular. When does that come up for review? When does the contract end? Do we know?
Michael Spurr: It is a relatively new contract, and one issue has been the providers coming to terms with delivering facilities management in a prison environment. It is a relatively new contract, but, as the Minister said, we have a clear improvement requirement for our providers in terms of delivering that service. As the Minister has mentioned, he has already seen the providers with an expectation of how they are going to do that by the end of the year. We will need to review how that performance develops over the next few months.
Q33 Chair: Do you have any idea how long it is due to run for?
Michael Spurr: I think it is five years.
Q34 Chair: Perhaps you could just confirm that.
Michael Spurr: I will.
Q35 Chair: Are there penalty clauses in the contract?
Michael Spurr: Yes.
Sam Gyimah: As part of the reform programme, when it comes to facilities management, we are looking at what needs to be done centrally and what needs to be done locally. There are some aspects of this over which it might make sense to give governors more control as we review the situation.
Q36 Chair: That is welcome, because at every prison that we have visited as a Committee an issue has been raised about the inadequacy of the maintenance contract and the inadequacy of performance. It is consistent across the piece.
Sam Gyimah: As a minor point to add, based on some work that Michael and his team have done in all our challenging prisons, we have their top facilities management issues, so that we can check against their issues to see whether Carillion has delivered on a week‑by‑week basis. If this prison says they have an issue with showers, we can check that Carillion has delivered. It sounds heavily operational, but those are all important to delivering a decent regime, and we are getting to that level of detail to make sure this works.
Chair: That is welcome.
Q37 Mr Hanson: We have talked a bit about staff and I am going to keep talking a little more about staff just to see where we are at the moment. The Chair alluded in his opening comments to the problems at Pentonville. We have seen the riot challenges at Bedford, and we have seen the same thing at Lewes. We have seen a report today from HMP Hindley. Are staff shortages a contributory factor to those challenges?
Sam Gyimah: In the case of Lewes, I spoke to the governor immediately after the incident; I did that in Bedford. During the incidents I spoke to the gold commander, so I have a sense of what went on in those prisons, and I have also reviewed what happened in Pentonville. The case has been made that staffing is part of the answer to the challenge in our prisons. You have mentioned those reports. They make for quite grim reading, but in every one of those cases there is the long‑term issue; there is what happens on the day; and specifically—and you have been in my shoes as well—you know how unpredictable these prisons can be. In every one of those cases it was a combination of very specific factors. Certainly, in the case of the concerted indiscipline in Lewes and Bedford, that led to the outbreak—
Q38 Mr Hanson: Let us look at the Pentonville example. There are press reports that say that the prisoners who escaped were not found until 12 noon on the day of the escape and they had escaped sometime during the evening. Could you confirm if that is correct or not?
Sam Gyimah: Yes, I understand that. Because they were not due to be out on association in the morning, they could have been in their cells. It is when the lunchtime roll‑call happened that the establishment identified that they were two down; then then searched the cells and discovered that fact. Those are the circumstances that led to that discovery.
Q39 Mr Hanson: What else about the Pentonville escape can you tell the Committee at the moment? If, as press reports have said, people have a drill to take through bars, to leave the premises for maybe 10 to 12 hours prior to them being discovered, and to walk through a CCTV‑operated area and over a wall, why has that happened?
Sam Gyimah: There is a police investigation under way. That will establish all those facts and I will be very happy to share with the Committee the results of that investigation.
Q40 Mr Hanson: Are you intending to publish a full report on that escape in due course given what you have said now?
Sam Gyimah: I am happy to share with the Committee what the police investigation finds.
Michael Spurr: There is a police investigation that will look at the criminal issues of the escape, and we are doing an internal investigation about what led to that from an internal perspective. In terms of the summary of the outcomes of that, normally we would make that public.
Q41 Mr Hanson: I suppose the concern of the Committee is that we have seen the rise in suicides and attacks on prison officers; we have seen the report today on Hindley, which is down to lockdown, according to a report from the prisons inspector, and that all leads to the general concerns we have had about the number of staff. I want to nail down, if I may, the staffing figures that you have talked about, Minister, because your predecessor has said we have hired 1,700 prison officers, or are hiring 1,700 prison officers, against the benchmark. The Ministry has announced, and you have confirmed that again today, that there are a further 2,500 prison officers being recruited by the end of 2018.
I want to get an understanding as to whether those 2,500 are completely in addition to the 1,700 announced, and, if so, how many prison officers you expect to be in post by the end of 2018.
Sam Gyimah: The first thing to say on the staffing is that in something like 75% to 80% of our prisons we do not have a recruitment challenge. The real challenge is in prisons in London and the south‑east, where it is particularly difficult to recruit, and in some other parts of the country. The picture is mixed. That is the first point. The second point is that the new money for 2,500 staff is all new staff. We are currently 800 below benchmark, but because we have payment plus, where prison officers can opt to work more hours, that brings the 800 down to something like 334 below the benchmark. But with our normal recruitment plus the 2,500—so the normal run rate plus the 2,500 that we are looking to recruit—that would take us to something like 8,000 staff—correct me if I am wrong, Michael—by 2018 that we need to recruit.
Q42 Mr Hanson: This may be something that Mr Spurr may want to comment on as well, but we had in the September response to the prison safety report comments made that we had employed 3,100 new prison officers since January 2015, but it turns out that, of that, that was only a net gain of around 300 because of the loss of prison officers who have retired or left for whatever reason. So fewer than 10% of the prison officers who were recruited were a net gain. Our question and our concern is, when we are recruiting 2,500 by the end of 2018, how many do you have to recruit to get a net gain of 2,500?
Michael Spurr: Can I respond? If we are going to fill everything through recruitment, we need to recruit 4,000 next year and 4,000 the year after to be able to meet all our requirements. You talked about staff shortfalls. The reality is that certainly in some parts of the country it has been difficult, and in Bedford and Lewes in particular that was the case, but it is also the case that you have already identified that the work we are required to do is now greater. It is not just about the fact that we do not have the staff. Even where we have staff up to our benchmark levels, the impact of some of the challenges we face, the NPS, more escorts to hospital—a whole range of things—has led us to have fewer staff on the ground to be able to deliver regimes, which is why we need more staff in total.
As to how we are going to meet that recruitment challenge, you are quite right to say that over the last 12 months we had a net fall. I am confident we will not have that position and we will be able to meet that recruitment challenge. We are doing a whole range of things to achieve that. The Minister has talked about local recruitment. We are increasing our amount of training facilities, both nationally and at local centres. I am confident we can do that, but it is also the case that the total—that 4,000 a year— assumes that we do not have any benefit from other changes, and we will get some benefits from other changes. Berwyn, a new prison, opens in January in Wales. You will be very familiar with that. We have recruited for that new prison. When that prison is open, we will close some existing sites. Glen Parva is one that we have announced for redevelopment, but it will close for a two‑year period while we do that re‑development and we will redeploy the staff. We are not looking to lose any of those experienced staff; we will redeploy them. Where we are able to redeploy staff, that will reduce our requirement for recruitment.
Q43 Mr Hanson: What about other types of staff in prisons? How are we doing in terms of retention and recruitment of operational support staff, instruction officers and so on? Are they a problem?
Michael Spurr: If you took the total amount of staffing of all people we recruit in prison, we have a 6% deficit against our total number of staffing of all grades, and that includes operational support grades and instructors. We are able to cover some of that, as the Minister mentioned, on operational support grades and overtime grades, and we cover a lot of that through overtime and so on. Operational support grades are also a feeder grade for prison officers. Many people come in and become operational support grades, and then move on to be prison officers, so I would expect a higher rate of turnover. Their turnover at the moment is about 10% a year. But, yes, we want to recruit in all our grades, instructors in particular, where the Minister's point about local recruitment is very real. If you are going to recruit somebody to work with particular skills in a workshop, it is much easier to do that locally than it is to try to do a national, internet‑based recruitment programme. If you want somebody who can deliver electrical engineering skills in Norfolk, it is better to go out to the local market—very much so. That will help enormously in how we recruit at that level.
Sam Gyimah: The other point I would add is diversifying the pool of people that we get. For example, we will be introducing an apprenticeship programme, and that would influence the number of support and other staff in prisons that we get. We expect to recruit initially about 1,000 people through that from next year and then ramp it up from there, but we have mentioned recruiting from the armed forces. That is obviously for prison officers, but also introducing a Teach First for the Prison Service, which is a graduate programme to get graduates to come and work in the Prison Service to get some quality. We are doing a number of things to diversify and widen the pools from which we normally attract people into the Prison Service as well as putting more money into marketing and changing the way we do it so that it is not all being done nationally by an organisation. Nobody on the street knows what NOMS is—the National Offender Management Service—but people would know what their local prison is, so that is why shifting to local recruitment could help drive this forward.
Q44 Mr Hanson: Some people have suggested that there is a whole pool of former prison officers, people who have either left the Prison Service and are working somewhere else or people who have left the Prison Service and are not currently working, who could be brought back into the system on a temporary basis pending the long‑term recruitment. Is that a flyer or not?
Michael Spurr: We have some former staff who have come back—we call it the reserve option—and we are certainly offering opportunities for people who decide to leave or retire with options potentially to come back at a part‑time level to work with us. I do not think that is the solution, because most people who have left have generally left for positive personal reasons and are not looking to come back for the short term. I would certainly not discount it, but I do not think it is the solution.
Q45 Mr Hanson: A final question on staffing from me. Do you see, ultimately, one, two or three years down the line the break‑up of national negotiations on pay, or is that the devolution of recruitment and retention packages locally? Is that simply a stopgap, limited measure or are you committed to the principle of national pay levels?
Sam Gyimah: We said in our White Paper that we want to be able to change and give governors a lot more freedom in how they deploy and use staff within their prisons. Rather than prescribing how many grades of different people you have to have and how you deploy them, we would want the governor to be able to do that far more effectively.
Q46 Chair: Can you do that, realistically, if you are shackled by a national pay structure?
Sam Gyimah: It is a part of what we are discussing—what we are looking at.
Q47 Chair: It is on the table to consider.
Sam Gyimah: It is in the White Paper, so it is something we would look to implement, yes.
Q48 Chair: I understand. When people leave, do you have a systemic arrangement for leaver interviews to find what has driven them to quit, for example?
Michael Spurr: We have a system that asks people to tell us. Most do not tell us. We are trying to improve that. That was part of the work that we had established last year, but, in real terms, people choose to leave and do not always want to tell you why they are leaving. We want to try to have a more rigorous understanding of why it is that people are leaving—honest conversations with people, which we are trying to develop.
Q49 Chair: Have you looked at some of the work done in the private sector?
Michael Spurr: Yes. As I say, there is a piece of work looking at why it is that people are going and we shall report in the new year.
Q50 Chair: That is helpful. Finally, part of the work you are doing includes a strategy to address staff corruption in 2017. How big an issue is this?
Michael Spurr: I think in any organisation of our type there will always be some people who can be turned and become corrupt. It is a risk that you should never be complacent about. The vast majority of staff are very good staff who want to do a very good job and serve the public amazingly well. There is a small minority, and it is always difficult to say what is the size of that small minority, who unfortunately act corruptly and effectively illegally; and we work with the police to be able to address that. It is a crime and we have a whole range of arrangements with the police, including some joint units, to tackle those crimes when they occur in prisons.
Chair: You make a fair point that a minority taints everybody.
Q51 Victoria Prentis: One figure you do have, though, is the proportion of leavers who are dismissed because of corruption or offences like that. Is that something you monitor regularly?
Michael Spurr: Yes. The majority of people who are dismissed are dismissed for what is called medical inefficiency; they are unable to do the full range of prison officer duties. They can work probably elsewhere but they are unable to become prison officers. We had 70-something staff dismissed for conduct issues last year.
Q52 Victoria Prentis: That is corruption issues.
Michael Spurr: It is conduct issues, some of which may be involved with relationships or concerns, and so on, but it is conduct issues in general. Yes, we do monitor those. We have a whole range of data in terms of those who are dismissed specifically for issues linked to corruption and indeed for other provider organisations and those we exclude, because it is not just our directly employed staff; we have a whole range of staff who work in prisons, as you know, from a range of different partners and providers, and we monitor all of that and can exclude or dismiss our own staff if we have concerns about corruption.
Q53 Alberto Costa: Can I turn to the issue of the Government's announcement of a £1.3 billion programme of investment in modernisation, in new programmes, new prisons and closing existing ones? HMP Wellingborough and HMP YOI Glen Parva, which is in my constituency, will be the first two sites for the new five prisons. Why have these two sites been chosen?
Michael Spurr: They are both good sites in terms of their geographical position. They are both sites that we own at this moment, so in terms of that we have them as ready access. Wellingborough is obviously the site of a former prison. Part of the reason it was closed was because there was a potential requirement for up to £50 million to invest in the very poor conditions that were there. We now have funding and we can build new, modern facilities on the Wellingborough site. It is well placed to be able to serve a pretty wide population.
In terms of Glen Parva, you will be very familiar and aware that a lot of the accommodation there is very poor. We have wanted to replace and modernise that accommodation for a long time. We have determined the best way to do that is to close the site and build completely afresh, and that looks at the best way in terms of value for money terms to get the best outcome for that prison. That is why we have decided to do that at Glen Parva.
Q54 Alberto Costa: You say you will close the site and build completely afresh. Will that be demolishing the entire prison—both of these prisons—as it stands?
Michael Spurr: We look to determine what the best option is for some of the buildings. In Glen Parva's case, the bulk of the accommodation that holds young people is not very good and I would anticipate that will be demolished. In Wellingborough, there was a newer building. A lot of the older building was very poor and we will demolish it. We will look to see whether we can utilise some of the existing buildings, and that is work we are doing now.
Q55 Alberto Costa: It is the Government's commitment to build five new prisons by 2020. Is this still the Government's policy?
Michael Spurr: Yes.
Q56 Alberto Costa: Can you tell us a little more about the two sites that have been currently identified? What is the timescale for planning and commencing building, and when would you expect them to be operational?
Michael Spurr: We had a public session at Wellingborough last week. We are anticipating a public session at Glen Parva next week. I have written to staff at Glen Parva and said we would anticipate closing the prison by the end of 2017; then we will build, and my expectation is that we will open those prisons in 2019‑2020, and similar timeframes for Wellingborough. The commitment is that we will be in a position by 2019‑20 to open five prisons where the total estate restructure involves 10,000 places, some of which will open in the next Parliament.
