Stocken and Ashwell Prisons (Hansard, 13 April 1989)

§ 2. Mr. Latham
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement on the arrangements for ensuring that men sent to Her Majesty's prisons Stocken and Ashwell are suitable for category C regimes.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg)
Only prisoners in security category C are sent to Her Majesty's prisons Stocken and Ashwell. The prison service takes great care to ensure that all prisoners sent to those prisons are suitable for the conditions there.

§ Mr. Latham
Does my hon. Friend recall from our correspondence the very real concern of the Prison Officers Association that men are being sent to those prisons who are really suitable for category B? In view of the serious incident which occurred at Ashwell last August, will my hon. Friend ensure that the prison department listens closely to the views of the Prison Officers Association, which represents the people who are at the sharp end every day?

§ Mr. Hogg
My hon. Friend deserves the congratulations of his constituents for the persistence with which he has acted to ensure that prisoners sent to the two prisons he mentioned are suitable for the conditions there. My hon. Friend will know that he and I are to meet shortly to discuss that particular issue and I hope that what I say then will reassure him.

§ Mr. Skinner
Will the Minister ensure that places are left available at category C prisons Stocken and Ashwell, ready for Monday's performance at the Royal Courts of Justice when the law-breaking Lords—led by Lord Donaldson, previous head of the national industrial relations court—decide to go on strike? Presumably the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General will band together to take appropriate action against the lawbreakers, but will the culprits be sent to category C prisons or to somewhere even harsher?

§ Mr. Hogg
It is for the prison service to determine whether that security categorisation is right, but persons are sent to category C prisons only if they are not a threat to the public.

§ Mr. Holt
My hon. Friend recently advised me in a written reply that of the 32,000 prisoners serving sentences of one year or more, 10 per cent.—3,000—of them are foreign nationals. Does my hon. Friend agree that if they were sent back to their own countries to serve those sentences it would make a great deal of difference to both Ashwell and Stocken and lessen the current problems in our gaols?

§ Mr. Hogg
That proposal goes somewhat wide of the question, though it is an interesting idea. The trouble is that if some of those offenders were sent back to their countries of origin they might not have to serve a period in custody.

§ Mr. Holt
So what?

§ Mr. Hogg
They would then not be punished for what they had done.

§ Mr. Sheerman
Is not this problem of categorisation in a local prison symptomatic of the problems in local prisons throughout the country? Such is the pressure on local prisons that categorisation and allocation is haphazard. Prison officers have certainly brought this problem to the attention of the Opposition. Many prisoners are allocated to entirely the wrong prisons, which bodes ill for the forthcoming summer months.

§ Mr. Hogg
As I have had cause to say before, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) is not master of his material. Stocken and Ashwell are not local prisons, nor are they overcrowded or understaffed. In many respects, they are admirable prisons. I recommend that the hon. Gentleman should do a little homework before he next intervenes in questions about the prison service.