Prison (Liverpool, Walton) (Hansard, 10 June 1992)

§ Mr. Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton)
The debate concerns a basic dispute between my constituents and the Home Office about the proposal for a new prison in Fazakerley. The need for that prison is based on a projected prison population of 57,000 in the year 2000. In the past few years, the prison population has dropped from 51,000 to 47,000. Notwithstanding those fluctuations, on 3 June, a Home Office spokeswoman said in the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo: The underlying trend means there will be more and more people in our jails.
The real problem is the admission of failure by the Home Office of its prison policy and the failure of the sentencing policy pursued by the courts. One in four prisoners are on remand, awaiting trial or sentence. Only one in three prisoners are in gaol for a crime relating to violence, sex or drugs. That prompts the obvious question: Why do we have so many people in our gaols? Why do we gaol more people than any other European country? Before we start talking about increasing our prison capacity, we must address those questions.
No one disputes the need for accommodation for the burgeoning prison population. No one disputes that any civilised society needs to provide some humane form of incarceration given that that is the punishment for so many of our crimes. However, why was it decided, within the past two weeks, to dust off a plan to build a new category B prison in Fazakerley in my constituency? We thought that that plan had been shelved 18 months ago. Now, the director general of the prison service, Joe Pilling, feels able to declare that the proposed site is "an ideal place"—without, to my knowledge, ever having visited it or considered its many drawbacks.
I can only assume that there is some sort of vindictiveness. It is certainly not the NIMBY syndrome affecting people in Walton or in Liverpool, because my constituency already has the largest prison of its kind in the country. There is a young persons unit at Dyson Hall and a special unit at Ashwell hospital two miles up the road. It is hardly a case of people who do not have prisons in their area complaining about one being built there. We are overloaded with prisons. I recall—I apologise in advance if I am incorrect—that the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd), was prominent in his constituency in a campaign against a remand centre.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd)
indicated dissent.

§ Mr. Kilfoyle
I withdraw that, although I thought that the Minister was involved in that campaign. The Minister will not face in his constituency the problems that we face in mine, because the nearest prison to Fareham is the deportee prison in Gosport. He does not have the two and a half prisons that we have on our doorstep.
I am concerned that a disproportionate number of prisoners will be located in my constituency. It is as if we have been targeted as the refuse dump for the flotsam and jetsam of society. If the prison proposal is implemented, I compute that that area of north Liverpool could have up to 6 per cent. of the prison population. That is a wholly 422 disproportionate number of prisoners to locate in any one part of the country and they will be within a two-mile radius of Fazakerley. That is in addition to the madcap announcement that negotiations are taking place between the Home Office and Mersey Docks and Harbour Company and Merseyside development corporation about prison ships in the Mersey docks. That is incredible and would turn Liverpool into a virtual penal colony, a latter-day Botany bay.

§ Ms. Angela Eagle (Wallasey)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this debate is timely, in that it is being held just days after the Minister confirmed in a letter to me that he is actively investigating the possibility of siting prison ships on the Mersey, possibly in Wallasey docks? He stated that a suitable accommodation vessel has already been identified by the Home Office and that preliminary talks about a suitable berth have been held with the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company. Does my hon. Friend also agree that floating prisons are not the answer to the current crisis in prison accommodation? That crisis vividly illustrates the Government's abject failure to deal with the crime explosion or to plan—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse)
Order. The hon. Lady is a new Member and I hesitate to intervene, but an intervention must not be a speech.

§ Ms. Eagle
I accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have one final question for my hon. Friend. Will he join me in demanding that the Government respect the views of local people and abandon these Dickensian plans to create an Alcatraz on the Mersey?

§ Mr. Kilfoyle
I agree with all that my hon. Friend says. As I have said, Merseyside is being targeted as the country's No. 1 prison centre—I know not why. Perhaps the Minister will tell us how the Government deal with such matters regionally. Why must there be such a concentration in one small part of our region to deal with a large catchment area and a large number of prisoners in the north-west?

§ Mr. George Howarth (Knowsley, North)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the people in Knowsley, and especially those in the Fazakerley end of my constituency, agree entirely with his opposition in the past, in this debate and in future to the development of another prison on the Fazakerley hospital site? I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara) agrees.

§ Mr. Kilfoyle
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support, which is shared by all parties and all sections of the community in our part of the world. We have a rare unanimity of view on the proposal. We believe that it is entirely alien to the needs of the area.
I am aware that a shortage of prison accommodation has resulted in prisoners being kept in police cells, but on 9 June—only two days ago—only 71 prisoners were held in police cells on Merseyside. How does that justify investment in a 600-prisoner category B prison? If it reduces the burden in other parts of the country, it will add to Merseyside's burden.