Q57 Alberto Costa: You have mentioned public engagement. Can you tell this Committee what the policy is, pre-planning, in terms of timescale for public engagement? How much notice will you be giving the public in terms of being consulted pre-planning?
Michael Spurr: I do not have that precise figure in my head. I can write to you with that.
Q58 Alberto Costa: That is very helpful. Could I say that, as a Member of Parliament, I have checked with both prisons and have been given three working days' notice about a meeting taking place this Thursday? Would you say to this Committee that that is enough of a timescale to give local residents, businesses and constituency MPs in terms of public engagement pre-planning?
Michael Spurr: I am disappointed you were not given more notice than that.
Q59 Alberto Costa: Could I ask that you confirm with this Committee that you will be again engaging with the public, at least on these two sites, in having another meeting, perhaps with at least three weeks' notice?
Michael Spurr: I take the point that you have made.
Q60 Alberto Costa: I have not finished. Could I turn to the issue of local suppliers?
Sam Gyimah: You should definitely have been given more notice. I know we are meeting later this week. We can go into more detail on that and see how we can ameliorate the situation at Glen Parva. I suspect the fact that there is an existing prison there has probably played into the timescales. It is quite different when you have an existing prison from when you have a completely new prison being built somewhere, but I think your point is correct.
Alberto Costa: Thank you, Minister. I am grateful that you have accepted that three days is wholly inadequate. Turning to local suppliers, can you give a commitment to this Committee that, as part of the new build programme, you will look at local suppliers wherever possible in the construction of these new prisons?
Michael Spurr: We have been looking to do that. At Berwyn, the new prison in Wales, we did a great deal to try to ensure that we engaged with local suppliers, and we would want to engage with local suppliers wherever we are building for that reason.
Q61 Alberto Costa: In respect of staff, although we discussed extensively staffing issues, can you confirm to this Committee that most staff would be negatively impacted by the closure of the two prisons that have been announced to be closed, and what are your plans for existing staff?
Michael Spurr: My expectation is that staff will be redeployed. It is too broad a phrase to say that nobody will be negatively impacted. If they enjoy and want to work in Glen Parva and we ask them to work somewhere else within travelling distance, they may not like that, but my commitment to the staff has been that we want to retain the staff within the service and we will provide opportunities for them to work within reasonable travelling distance of their homes in that area.
Sam Gyimah: A minor point on that, talking about staffing numbers, is that some of this redeployment could help get staff into some of the prisons that we need as you close some prisons and relocate staff. That is another strand to give some credibility to our ability to achieve those numbers.
Q62 Alberto Costa: In respect of families of those incarcerated in custody, is it your policy to transfer those in prisons at the time of closure to nearby facilities to inconvenience as little as possible families of those in custody?
Michael Spurr: Our aim is to minimise disruption to those who are moved when a prison closes. We have had a good deal of experience of managing that over the last few years. We are not planning to close Glen Parva, as I said, until the end of next year, so that gives us plenty of time to plan how we will manage that closure as sensitively as we can. Inevitably there is a disruption if you close a place, and I cannot pretend it is an easy thing to do, but our aim is to minimise that disruption as far as possible.
Q63 Alberto Costa: My final question is: are these new prisons expected to be in the public sector or private sector?
Michael Spurr: Decisions have not been made yet about who will operate the prisons when they are built, and I made that clear in my letters to all staff when we announced what we were doing with Glen Parva.
Q64 Alberto Costa: Can you update this Committee as and when you expect to make an announcement on whether they will be in the public or private sector?
Sam Gyimah: I do not think any decisions have been made. This is a huge task, creating 10,000 places in the time that we have available. So, no, we have not even got to the stage of thinking about operating them. A lot of the focus now is on building those prisons and delivering those places as per our commitment.
Q65 Alberto Costa: Given it is a very short timescale, will you confirm to this Committee that you will update the Committee when you are considering whether to appoint the prisons to be managed by the private sector or the public sector?
Sam Gyimah: When a decision has been made, yes, I can update the Committee.
Chair: The common sense is that you will be working out who the operator is while it is under build; you are not going to wait until it is completed. It is going to happen in process, is it not, yes?
Q66 Marie Rimmer: When the Justice Secretary appeared before this Committee on 7 September this year, she said there would be a consultation on the prison safety and reform plan she was working on; yet the recent White Paper is not a consultation document, and some measures that represent a significant shift in policy have been announced for implementation by April 2017, less than six months away. Can you tell us why the Ministry has gone back on its commitment to consult with us and others on the proposals in the White Paper?
Sam Gyimah: I am not sure which specific proposals in the White Paper you have in mind, but there will be a prison and courts reform Bill. A number of the measures that require legislation will be in that Bill. For example, the role of the Secretary of State will be in that Bill, which is moving from warehousing prisoners to one where the Secretary of State will be responsible for ensuring rehabilitation. So I think Parliament will definitely have a significant role in scrutinising that legislation.
Q67 Marie Rimmer: You have not been to this Committee. We were told we would be part of the consultation.
Sam Gyimah: I think the decision has been made that the key measures will be done through legislation. I would say that being able to scrutinise legislation is a much tougher standard to apply than a consultation.
Q68 Marie Rimmer: It is one thing for the Ministry to say it but change its mind during the course of it.
Sam Gyimah: Having said that, I do not know what specific proposals you are referring to that she said would be consulted on.
Q69 Marie Rimmer: She said she would consult on any of the changes on the prison safety reform plan she was working on, and she has not been near here. That is the point I am making, but that is not you. Perhaps you can take it up when you get back. Can you explain to us why the first phase of the reforms to governor empowerment is being implemented at such a fast pace?
Sam Gyimah: These are pretty important reforms. We have discussed so far how critical the safety situation is, and I have said I believe that part of the way to deliver safety is to start on the reform agenda. That means empowering governors, having a clear outcomes framework and an accountability framework. I was speaking to Peter Clarke, the chief inspector of prisons, the other day who said the frustration for the inspectorate is that they produce reports and nothing happens. That tells me that we have to crack on with reform, and crack on with reform as quickly as possible, but in a sensible way. There are a number of measures—freedoms—that come into force in 2017‑18. There are others that come into force later on. We are not trying to do everything at once. We are taking our time, mindful of the fact that the biggest criticism on the reform agenda is that Ministers have talked about it for so long and nothing gets done. We want to crack on with it.
Q70 Marie Rimmer: Have prison governors responded favourably to your announcement about the new responsibilities from April 2017?
Sam Gyimah: Yes. I met with the representatives of the Prison Governors Association. We spoke before the White Paper. I met them and spoke to them on the day we announced the White Paper, and they all welcomed having more control over health, work, designing staffing structures, which I touched on in my response to Mr Hanson, budgets and the operating framework. They all welcomed that, because what they said, going back to a slightly different but relevant point on the issue about Carillion, is that people they deal with know that they are the decision maker and, if the prison governor is the decision maker, it is much easier for him to organise the right education and the right interventions, whether it is health or mental health, for the prisoner concerned. Putting them at the centre of safety and security, but also reform, of our prisons is absolutely vital. They recognise and welcome that, and are working with us to deliver this reform programme.
Q71 Marie Rimmer: Did they raise any concerns on the new responsibilities with you?
Sam Gyimah: They did not raise any concerns. Obviously, we are going to work through the implementation of it and they are going to be involved in the implementation; I am sure, if they have concerns around the implementation, they will come out as we go through that process.
Marie Rimmer: I was just going to ask you that question and you have answered it. Thank you.
Q72 Chair: Minister, you talked about the legislation—the prison and courts reform Bill, which will be a single Bill I take it now, encompassing both aspects.
Sam Gyimah: For the next session, that is right.
Q73 Chair: And in this session of Parliament.
Sam Gyimah: Yes.
Q74 Chair: In terms of that, one of the things posited in the White Paper is, if you like, a statutory purpose for the prison system, which I think is welcome, and you want to have that in place by the end of Parliament and reforming the requirements of the Secretary of State to report to Parliament. I think those things are welcome. You intend to legislate for improved testing for new psychoactive substances. Have you thought through how that is likely to work and how it might be enforced? Is it proposed to create a specific offence around it? Are you proposing to take some powers to enforce testing physically or by other means or what?
Michael Spurr: This is about clarifying the position at the moment where we have to define the particular drug that enables us by statute to be able to test, and taking powers to be able to have a wider net to capture the drugs, rather than having to come each time and seek a court order for a particular drug as it develops. These are compound drugs that are constantly changing. That is the aim for us to bring forward, I think, in that legislation.
Q75 Chair: The legislation needs to change to reflect the change in technology, in effect.
Michael Spurr: That is right, yes.
Q76 Chair: Another important part is extending the scrutiny in all of Her Majesty's inspectorate of prisons. Should perhaps not just the chief inspector but the whole of the inspectorate process be placed on a statutory basis?
Sam Gyimah: What do you mean by the whole process?
Q77 Chair: At the moment the chief inspector is on a statutory basis. Should not the whole process be placed on a statutory basis? Should there not perhaps be a statutory obligation to implement the recommendations of the inspectorate?
Sam Gyimah: Certainly, what is envisaged in the White Paper—and, as I said, we will work through the detail—is that, if the result or the outcome of an inspection is that a prison, for example, is failing, that would trigger and have to trigger action on the part of the Secretary of State to sort it out. That is the whole point of beefing up the inspectorate and the role of the inspectorate, which does not operate in that way now.
Q78 Chair: You have fairly referred to the frustrations of the inspectorate at the moment, that recommendations are made and nothing happens.
Sam Gyimah: Whereas in the system that we envisage something will have to happen. The Secretary of State will have to act.
Q79 Chair: At the moment, in Wormwood Scrubs 61% of recommendations were not achieved since the last inspection; we talked about Bedford, where 78% were not achieved; Isis 73% not achieved; Wetherby 60% not achieved; Swaleside 61% not achieved. Is the Secretary of State going to be required by the legislation to say why those recommendations were not acted on?
Sam Gyimah: There are three things, and I will let Michael come in as well. The first is a sharper accountability framework. We have reports, and reports say different things about different prisons. The first thing is looking at all these prisons on the same outcome basis: public protection, safety and order, reforming prisoners and life after. Having that clarity is important, and that will focus prison governors on what they are expected to deliver. The second thing is making sure that they are held accountable for those outcomes. The third thing is making sure that, if they are failing in those outcomes, someone takes action to ensure that intervention happens. The Secretary of State will have the responsibility to ensure that NOMS, the delivery agency, works with the prisons to make sure that action takes place.
Q80 Victoria Prentis: Coming back to psychoactive substances, which you identified, Minister, as one of the biggest challenges facing you in your role at the moment, I am sure you are aware of the recent television documentary that was in part about my constituency prison—Bullingdon prison—where psychoactive substances were smoked openly and filmed. It was a shocking documentary. I accept what you are saying, Mr Spurr, about the difficulties in prosecuting people, but surely there is considerably more that can be done to remove the psychoactive substances from the cells and from open places in the prison without worrying too much about the final offence with which prisoners are going to be charged.
Michael Spurr: Yes. They are clearly not mutually exclusive. We want to do everything possible to eradicate new psychoactive substances, and I am not denying how difficult it has been. They have flooded prisons in a way that people just cannot understand. The fact is that many of them have been thrown over, because the rate that they are worth inside prison is just so much more, and they have been so readily accessible up to now in the community. Actually, our response is as good internationally as any, but it has been far too—
Q81 Victoria Prentis: It is nothing like good enough, is it?
Michael Spurr: It has been far too low. I was just going to say that. We are the first law enforcement agency to train dogs to sniff NPS; we are the first one that has done that; but it has been very delayed, and that has meant that we have not been able to get on top of this to the degree that any of us would have wanted. I am not denying that at all. You are quite right, and we have to. But I think we are now beginning to make an impact. The whole point about being able to test is really important so that people know that we are testing. We have a huge education campaign going on with health partners about what this does to people, because it kills people in terms of taking these drugs.
Q82 Victoria Prentis: In somewhere like Bullingdon how often would the average prisoner be tested?
Michael Spurr: In terms of the MDT requirements, we test 5% randomly and 5% of the population on intelligence. Governors can do more of that. It is an issue about resourcing, but the point initially—
Q83 Victoria Prentis: Will those resources be provided to enable governors to do more?
Michael Spurr: It goes along with my point that, as we increase staffing generally, you increase resilience within the prison. My point to Mr Hanson was that it is not just that we are short of staff, but Bullingdon has been short of staff. It is an issue about retention, as you know, in that particular part of the country, but even if it was fully staffed it does not have sufficient resource to be able to do the range of things that we now need to do. Having staff around residentially allows you to do other things as well. That will enhance our overall regime provision and resilience; and, of course, supervision, policing, oversight and searching will all come together.
Q84 Victoria Prentis: To what extent would you assess that psychoactive substances are responsible for our current problems in the Prison Service?
Michael Spurr: They are a big part of it but not the only part. It is a whole range of things that come together, as I have said. We are operating with undoubtedly a population where imported violence is now much more spontaneous and to a much greater seriousness than we have ever seen before, where issues are settled where there are differences, where previously there might have been an odd fight and punch in which now often weapons are used to a degree they never were. I think it has been imported from how violence often has become gang related on the streets. That is a reality. Mental illness is an issue across society. We end up with a lot of people who have mental health issues, and I know again the Government are very clear about that and wanting to tackle that issue. New psychoactive substances on top of that have added to it. We have an estate that is as overcrowded as it was before in fewer establishments, and we have, as has been pointed out, reduced our costs and lost a number of experienced staff. All of that together has created a situation that is not where we want it to be, which is why the White Paper, the investment and the change that is coming forward is so welcome.
Q85 Chair: Coming back to the Bill, it is a major piece of work, just to be quite clear, introduced in this session 2016‑17.
Sam Gyimah: Yes.
Q86 Chair: It is always possible to carry a Bill over, I understand, into the next session. Do you envisage that?
Sam Gyimah: As you know, Chair, how business is handled is down to the business managers of the House, but from our perspective, as Ministers, in particular the Secretary of State, she wants to deliver reform at pace, so we will do everything we can to do that.
Q87 Chair: The previous Secretary of State Mr Gove undertook that he wished to consult the Committee on the content of the legislation. Does that still stand?
Sam Gyimah: I will be happy to share with the Committee, absolutely.
Q88 Chair: Are you prepared to submit this to pre‑legislative scrutiny?
Sam Gyimah: I am not looking at the Bill intimately, but we will be happy to do whatever we can to get consensus without delaying the process.
Q89 Chair: Perhaps I need to write to the Secretary of State about that. I understand. I have a final thing on that within the legislation. Again, previously Mr Gove was particularly anxious that the legislation included provisions to create distinct legal entities. Is that on the back burner now or is that still in play? I am talking about academy prisons.
Sam Gyimah: As you will have judged from the White Paper, we can deliver a lot of reform without creating independent legal entities, which will take time, which is on a completely different basis. So we have gone for an approach that will deliver reform as fast as possible given how critical it is to the Prison Service. So we are not looking at independent legal entities.
Q90 Chair: That will not be in the legislation.
Sam Gyimah: That would not be in the legislation.
Q91 Chair: We are going to have the devolution. The unprecedented freedoms is a phrase that is used in the White Paper. How are we going to scrutinise and benchmark that? What is the transparency that we are going to have about how that is being delivered?
Sam Gyimah: Transparency in terms of performance?
Q92 Chair: How those are being used and what the outcomes are. Will the Department draw up a league table—a set of performance measures? How are we going to see that out there to judge that?
Michael Spurr: A key part of the White Paper is that what comes with greater freedom also requires more transparency and clear accountability for how those freedoms are being used, and we are in the process with the reform prisons of developing what would be outcome measures that will be published. There is a commitment within the White Paper that says there will be league tables and that this will compare establishments. We are working through what that looks like because, as you well understand, you have to compare apples with apples. There are differences between different establishments, and it would be unfair to compare establishments being asked to do different things with ones that are not the same as they are. So, yes, that is being developed; it is a commitment within the White Paper, and there will be transparency with outcome measures set out and performance against those outcome measures published.
Chair: Again, that is something you do not need to wait for legislation for.
Q93 Kate Green: A moment ago, Mr Spurr, you said that overcrowding was one of the factors that was inhibiting the effective and safe running of our prisons, and you spoke about the investment programme that will in part, it is hoped, address that. But there are other things that can be done to reduce overcrowding too—for example, in relation to sentencing reform. Last week the Lord Chief Justice told this Committee that he believed that more use could be made of very tough non‑custodial community‑based penalties. I am well aware that, when this Committee or anybody asks Ministers about sentencing, the answer we receive is that the duty of the Prison Service is simply to implement the sentences of the court, but, of course, the Government as a whole are able to look proactively at the broader question of sentencing reform. I would be interested, Minister, to know to what degree that is something the Government are considering, and, if so, if it is in the context of seeking to address prison overcrowding?
Sam Gyimah: Reforming the prison estate will help in having a more modern prison estate. It will help deal with some of the issues around overcrowding.
As to your broader point around sentencing, I would say that prison or custody has to be a last resort, and if people have to go into custody then the MOJ's first job is to make sure that there are enough places available. I do not think that the right way to reduce the prison population is to arbitrarily let people out. The right way to reduce the prison population is through reform that cuts reoffending. Something like one in two people who offend go back through the system, and if we can make sure that lives are being turned around in our prisons then we will be reducing the prison population. That is how I would like to see us reduce the prison population.
Q94 Kate Green: There is no work going on in relation to sentencing reform. The interest is in earlier diversion.
Sam Gyimah: There is quite a lot of work on earlier diversion. There is work around problem‑solving courts, for example. But the prison population has been where it is now for over a decade. What we have now is the result of the sentencing approach taken by successive Governments of different colours and there is no way to arbitrarily reduce the prison population, as it were.
Q95 Kate Green: Is there work going on to look at the sentencing guidelines, given that the Lord Chief Justice told us last week that he felt there was more potential to make use of custodial penalties?
Sam Gyimah: As I said, there are diversionary schemes; the ones that we use are particularly for female offenders; problem‑solving courts have been mentioned. I believe the ministerial team and the Secretary of State have to focus on reducing the £15 billion reoffending bill that also drives the prison population. That is our focus, and if we can make a dent in that it will achieve the same sorts of results.
Q96 Kate Green: Looking at our prisons and the investment programme that is part of the way in which you intend to address the reoffending problem, obviously there is going to be a time lag in rebuilding and developing modern prisons, and the overcrowding problem is acute now. How concerned are you that the impact of the reforms that you want to bring in very quickly in some cases is going to be limited by overcrowding in our prisons and, indeed, the crisis that means that prisoners have to be moved around pretty frequently to manage the use of space and the population?
Sam Gyimah: I will start and then Mr Spurr can amplify the answer. It is worth mentioning that for those who argue that sentencing reform is somehow a magic bullet, if you take primary legislation and primary legislation then coming into effect, even if you thought that was the answer, you will not achieve the reforms any quicker than the reforms that we currently are pursuing. Marie Rimmer said that our reforms are going too fast. I suspect that, if you were to have primary legislation in the next session or the session after that, by the time it began to take effect in the prison system you would be north of 2020. So we are approaching this as fast as we can.
As to the estate reorganisation, we are opening a new prison, Berwyn, and Michael alluded to the fact that we are adding 10,000 new places. It will be a mixture of new prisons but in some places we will be adding house blocks, so we should be able to get to the point where we are dealing with the overcrowding through some of those measures sooner.
Michael Spurr: You are right that it would be great if we did not have crowded prisons, but we have had crowding for a very long time and the rate of crowding is much as it has been for over a decade now. The point I was making before was that to take cost out of the system we could not reduce crowding. We did not increase it particularly; it is around the same level. That does impact on what regime you can run. We try to compensate for that, and our staffing level has to have sufficient resilience to be able to cope and provide a decent regime everywhere, including those prisons that are crowded.
So it will impact on the pace with which we can drive improvement, but I am really pleased that with the new building programme—and this is a significant building programme—those prisons are being built that will be uncrowded, and we will be closing a number of prisons that are definitely crowded at this moment. There is a move in the White Paper that talks about changing the way we operate reception prisons. Prisons that serve the courts, making much better use of technology and having fewer establishments serving the courts allows us to take out of use some of the less good accommodation that we have, often Victorian, that is generally crowded and does not have the space to deliver the activity and regime one would want to be able to deliver to prisoners.
So, yes, there will be a delay, but the first of these prisons will be open by 2019‑20, which in the whole scheme of things is within sight, and that will make a big difference when that is delivered.
Q97 Kate Green: To what degree do you have prisoners now doubling or tripling up in cells?
Michael Spurr: About 24% of prisoners are held in accommodation that was designed for fewer people than are in it—either a single cell with two prisoners in it or a double cell with three prisoners in it.
Q98 Kate Green: How quickly do you expect to get to the point where cells are only holding the number of prisoners they were designed for?
Michael Spurr: Not within this Parliament or the next.
Q99 Marie Rimmer: I did not complain that you were going too fast. I asked you to explain why we had not had the consultation promised by the Secretary of State.
Sam Gyimah: Thanks for the correction.
Q100 Philip Davies: We always know that the liberal lefties will never miss an opportunity to say there are too many people being sent to prison. Obviously most people in the public would argue that probably not enough criminals are sent to prison or not sent to prison for long enough. Would you accept that virtually everybody who goes to prison has been through community sentence—often community sentence after community sentence after community sentence—and, therefore, for the cohort of people sent to prison, community sentences clearly are not working, are they? Would you agree with that?
Sam Gyimah: I would say that the vast majority of people in prison are persistent offenders, violent and dangerous, or increasingly people who have been convicted of some kind of sex crime. That is the case, yes.
