§ Lord BELSTEADMy Lords, the Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a Statement about the present situation in the prison system in England and Wales and about the action I am taking on the main recommendations of the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the United Kingdom Prison Services (the May Committee). We shall also within the next few weeks publish a detailed reply to the 15th Report from the Expenditure Committee for Session 1977–78, and we shall publish proposals for changes in the powers of the courts in relation to young offenders later in the summer.
"As the May Committee made clear in their report, this country has for many years paid too little attention to its prisons. The result is that our prisons are chronically overcrowded and the prison service operates under severe strain. In the period since the report was published last October, the prison population in England and Wales has risen from 42,500 to a total of 44,000 on 18th April. The figure continues to fluctuate, but the present level is dangerously high. Exceptional measures by way of legislation or administrative action would be unpalatable and frustrating to those whose task it is to administer justice, but they cannot be ruled out if the situation demands them. Our primary task must, however, be to prevent such a situation from developing.
"The following action is being taken. First, we must ensure that the prison estate is adequate for the job it has to do. We have every sympathy with the May Committee's recommendation that the building programme should be increased. The present programme, together with a considerable mantenance commitment, is substantial. Work already in progress will produce some 3,400 new or refurbished places by 1985, including a major new dispersal prison which should come into use next year. Firm plans are being made to start two new major projects in both 1981–82 and 1982–83, which will provide 1,500 further places by the later 1980s. I hope to continue the programme on that basis in 1983–84 and preliminary planning is now proceeding.
1268 "Secondly, we shall continue our efforts to develop alternatives to imprisonment. The Government believe that the outside community must play an increasing part, whether through statutory or voluntary agencies, in the treatment and containment of offenders, particularly those who have not committed violent offences. We shall give full support to non-custodial methods, and we recognise the major contribution which the Probation and After-Care Service must make to them.
The mentally disordered offender presents particularly difficult problems. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services and I accept that it is undesirable to detain in prison persons whose mental disorder permits them to be detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act. We shall continue our efforts to have such persons transferred to hospitals with the appropriate levels of security. My right honourable friend will continue to give priority to the establishment of regional secure units. The programme which has been planned will make a valuable contribution to the provision for these offenders.
"A new development is that we are making public funds available to enable voluntary organisations to make a start in providing simple overnight shelter for people who would otherwise be charged with offences of drunkenness.
"Measures of this kind may not individually achieve a substantial reduction in the prison population, but taken together they can have a significant impact.
"Thirdly, the Advisory Council on the Penal System, the Expenditure Committee and the May Committee have all emphasised the need for shorter sentences. I have already said that the Government would welcome shorter sentences for non-violent offenders, and it should be possible to bring about a significant reduction in the general level of sentences without sacrificing the protection which the public is entitled to expect. I believe that such a reduction can be achieved by the exercise of judicial discretion, and recent judgments have suggested that there is an increasing awareness among judges that the less serious type 1269 of non-violent offence can properly be met by a shorter term of imprisonment than has been imposed previously.
"I turn now to the May Committee's vitally important recommendations on prison reorganisation. Like the committee, I fully support the principle of preserving direct ministerial responsibility for the Prison Service and for the treatment of individual prisoners. Subject to that, I endorse the May Committee's objective of a structure which will give the prison services a greater corporate sense and enable those in charge to be more directly responsible for its own affairs. I am, therefore, instituting a major change in the Prison Department's position in the Home Office and in its internal organisation. The Prison Department will be given wide delegated authority within the Home Office for the management of its staff and for the control of its finance. Special attention will be paid to improving the system of financial information and control.
"The present Director General will remain in his post. A new post of deputy director general will be created and the membership of the Prisons Board will be expanded to include the four regional directors and two outside non-executive members whose appointments I shall announce shortly.
"I accept the May Committee's crucial recommendations for an Inspectorate separate from the Prison Department, and for the publication of its reports. A new Crown appointment of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons will be announced as soon as possible. He will inspect and report to the Home Secretary on prison establishments in England and Wales, conducting regular inspections of individual establishments and investigating particular incidents or situations on the Home Secretary's directions. He will submit an annual report which will be published and other reports which will be made publicly available as appropriate.
"I endorse the May Committee's objective of a reconstructed regional organisation which will enable regional directors to concentrate more closely on the supervision of individual 1270 establishments, reporting directly to the deputy director general. As the committee recommended, most specialist functions will be concentrated at headquarters.
"I will, with permission, circulate further details of these organisational changes in the Official Report. Copies of this information are now available in the Vote Office.
"I endorse the May Committee's views on the need to achieve better industrial relations, to make the best possible use of staff and to improve staff accommodation and amenities. I am pursuing these matters with the staff associations concerned, with priority for improvements in the procedures for handling industrial relations, and for the design of a new attendance system and the associated conditions of service. I accept the committee's recommendation for a comprehensive review of training.
"I believe that the changes which I have announced will provide a framework in which members of the Prison Service, of all grades, will be better able to perform their difficult tasks. I shall do all I can to help them to maintain their high traditions and to develop new and constructive methods in the context of the concept of positive custody as put forward in the May Committee's Report. Work will be put in hand to translate it into the design of prison régimes and the development of prison industries, and I will lay the necessary amendments to the prison rules in due course.
"All the measures which I have announced have a common objective—to ensure an effective prison system and an efficient and confident Prison Service".
That, my Lords, is my right honourable friend's Statement.
§ Following are details of organisational changes referred to above: