Prisoners (Hansard, 19 May 1994)

§ 11. Mr. Bennett
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps the Government are taking to reduce the number of prisoners being held in police cells.

§ Mr. Charles Wardle
Refurbished accommodation at Manchester and Durham prisons has been brought back into use and other measures have been taken. Those have helped to reduce the number of prisoners in police cells from 540 in mid-March to 142 on 16 May.

§ Mr. Bennett
Welcome though that reduction is, does the Minister accept that the use of police cells is totally inappropriate for remanding convicted prisoners and reduces the efficiency of the police force? Given that the past three Home Secretaries have promised that the practice would stop 12 months ago, is not it appalling that it is still going on?

§ Mr. Wardle
I am astonished that the hon. Gentleman should ask that question without alluding to the fact that the problem arose in the north-west because of a prison riot in Manchester four years ago, when 1,600 places were destroyed. I hope that he and his hon. Friends will concentrate on the fact that Manchester prison's population is building up again, locked out prisoners are being taken in at the rate of 60 a week there and Doncaster prison will open next month with an extra 779 places. So the use of prison cells for that purpose should shortly be unnecessary.

§ Mr. Matthew Banks
Will my hon. Friend give the House the assurance that he will press ahead with the utmost vigour with the prison building programme? Without more spaces, we shall not be able to put behind bars people of the type that the British public want to see there.

§ Mr. Wardle
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It will not have eluded him that on a number of occasions in recent months my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has made telling speeches in which he has said that prison works. At the same time, the prison population has been going up, and crime figures have been coming down a little.

§ Ms Ruddock
Will the Minister admit that the peak figures he has given for the use of police cells—those for March—were occasioned by the fact that the Prison Service tried to meet the Home Secretary's target of 31 March for ending the practice of having three prisoners to a cell? Does he accept that the number of prisoners being doubled up in cells is rising relentlessly month after month and that prison officers are now expressing deep concern about the fact that current levels of overcrowding undermine the rehabilitation regime for prisoners and endanger the safety of prison officers?

§ Mr. Wardle
It would no doubt have been helpful to the House if the hon. Lady had reminded us that in 1987,5,000 prisoners were held three to a cell, whereas none are now. Thus, progress is being made. The hon. Lady is right in that in some cases additional accommodation can be used—a further 3,700 places, I think—on the basis of operational maximum usage.

§ Mr. Garnier
May I invite my hon. Friend to visit Gartree prison, which is in my constituency. There he will see that money is being well used to expand an 949 establishment where the prisoners are not overcrowded, where Prison Officers Association staff enjoy good working relations with the management and where many Opposition Members might have a happy stay.

§ Mr. Wardle
I am sure that if I do not get an opportunity to take up my hon. Friend's kind invitation, my hon. Friend the Minister of State will. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the prison building programme has worked, we have got rid of the problem of three in a cell, as we were advised to do, and the system is working far better than before.

§ Mr. Maclennan
In the light of the Minister's optimism about the prison building programme, may I ask whether he is now prepared to sink his plan for prison ships?

§ Mr. Wardle
That is no more than a contingency plan. There are contingency plans in any well-run organisation. I should have liked to hear the hon. Gentleman talk about the plans for Fazakerley prison, a privately financed establishment that will be only the second prison in Merseyside. There are more in Kent. The House will be aware that Lord Woolf said a few years ago that it is better to accommodate prisoners not on prison ships but as near as possible to their families. That is what Fazakerley will be all about. It is a good illustration.