Q101 Philip Davies: According to the Ministry of Justice's figures, 6.4% of first‑time offenders who are sent to prison are males and 2.6% are females. Therefore, by definition, virtually everybody who goes to prison has committed offences before and been sentenced, and has not been sent to prison. As I say, would you accept that community sentences do not work for that cohort of people who are being sent to prison, because if they had worked they would not have reoffended, would they?
Sam Gyimah: Community sentences do have a role. If someone persistently offends that is a separate question, but if you look at some of the diversionary schemes being looked at, where someone's offending is linked to a particular problem, then dealing with that problem to stop them reoffending makes sense. But, of course, we have the law and sentencing as it is, and if someone is a persistent offender it is right they are sent to prison.
Q102 Philip Davies: According to the House of Commons Library, for every 1,000 offences committed in this country, we send 18 people to prison. How many countries and which countries send a lower proportion of people to prison than that?
Sam Gyimah: I cannot tell you. I do not have the figures.
Q103 Philip Davies: It is very difficult to find one. It was a bit of a trick question for you, Minister; I do apologise. I am making the point about ignoring the siren voices. Finally, you said that you did not believe in arbitrarily reducing the prison population. You thought that was the wrong way to go. That is something with which I very much agree. The last Labour Government did that. They made sure that prisoners had to be released halfway through their sentence. Irrespective of how they behaved or whether they still posed a threat to the public, they had to be released halfway through the sentence. That was done arbitrarily to reduce the prison population. If you do not believe in that, why have the Government not reversed that decision?
Sam Gyimah: This is now a whole discussion on sentencing rather than prison reform and safety, which this meeting is supposed to be about.
Q104 Philip Davies: No, it is not. Can I point out it is not—
Sam Gyimah: I am answering your question.
Q105 Philip Davies: If you are a prisoner and you know you are going to be released halfway through the sentence irrespective of how badly you behave in prison, and you will never have to serve the full sentence handed down by the courts as you did in the past, there is no incentive for you to behave yourself in prison. This is very much linked to prison behaviour.
Sam Gyimah: If you misbehave in prison and break prison rules or commit a criminal offence, you can have days added to your sentence, either through the adjudication process that takes place in the prison or, if you had to go to court, you could then get a sentence. That is why, for example, in terms of assaults against prison officers, I am looking to make sure that any additional sentence is consecutive rather than concurrent.
As to the substance of your question, which is people being released at the halfway point, there are a number of points for consideration. Even when people are released at the halfway point, they are often on licence and they are monitored. The degree of monitoring depends on the seriousness of the offence that they committed, and if they breach that licence they end up being recalled back into custody.
Q106 Philip Davies: For 28 days.
Sam Gyimah: It could be a fixed term or it could be a standard term, in which case it could be longer, depending on the seriousness of the offence in question. Your argument is that, if someone is in for five years and they come out at two and a half years, that is a disincentive. If you were to change it, there is nothing to say that on your scheme judges would not give two and a half where today it is five years. There is no guarantee, if they felt that was the right tariff, that judges would not behave in that way.
Q107 Philip Davies: At least that would be honest, would it not?
Sam Gyimah: There is something to be said in terms of the guidelines that, when people are released, they are on licence and they are monitored for a period of time, and in some cases for some prisoners long periods of time, and if they are in breach of their licence that they are recalled. If the issue is a recall we can deal with it, but ultimately what we are concerned about is to protect the public and make sure that it is a system that enables us to do so.
Q108 Philip Davies: You have said that you do not believe in arbitrarily reducing the prison population. I agree; most people in the country would say hallelujah. But, unfortunately, you are presiding over a system that does. You release prisoners halfway through their sentence. Irrespective of whether they behave themselves or are still a danger to the public, you let them out, and then you preside over fixed‑term recalls, which brings them back into prison for just 28 days. They are two things that are arbitrarily done to reduce the prison population. So, if you do not believe in arbitrarily reducing the prison population, why don’t you scrap those two things that were done simply for that reason?
Sam Gyimah: People who argue that the prison population is too high are not arguing that, for example, someone who was put in for five and is let out at two and a half years should be put in just for two and a half. They are arguing that too many people are sentenced and they are sentenced for longer, and we have had a sort of sentence creep. I think it is perfectly fine to say that if people are released they are on licence. The prison population is high; it has been quite high at 86,000 for a long time now, over a decade. The sense that somehow people are being arbitrarily let out, which is the implication of your question, is not the case. If that were the case, the number would not have been that high for that period of time.
Chair: I would like to move on to IPP prisoners.
Q109 Kate Green: One group of prisoners not being let out are the prisoners on IPP arrangements, despite the fact that there has been indication from the Government that they intended to address measures to both prevent new IPP sentences being imposed and to deal with the backlog of those currently in prison on those arrangements. The chief inspector of prisons has been very critical of how slow progress has been in releasing prisoners on IPP sentences. Can you tell us how many IPP prisoners are currently being held in the service, how many are over the original tariff, and how many are over the tariff that they would have served if they had been sentenced to a maximum determinate sentence for the offence they committed?
Michael Spurr: I can tell you how many we have in custody at the moment and I could write to you with how many are over tariff. I think a significant majority are over tariff.
Q110 Kate Green: Under tariff.
Sam Gyimah: Over tariff. The last figures that I have are that there are 3,859 indeterminate public protection cases held in custody. The vast majority are over tariff. That does not count those who have been released and have been recalled. They are in the recall numbers, not in the IPP numbers.
Q111 Kate Green: Can you tell us how many have been released as a result of the initiatives that the former Secretary of State put in?
Michael Spurr: I can tell you there were 512 indeterminate public protection sentence prisoners released last year, 2015, compared with 300 who were released in 2011. There has been an increase in numbers over those years. The last set of release figures we had was 512. The total number in custody has gone down as a result of that. There were 4,431 IPP prisoners in custody on 30 September 2015 compared with the 3,859 now in custody.
Q112 Kate Green: Can you tell me, of the 512, how many have been recalled?
Michael Spurr: I do not have that precise figure with me. It would be the number of recalls—whether we do that by year or—
Q113 Kate Green: It may not be.
Michael Spurr: People will be recalled but not necessarily in the year they have been released, but we can write to you with those figures.
Chair: That is appreciated. Mr Vaz?
Q114 Keith Vaz: Minister, were you at the meeting yesterday with Beata Szydło?
Sam Gyimah: No.
Q115 Keith Vaz: You were not. Was the issue of foreign national prisoners raised with her?
Sam Gyimah: I was not at the meeting so I cannot tell you whether the issue was raised, but we are working with the Home Office to ensure that, in terms of foreign national prisoners, where there is a country where there are significant numbers of prisoners in our prisons who should be sent back, it is raised with by any Minister who meets with that Government. The Prime Minister had made it very clear on my appointment that tackling foreign national prisoners is a key priority. So it is something that we are working on.
Q116 Keith Vaz: Obviously you did not get a read-out; the Lord Chancellor was not at the meeting, but it is a priority for the Government. Do you know how many foreign national prisoners are currently in our prison system?
Sam Gyimah: In terms of prisons rather than in detention centres, roughly around 5,000.