§ Mr. Eddie O'Hara (Knowsley, South)
Is my hon. Friend aware that a similar proposal was made only a couple of years ago? The good citizens of Knowsley, both north and south, were consulted and they expressed their 423 views clearly. They were against the proposal. They are highly indignant that, so soon after they expressed their opinion, the proposal has been resurrected.

§ Mr. Kilfoyle
This is the third attempt in three years, I believe, to site a prison on the north side of Liverpool. As my hon. Friend has said, there was a successful campaign in 1988, as I recall, that prevented a similar prison being built in Bootle. Local opposition stymied that proposal. As I have said, it was only 18 months ago that we thought that the proposal that is the subject of the debate had been consigned to the dustbin.
It is not merely a matter of building another prison on the north side of Liverpool. Where have the people in the Home Office chosen to site it? It would be the length of a cricket pitch away from Fazakerley hospital, which is a large tower block. People recovering from major surgery would be looking down on a floodlit exercise yard. I can assume only that the Home Office has thought of a new form of therapy in conjunction with the Secretary of State for Health. I cannot see the presence of a prison being conducive to the recovery of patients in the Fazakerley hospital. They would find themselves looking at a huge security wall, and those on the upper floors would be looking down into the courtyard of the prison.
Fazakerley hospital is part of the Aintree hospital trust, and the Merseyside regional health authority was in the vanguard of the hospitals that decided to opt out following the introduction of the Government's so-called reforms. In this instance, however, we are at one with the trust because there has been a long-term plan to develop Fazakerley hospital as a centre of excellence along the lines of St. James's hospital in Leeds. That ambition will be thwarted at a stroke by the proposal to build a prison immediately alongside the hospital.
There were alternative offers for the site. A company called AMEC was pre-empted by the Home Office after it had offered £3.5 million to the regional health authority to buy the site and develop it. It would have been developed in conjunction with developments on the hospital site. It was hoped that there would be auxiliary industries to the hospital along with mixed housing and secondary developments. That was not to be. The Home Office took the site and the proposed development fell by the wayside, but that development still exists as an option, especially if the Home Office were to relent.
I understand that the contractor for the Home Office project is to be Mowlem. I am sure that the Minister will correct me if it is not the case that Mowlem is involved with a rather dubious sounding organisation, Correction Corporation of America, which is attempting to run privatised prisons in the United Kingdom. Does the Minister envisage, as one of the options, a privatised prison on the site, if the project were to go ahead?
If arguments that are based on the number of prisoners in the area and on the inappropriateness of the site have no effect on the Minister, surely he should heed the extent of the opposition that has been expressed by local people. He must take some cognisance of the wide range of individuals and organisations that have come together on the issue.
It is to be expected that my hon. Friends and I would be at one, but the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Thornton) has given us his full support. The hon. Member 424 for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), a Liberal Democrat, has given us his verbal support. We have the support of the Liverpool, Sefton and Knowsley district councils, which are all vehemently opposed to the proposal, as are the Aintree trust, the Merseyside police authority, the South Sefton magistrates, the Churches and, most importantly, the people.
A telephone poll, commissioned by the local paper, unscientific though that may be, showed that 96 per cent. of those contacted were against the prison and 4 per cent. were undecided.
The proposal has nothing to offer the residents of the area. It has nothing to offer the people of Merseyside or Liverpool. It is a foolish proposition. I hope that men and women of good sense and good will can come together, look at the matter afresh and see that it is in no one's interests.
Therefore, I invite the Minister to come to see for himself what it would be like to be in the tower block looking out on a prison and to meet the various people who have expressed support for our opposition to the scheme—reasonable people, who refuse to countenance an unreasonable project.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) on his good fortune in securing the debate and making a most effective maiden Adjournment speech.
I can well understand why he sought this opportunity to debate the proposal to build a new prison on a site at Fazakerley in his constituency. Any such plan is bound to create misgivings locally, and he has powerfully represented his constituents' doubts and fears, which I can well understand. I am grateful to him for providing me with this opportunity to explain the background to the planning application which the prison service recently made to Liverpool city council on the scheme.
I should begin by explaining briefly how the prison service came to select the site for a new prison. The site was identified in 1988 after a very thorough survey of sites in the north west. That covered some 40 sites in various parts of the region. The site at Fazakerley is particularly well suited to the prison service's needs, and in particular offered a rare opportunity to acquire a site in an urban area which was readily accessible but which was at a distance from any private housing.
Having identified the site, the prison service began negotiations with its owners, the regional health authority, and opened discussions with Liverpool city council about the development of the site.

