Protection of Prison Staff

Commons Urgent Question

The following Answer to an Urgent Question was given in the House of Commons on Monday 12 May.

“I thank the right honourable Gentleman for his Question. I am shocked and saddened to hear about the serious assault against a prison officer that took place on Thursday 8 May at HMP Belmarsh. My thoughts are with the family and colleagues of the brave, hard-working prison officer at this time. We will not tolerate any violence against prison officers. Prisoners who are violent towards staff will face the full consequences of their actions.

The incident at HMP Belmarsh is subject to a police investigation. As such, we are unable to comment further in any level of detail at this stage. The Prison Service has also commissioned an investigation, and its terms of reference are being finalised. It will include details of what happened and why, as well as recommendations to prevent recurrences. We will provide updates to Parliament in due course. Separately, on 22 April we announced to Parliament an independent review of the recent terrible incident where staff were assaulted by Hashem Abedi at HMP Frankland; we will make further announcements in the coming days.

Our prison officers are some of the hardest working and bravest public servants this country has. We are committed to ensuring that they are safe at work and are able to keep the public safe. We announced at the last Justice Oral Questions that the Prison Service has commissioned a rapid review of access to and use of self-cook areas across the prison estate, including their use in special units. The review will report back with recommendations in June. We recently announced a review of conducted energy devices—also known as Tasers—and there is a trial involving a small number of national operational response and resilience unit staff.

Body-worn video cameras, batons, PAVA spray and rigid bar handcuffs are currently available for use by staff, and protective body armour is already worn by specialist prison staff and officers in cases where there is planned use of force or where safe systems of work for the management of high-risk prisoners dictate. We have also announced a review into whether protective body armour should be made available to front-line staff, and that review will report in June. I repeat: the safety and security of our front-line prison staff is our No. 1 priority”.

15:33:00

My Lords, on 3 April, the Times reported that Islamist gangs had created gross dysfunction in HMP Frankland, in which a large number of convicted terrorists are held. Just nine days later, on 12 April, Abedi, the Manchester bomber, detained in the same Frankland prison, threw hot oil over a prison officer. Then, on 8 May, Rudakubana, the Southport killer, detained in HMP Belmarsh, threw boiling water over an officer there. Both those terrible attacks were by radical Islamists, in category A prisons. What steps will be taken to isolate such prisoners from access to such dangerous substances? Will tasers be issued in category A prisons, and when will stab vests be provided?

My Lords, with a prison population at 98.9% of capacity last month, a 19% increase in the number of assaults on prison officers in the last year and a shortage of prison officers, that is a bagful of problems for the Minister. Does he have an emergency plan for these problems, and what will he do to ensure that our prison officers are safe and that there is a sufficient number of them?

Like all noble Lords, I was shocked to hear about the serious assaults against prison officers at HMP Belmarsh and HMP Frankland. It is a sorry state of affairs. We will not tolerate any violence against prison officers. Prisoners who are violent towards of staff will face the full consequences of their actions. The incident at HMP Belmarsh is subject to a police investigation; as such, we are unable to comment further at any level of detail at this stage. However, in the past few weeks, since the recent serious attack at Frankland, we have announced a number of steps to improve prison officer safety, including trialling tasers, suspending the use of self-cook areas for certain prisoners and reviewing whether protective body armour should be made available to front-line staff. We also have a zero-tolerance approach towards extremist gang activity in prisons. Staff clamp down swiftly on any threatening behaviour. Our staff turn up to work to help people turn their lives around, not to get assaulted.

Prison staff work with a wide range of prisoners, from those who are the most violent to the many who are in prison for repeated low-level offending—many of whom have mental health issues and drug addictions—yet the training for prison staff is woefully short: a matter of weeks. I think that people would be shocked to hear how short that is. What is being done to expand that training and development so that staff not only feel valued but are equipped to deal with such a wide range of situations?

I share the right reverend Prelate’s interest in prison officer training. When I did my review into their training, it was clear that the period in which they have to learn the detailed and complex skills to do the job is too short. I have launched a trial in London called the Enable programme, where we are giving far more time to training. I believe that we should have a 12-month training programme rather than one of a matter of weeks. We should also give officers the time to learn the more subtle skills of being an officer. It is clear to me that one of the best ways to tackle the problems in our prisons and Probation Service is to ask the people who do the job.

My Lords, given that we all agree in this House that attacks on officers are reprehensible and cannot in any way be accepted, would it not be a regressive step to mass-provide further protective and defensive equipment for officers across the board other than the category A estate? As the Minister knows well, good relationships between prisoners and officers will not be enhanced if it is likely that defensive equipment will be used in situations where it is plainly unnecessary, and conversation can de-escalate tension?

My noble friend is right that the best way to de-escalate a problem in a prison is by jail craft—understanding the complexities and knowing your prisoners. If we look at the tools available to prison officers, we see that the best one is their mouth, but we also need to look at what we can do to protect our staff, because they need protecting in some of our establishments where they are dealing with complex and dangerous prisoners.

My Lords, one of the main causes of violence in prisons is the ready availability of illegal drugs. The Minister’s boss, the Secretary of State, stated the other day that it was her intention to try to rid our prisons of drugs by the end of this Parliament. Is that a realistic pledge?

The noble Lord is right that drugs are a massive problem in our prisons. Some 49% of people arriving in prison tell us they are addicted to drugs, and then we put them in a prison with serious organised criminals who make a lot of money out of selling drugs to them, so clearly we have a problem. However, I am interested not just in tackling drugs getting into prisons—how we tackle drones and illegal contraband coming in—but in how people can leave prison not addicted, so that when they leave prison they do not go back.

These attacks were made by dangerous individuals who had been imprisoned because of their violent radicalism, but there remains the problem of radicalisation within prisons once prisoners arrive on the estate. What assessment has the Minister made in his early months of the scale of this within the prison system and the current level of resilience in what the state and prison officers can do to protect prisoners from it?

Any gang member is a problem in our prisons. We need to make sure that we identify where they are and do all that we can to limit their activities. We know that the best way of dealing with these complex people is by trusting the staff and their expertise at dealing with them, and we need to we give them every tool at their disposal to make sure that these people are not dangerous to themselves, to other prisoners and, most importantly, to staff.