Q117 Keith Vaz: I have a figure of 4,217 from the EU. The top three countries I have—these are your figures but they may need to be updated—are 983 Poles, 764 from Ireland and 635 from Romania. So, 35% of the population of foreign national prisoners are from the EU. Why have we failed so miserably to return EU citizens to their own country while we have been in the EU?
Sam Gyimah: There are a number of reasons. One challenge is that there are some countries where the prison system and the conditions in which prisoners will be held are, to put it bluntly, below the standard. There will be human rights concerns.
Q118 Keith Vaz: So you think that one of those three countries in the EU has prisons that are below the standard.
Sam Gyimah: Can you run me through the countries again?
Q119 Keith Vaz: Yes: Poland 983, Ireland 764 and Romania 635. I raise the visit of the Polish Prime Minister because I thought that would have been very high on the agenda yesterday. “Please, when you return back to Warsaw, you can take your 983 prisoners back.” Do you know what the total cost of the EU's prisoners is?
Sam Gyimah: I can tell you specifically in the case of Poland what has happened.
Q120 Keith Vaz: Do you know what the cost is?
Sam Gyimah: Of keeping these prisoners here?
Q121 Keith Vaz: The cost to the British taxpayer of the EU prisoners in our prisons.
Sam Gyimah: I have not worked it out specifically.
Q122 Keith Vaz: Well, I have. It is £169 million a year. I would have thought you would like that money to spend on the very impressive reforms that you are proposing.
Sam Gyimah: Of course.
Q123 Keith Vaz: But the problem is that on 31 December something pretty dramatic is going to happen, is it not, as far as Poland is concerned?
Sam Gyimah: Could you be more explicit in your question, then I can answer it? I am not sure whether—
Q124 Keith Vaz: You should know this because you are the Minister for Prisons.
Sam Gyimah: I am not sure whether you are asking a question or asserting points.
Q125 Keith Vaz: The derogation is going to end at 31 December. Do we have a commitment from the Polish Government that on 1 January they will have their prisoners back?
Sam Gyimah: The issue is that Poland did have a derogation that expires. We are working with the Polish Government to make sure that we can transfer their prisoners to them as soon as that expires.
Q126 Keith Vaz: Does it worry you, since this is something that Theresa May told you when she appointed you, that we have no many foreign national prisoners? So many are coming from the EU. We are in the middle of Brexit negotiations. Surely we need to sort this out quickly.
Sam Gyimah: On Poland, the reason why the Polish prisoners have not been transferred is because they had been given a carve‑out from the derogation at the start. That carve‑out expires, which is why, now, we can take action on Polish prisoners to send them back to Poland, and we are working on that.
Q127 Keith Vaz: Excellent. So on 1 January you expect a lot of them to go back.
Sam Gyimah: We were in a position to do so. In the case of—
Q128 Keith Vaz: On 1 January you expect a lot of them to go back then.
Sam Gyimah: We are working with the Polish authorities. It depends on where people are in their sentence and at what stage they are in order to transfer them back, but we are working on doing that.
Q129 Keith Vaz: That does not apply to Romania, does it?
Sam Gyimah: Can I go through it? The second thing is that, obviously in the case of Romania, I am working with and talking to the Home Office on this to engage directly with the authorities to send prisoners back there. In the case of Ireland, there are specific issues around the Irish issue that I can write to the Committee about to explain the difficulty around Ireland. I also know that one thing the Secretary of State did immediately on her appointment was to write to the Brexit Secretary of State to ensure that issues around prisoner transfers are part of our negotiations in terms of exit from the EU. So, we are doing a lot of operational things now with the Home Office in terms of the early release scheme and looking at prisoner transfer agreements, but we are also planning for life post-Brexit in order to be able to transfer prisoners from EU countries that are currently in our prisons.
Q130 Keith Vaz: The EU has not worked, has it, in respect of taking back its citizens? We now have a deadline for coming out of the EU. In the last six years—indeed in the 30 years we have been in the EU—it has not been able to take its own citizens back, has it?
Sam Gyimah: I will be able to send you the detail on the transfers to different EU countries. The best way to answer the question is to look at the evidence.
Michael Spurr: I am happy to say this. We have some of the issues. There was a derogation for Poland, and that was complicated in itself. We have been working with them because we discovered we could have transferred more prisoners back to Poland earlier; and we have written about that. The reality is that prisoner transfer agreements generally with Europe have not worked as well as anybody would have wanted to be able to transfer prisoners back. We have transferred 102 prisoners on the back of prisoner transfer agreements to all countries—102 to date on prisoner transfer agreements.
Q131 Keith Vaz: One hundred and two in how many years?
Sam Gyimah: This year.
Michael Spurr: I am trying to remember the year. It was only last year that everybody had to. Different countries effectively enacted the legislation at different points. I think it was last year that the majority did. It is very small.
Q132 Keith Vaz: Can we just go back? It is 102 in how many years have been transferred back to EU countries?
Michael Spurr: I am not sure. That is the total that we have—
Q133 Chair: You say you only started counting about a year ago.
Michael Spurr: Yes. It is a couple of years in terms of trying to get that. My point was this. I was making clear that I accept entirely that the prisoner transfer agreement has not worked as anybody would have wanted, which is the point you were making, Mr Vaz.
Keith Vaz: Exactly.
Michael Spurr: I have made that point. However, one thing we have been doing is to recognise that. So we have transferred many more prisoners abroad under early removal arrangements where, effectively, we deport the prisoners to their countries, and we find that we can do that at a much speedier level. We have removed 2,071 prisoners under the early removal scheme in 2015/16. We have been transferring prisoners at that rate. So, since April this year, we have transferred 2,071, which I accept is a different mechanism, but that is the way we have been transferring prisoners rather than using the prisoner transfer agreement.
Q134 Keith Vaz: Chair, these are very useful figures. Can I suggest that Mr Spurr could write to you?
Michael Spurr: I am very happy to write to you.
Q135 Keith Vaz: I have one final question. When you give us the breakdown of figures in the quarterly statistics, you do not give us the nationality of foreign national offenders. Would it be possible for you to do that so we can understand where the countries of difficulty are?
Michael Spurr: Yes.
Q136 Keith Vaz: Yes, you can from now on provide us with the nationalities.
Michael Spurr: We do have the breakdown of foreign national prisoners and where we have removed people to, so we should be able to share that with you.
Q137 Chair: If you can share that, that would be extremely helpful.
Sam Gyimah: Can I put something on record, Mr Vaz, in terms of the first question and the number? As of 30 September this year, there were 6,688 foreign national offenders serving a custodial sentence in prison in England and Wales. Sometimes the numbers appear higher because there are people on remand, of which there are 1,727, and then there are those who are in non‑criminal custody of around 1,565. That is why you might have thought there was a discrepancy.
Q138 Chair: As you, Mr Spurr, have very helpfully said, if you can set that out in writing to us, that would be very useful.
Michael Spurr: We will do that.
Chair: I am very grateful to you for that. Mr Costa and then Ms Green. We are nearly on the last leg.
Q139 Alberto Costa: Thank you, Chair. Minister, thank you for your time. I am mindful of time, so I will be brief. I would like to turn briefly to governor empowerment. When the previous Secretary of State gave evidence to this Committee earlier this year around March, he talked about governor autonomy. The White Paper talks about empowered governors. Could you please explain to us the difference between governor autonomy and governor empowerment, and the reasons for the apparent shift in language?
Sam Gyimah: I do not think there is a substantive difference between those two things. A different team likes to express his ideas differently. I do not think it is anything more than that.