§ Mr. Robert N. Wareing (Liverpool, West Derby)
Will the Minister give way?

§ Mr. Lloyd
I shall not because I have a lot to say. If there is time towards the end, I shall let the hon. Gentleman intervene.
In May 1989, the prison service made a formal application to Liverpool city council, and at that time there were full consultations with the general public as well as the council. In September 1989, however, the city council decided to object.
By then, there were already some signs that the prison population had begun to fall and that fall continued in 1990. From a peak of almost 50,000 in 1988, the prison 425 population fell sharply to 45,600 in 1990. The fall of 3,000 prisoners between 1989 and 1990 was the largest absolute fall in the prison population since 1915. A fall of that size obviously made it necessary for the service to review the prison estate and, in particular, the likely need for new prisons.
It became clear that, on the projections at that time, there was unlikely to be a need for a new prison at Fazakerley in the next few years, and in November 1990, it was announced that we were not proposing to proceed with the project. Early in 1991, my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame A. Rumbold), reviewed the sites which the prison service had earmarked for new prisons, and in March 1991 wrote to the hon. Gentleman's predecessor, Eric Heller, to let him know that the site at Fazakerley was to be sold.
But in the past year or so, the prison population has started to rise again. Having fallen to 45,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis between September 1990 and March 1991, it rose to 48,000 in April 1992. We now have 1,400 more people in custody than we had a year ago. So far, the rise in the prison population has not been as sharp as the preceding fall, but we have needed to look again at our projections of the future prison population. Recently, the Home Office has published projections of long-term trends in the prison population, which suggest that, in the mid-1990s, there are likely to be between 50,000 and 52,000 people in prison, and by the end of the century more than 57,000.
Although uncertainty is inevitably attached to any long-term projections, they are based on a thorough analysis of the trends, taking account of a wide range of factors, including demography and measures to divert offenders from custody.

§ Mr. George Howarth
So far, the Minister has based his case on two factors: the recent rise in the prison population, and the proximity of the proposed development to private housing. Will he also take into account the considerable amount of council and housing association property in the vicinity? Not only is there a good deal of private housing in the general area; there is a good deal of residential housing in the immediate area.

§ Mr. Lloyd
There is never a perfect site. It is entirely unsuitable for a prison to be sited far away from any central population. If an urban area is involved, there are always difficulties, but I think that the hon. Gentleman will accept that private and council residential housing is not particularly close to the site, and that it is a surprisingly suitable site, given its urban surroundings.

§ Mr. Wareing
Will the Minister give way?

§ Mr. Lloyd
I will, because I said earlier that I would, but as a result I shall not have time to complete my own remarks.

§ Mr. Wareing
My hon. Friends are quite right. The Sparrow Hall estate, in my constituency, is well within a mile of the proposed prison.
My point, however, is that the Government's proposal affects another Government Department. What consultation has the Minister had with the Aintree hospital trust and the South Sefton community health council? The proposal is most objectionable: sick people in the Fazakerley hospital will face a prison just across a narrow road, and that is bound not to improve their health.

§ Mr. Lloyd
Of course we have had discussions with the health authorities. That is why the hospital is being landscaped as it is. There is no particular problem in prisons being sited near hospitals: Wormwood Scrubs and the Hammersmith hospital provide an example. It is possible for such institutions to function close to each other if they are sensibly designed and if the landscaping is good, and that is what we intend in this instance.
Against that background, we are looking again at the need for new prisons. No firm decisions have yet been made about when work will start. Too often in the past, however, the prison service has found itself unable to respond quickly to the pressure imposed on it, because it has not had sites for new prisons that it could develop rapidly. We are determined that that should not happen again.

§ Mr. Kilfoyle
Will the Minister give way?

§ Mr. Lloyd
No, I will not. I have very little time left, and the hon. Gentleman has raised a good many points.

§ Mr. Kilfoyle
What about the visit?

§ Mr. Lloyd
When I am in the area, I shall make a point of looking at the prison, but I give no undertaking to do so in the near future. As the hon. Gentleman himself suggested, the director general of the prison service will be visiting the site in the near future, and I shall certainly hear his report when he comes back.
Our forecasts suggest that there will be a particular need for new places in the north-west—

§ Mr. Howarth
Will the Minister give way?

§ Mr. Lloyd
The hon. Gentleman keeps interrupting me. I have been asked a number of questions, and I am trying to present the whole picture. The hon. Gentleman knows very well that time for an Adjournment debate is limited, and more than a quarter of an hour—more than half the time—has been taken by the hon. Member for Walton and several of his hon. Friends, who have interrupted. I have no objection to those interventions, although I was not asked, but I consider it reasonable, when I have allowed interventions, for me to be allowed to conclude in my own way.
There are particular needs for new places in the north-west. Against that background, the prison service recently made a fresh application to Liverpool city council for the construction of a 600-place secure prison on the Fazakerley site. The hon. Member for Walton argued that there is no justification for reviving the proposal to build the prison, but we expect the prison population to increase rapidly.
I shall skip over a number of points because of the interruptions, but the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms. Eagle) spoke about using floating detention centres as a temporary measure. Prisoners being held in police cells are a major problem throughout the country, but it is particularly acute in the north-west. There are 97 prisoners in Liverpool bridewell, which is unsuitable for holding prisoners for any length of time. We are considering every possible short-term measure to relieve police cells of prisoners, including floating detention centres. Again, no decision has been taken on whether we should have them or where they should be.
The hon. Member for Walton argued that it is unjustifiable at any time to site a new prison at Fazakerley, 427 and that the prison service should look elsewhere in the north-west or somewhere else in the country to meet its needs.
The prison service looked widely in the north-west before identifying the Fazakerley site. A wide range of factors must be met in choosing a site for a new prison. The site must be large enough. A modern prison for 600 inmates needs at least 35 acres. We tried to avoid sites near enough to affect houses, schools and places of worship detrimentally, since there are likely to be particularly strong objections to a prison in those neighbourhoods. We looked for a site that could meet the shortfall in places in particular parts of the country.
Finally, we looked for a site that is readily accessible to visitors, which, as anyone who has read the Woolf report will know, is a most important factor. We attach great importance to this factor as part of our commitment to helping prisoners maintain family relationships. Too often in the past the prison service has been driven to use sites for prisons that are remote and where visits by families burden them with long and wearisome journeys. Labour Members are arguing that the prison should be sited so far away that family relationships could not be maintained.
Fazakerley meets this and other criteria for new prisons. Transport in the area is good.

§ Mr. Kilfoyle
Will the Minister give way?

§ Mr. Lloyd
No.

§ Mr. Kilfoyle
It is a small point.

§ Mr. Lloyd
They are small points. If I have time before I finish, I shall give way.
The hon. Member for Walton argued that there is no need for additional accommodation in the Liverpool area, as Her Majesty's prison, Liverpool has difficulty in filling its remand wing from the local catchment area. We do not envisage Fazakerley taking adult remand prisoners. It would be used to provide training places for adult males, and would thereby reduce the number of sentenced prisoners at Liverpool.
At present, disproportionate numbers of sentenced prisoners must be held at Liverpool because there are insufficient training places in the north-west. The remaining 300 places in the prison would be used for young men on remand and would relieve pressures at 428 Hindley, which currently takes young men on remand from a wide area of the north-west, including Merseyside and north Wales, which is unsatisfactory.
Hindley is habitually overcrowded and, at present, about 100 young men who would otherwise be in Hindley are held in police cells. The opening of a new establishment in Lancaster early next year will ease some of the pressures at Hindley, but there will, in our view, still be considerable pressures there which must be eased.
The hon. Gentleman also argued that there are already too many institutions serving the criminal justice system in the area, such as the prison at Walton, the secure hospital at Park Lane and Dyson Hall assessment centre, but the prison is more than a mile from the site of Fazakerley, Park Lane is about four miles, and even the assessment centre is a considerable distance from the boundary of the secure zone of the prison.
The hon. Gentleman also argued that the prison would be too close to Fazakerley general hospital and that the hospital would overlook the prison. We held discussions with the regional health authority about that and have agreed with its arrangements for landscaping the boundary between the hospital and the proposed prison. We believe that the screening will ensure that the hospital is not adversely affected. I do not accept the argument that there would be too many institutions in that part of Liverpool. In any case, it would be virtually impossible to find locations for prisons in an urban area if they had to be near neither institutions nor housing.
One hon. Gentleman said that floodlighting would disturb patients in the hospital. In fact, the prison would be lit only to the normal level of street lighting. The prison service has made it clear that it intends to be a good neighbour in Liverpool. Not only will there be economic benefits from a new prison—an investment of about £80 million in construction and, thereafter, opportunities for about 300 jobs, many to be filled by people recruited locally—but the prison service is conscious of its responsibilities—

§ Mr. George Howarth
The Minister should visit the site.

§ Mr. Lloyd
The hon. Gentleman should also visit prisons around the country to see that it is possible to have a prison in an urban area—