Q140 Alberto Costa: The powers in the White Paper proposals to devolve to prison governors are not the same as those given to the reform prison governors. What powers do reform prison governors have that other prison governors will not have, and what are the reasons for not extending these to all governors?
Michael Spurr: I am not sure how you come to that conclusion. We are testing out with the reform prison governors, and I know you have a session with them, what devolved greater empowerment autonomy means and what are the mechanisms that they would want to have. Our intention is to take learning from that first phase with an aim, as the White Paper makes clear, to expand empowerment at a much faster pace across the system. I do not think there is anything that prison reform governors utilise at the moment that we would not consider rolling out to the rest of the estate. We need to look at what the benefits are from that. Certainly, the idea of deregulating and providing much greater flexibility on application of policies would apply across the estate. The Minister has referred to some of the work we are doing to drive recruitment better at a local level that we are taking from some of the learning that those early adopter reform prisons have taken forward.
Q141 Alberto Costa: I would be grateful if you could give my question greater consideration, and if, after today's hearing, there is any further information that leads you to a different conclusion, could you please write to the Committee on that basis?
My final question is that the White Paper announces a "capability strategy to support governors and senior managers to take on new responsibilities." How do you intend to support governors in preparing for their new roles, what types of training are they offered, and how do you propose to complete the implementation of this strategy in time for April 2017?
Michael Spurr: That recognises that what we are going to be asking of governors, which is what we are finding from the earlier adopter reform prison governors, is that we are expecting them to do a wider range of things, some of which were previously done on their behalf by people in headquarters. They and their senior teams will need to be able to manage that. For example, if they are going to do procurement, it will be more local. We have to work through what makes sense. At what level do you do procurement? They need commercial support to be able to do that. A number of the reform prison governors have built within their management teams a wider range of skills.
I do not anticipate that we will have got all of that and everybody trained by 2017. It is a development process. We will be devolving a good deal of opportunity for people to amend policies and regulations from April. There will then be a phased approach to how people take on more responsibilities, particularly around the financial and commercial responsibilities that many governors are looking to take on. That is a development approach and, as we develop the programme work, we will have to work through how that moves forward, ensuring that we maintain our statutory responsibilities, cover our legal responsibilities and provide people with sufficient capability to be able to do the work that we are asking them to do.
Sam Gyimah: To add to Michael's point, with the reform prisons we have governors and we also have executive governors who sit above them. Devolving the power is one thing, but making sure that at governor level all the capabilities sit in the right place is another important thing. As we go through this process we would be looking, even in the context of devolution, at what is the best approach to make sure that the governor has all the resources and the capabilities available to them, on the one hand, to organise employment locally and, on the other hand, to organise facilities management, while at the same time ensuring that they are maintaining a safe, decent and secure prison. There are some learnings from the six reform prisons. Some of them will roll across the rest of the estate; others will have to figure it out as we go along.
Q142 Kate Green: The White Paper complains about the overmanagement of prisons in terms of prison policies, which apply to very minute details of the operation of prisons, and intends, say the Government, to “strip away” some of those policies. Can you say how you intend to approach the decision as to which will be removed or kept or revised? What will the approach be?
Sam Gyimah: You are right: we spent a lot of time telling prison governors what they should do and how they should do it, when actually we should be saying what they should do and leave the how to them. The White Paper outlines the areas in which they will be given freedom, and we are looking at all the Prison Service instructions underneath those areas at the moment to make sure that, where there are direct instructions on how you do it, we get rid of them and allow the governors to decide on the how rather than the what.
Q143 Kate Green: Although the rules that are highlighted in the White Paper and the discussion around them have been something that most people would think are trivial and overmanagerial—the colour of the bath mat or whatever it is—in fact, these rules in part derive from secondary legislation, in part derive from some of our international obligations, and certainly to a degree are there to ensure the protection of dignity, health and safety of prisoners. So, how much scope is there for stripping away rules in the context of those constraints particularly under our international obligations?
Sam Gyimah: Every prison will have a service level agreement with the centre. That service level agreement will specify what they need to deliver on safety, decency and security, and in preparing for life after release and reforming prisoners. The service level agreement will specify that, but that is not the same as mandating what colour bath mats should be.
Michael Spurr: We are reviewing all the policies and there is a whole programme of work going on to look at each policy. Where it is possible to give greater permissiveness for governors to make decisions within those policies, that is how we are reviewing them and that is the aim of that review. But, of course, we will make clear what the statutory responsibilities and legal framework are that governors will have to operate in. We will retain a basic framework that governors can use certainly in the transition period from the policies that we currently have, but they will have permission to be able to amend them and put in place their own interpretation of how they want to fulfil statutory requirements at a local level. That is the way we are going to approach it. It will take some time to go through all the various frameworks and statutory responsibilities that we have, but the aim will be a mindset that says we will not mandate how a thing has to be done if there is scope to do it differently. We will set out what the statutory framework is and the requirements that governors must comply with.
Chair: Understood. Mr Davies?
Q144 Philip Davies: I have two quick things. When the Secretary of State came before us, she ruled out giving governors the freedom to allow prisoners to have sex with visitors. She ruled that out, saying that that would not be one freedom they were going to be allowed. I wonder if there are any others that you wanted to rule out at this stage. For example, Chris Grayling, when he was Secretary of State, rightfully banned prisoners from being able to have Sky TV in their cells. Would the Government allow governors to reintroduce Sky TV into the cells of prisoners, or do you want to rule out their being given that freedom today as well?
Sam Gyimah: I think I can rule that one out as well.
Q145 Philip Davies: Excellent. Going back to the IPPs, how important is the reoffending rate as far as the Government are concerned? Is it a high priority?
Sam Gyimah: Specifically for IPPs?
Q146 Philip Davies: No, just generally. Reoffending rates are presumably very important for the Government.
Sam Gyimah: Of course we want to cut reoffending, yes.
Q147 Philip Davies: Can you tell us what the reoffending rate is for people who are released from an IPP sentence?
Sam Gyimah: I cannot give you the exact figure, but the release of IPPs ultimately is determined by the independent Parole Board, and, yes, while there is an argument on one side about the unfairness of the IPP sentence, with which I have sympathy, I am also aware from the paperwork I have seen that there are some IPPs who are violent prisoners and will never get parole.
Q148 Philip Davies: If you could write to us with the reoffending rates of people who have been released on IPP sentences, that would be helpful. The last time I looked, the reoffending rate for people released from an IPP was 5%, which is one of the lowest reoffending rates for any form of punishment I have ever come across. So, if reoffending rates are very important to the Government, surely they would support IPPs because the reoffending rate for people released on them is so low.
Michael Spurr: Is that indeterminate sentences generally?
Philip Davies: No; just IPPs. If you could send us the figures, it would be very helpful because we could then see how successful or not they have been in reducing reoffending.
Chair: If you could write to us both on IPPs and indeterminate more generally, we will have a better idea. I do not say that one necessarily draws that conclusion from that. Some might, but let’s have the evidence around it and we will see where we get to.
Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time and for your evidence. There are some other issues that we will write to you on and you have kindly indicated you will send some further information to us. We will write and confirm that so that everybody knows what is going to be followed up, and I am sure there will be other occasions when we return to the topic, but I am grateful for your time and your assistance to us today. The evidence session is concluded.