Birmingham Prison

HL Deb 13 July 1990 vol 521 cc621-42

4.7 p.m.

Lord Harris of Greenwich

rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take following the report by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons on HM Prison, Birmingham.

The noble Lord said: In asking this Question, I express my gratitude to the noble Earl for attending the House to reply to the debate. He has had a pretty tough week; he will have a pretty tough week next week and indeed the week after. I acknowledge that all the more so because I can remember from my own experience what one feels like at this time in the parliamentary Session.

I have indicated on previous occasions, most recently during a debate on a report on Wandsworth prison our sense of gratitude to the chief inspector for the excellent work done by the inspectorate in its regular reports on conditions in prisons. Judge Tumim's report on Birmingham prison is an admirable document. It is clear, lucid and frank. It congratulates those concerned on the great deal of excellent work that is being carried out at the prison. I take one example. It is most encouraging to read of the prison's good record on race relations. After the criticisms in Judge Tumim's report on Wandsworth, it is right to acknowledge our satisfaction when we read in paragraph 3.47 of the report: We concluded that race relations were good with frank and open discussion of all outstanding issues". There is a great deal of praise elsewhere in the report for the work of the governor and his staff. Nothing would be worse than for us only to discuss the areas of criticism in these reports and to ignore the dedicated work that is performed by so many members of the prison service, working as they do in prisons such as Birmingham, with its squalid conditions.

Squalor. That single word summarises what Judge Tumim had to say about Winson Green. Over half the inmate population was living three to a cell, and 177 of those were remand prisoners—people not convicted of a criminal offence yet living in intolerable conditions. The majority of prisoners spent more than 20 hours in their cells and some had no exercise at all. Yet despite these conditions the majority had only one shower a week even when more could have been permitted. The prison was brought into commission fairly soon after the accession to the throne of Queen Victoria. It has been infested, as we read in the report, with cockroaches, rats, feral cats and pigeons. In addition, there is the obscene practice of slopping out.

The noble Earl told us on 29th June of the programme of improvements which is in hand and which is now being carried out at the prison. No doubt we shall hear more about that this afternoon. I wish to ask him a number of additional questions about the chief inspector's report and I have given him notice of these questions. First, what is to be done about the bath house adjacent to A wing? As the noble Earl will recall, there is infestation here by rats and cockroaches. We understand that it is to be refurbished and that work will begin next month. It is due to be finished in March of next year. I ask the noble Earl this question. Given the deplorable conditions described in the report concerning the bath house, can we really tolerate the continuance of that situation until March of next year? If that is accepted, what temporary measures are proposed to deal with the criticisms contained in the report?

Secondly, what is to be done about association? The chief inspector found that in B wing of Birmingham Prison convicted inmates could have two hours of association on four evenings in the week. Yet their number was limited to 20 at any one time and, therefore, a rota system was in operation. With up to 100 inmates on each landing, the opportunity for association comes round once in every four to five weeks. What is going to be done about that? What about the other wings in the prison? In particular I refer to paragraph 3.31 of the report. Sometimes there is no association at all. In these wings there is only the opportunity to see a video film in the chapel at weekends. The chief inspector recommends that association should be provided for remand inmates and the convicted unemployed and that evening and weekend association should be available on all wings. I shall be grateful if the noble Earl can tell us whether these recommendations are accepted and, if so, when they are to be implemented.

Thirdly, there is the question of adjudications. Regional offices will come to an end later this year and they no longer check adjudications. No separate check has been substituted at the prison. The name of the substituting adjudicator was missing in several sets of papers and on two occasions improper punishment awards had been recorded. In other instances, witnesses had not been dealt with properly. Defendants were not asked as a matter of course and as they should have been whether they wanted to put questions to the charging officer or to other witnesses. As the noble Earl will recognise, these are important questions. I shall be grateful to know what action is going to be taken to deal with these criticisms.

Fourthly, there is the question of parole. As the noble Earl will recall, the Parole Board itself has indicated its concern on this matter. In paragraph 3.53 of the chief inspector's report he says that a small cross-section of parole cases were examined. Two Section 60 men—offenders who are serving periods of imprisonment of two years or more —were recommended for release on 23rd March last year, with their parole eligibility dates being in late May. Yet no reply had been received from the noble Earl's department by the first week of September, more than three months after the men's parole eligibility dates. It is extraordinary after all the complaints about delays in the parole system and at a time when we are complaining on all sides of the House about the number of people in custody that delays of this kind are still being experienced. I should be grateful if the noble Earl could give us some explanation of why this happened and what has been done to deal with the situation.

A number of other important issues are dealt with in the report. There are the criticisms of the hospital, the need for far higher priority to be given to the provision of a new kitchen and the discontinuance of the research functions of the psychology unit—at a time when we are worried about the substantial number of people with mental problems who are being held in prison. There is also the question of the sad inadequacies of the education department. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to tell us what action the department is proposing to take to deal with these criticisms.

I propose to conclude, as I began, by dealing with the squalid conditions in which both inmates and staff are having to live at Birmingham Prison. It may be said that there is nothing new in these criticisms and that we have had them in report after report from the chief inspector. That, unhappily, is entirely true. In his report last year on Standford Hill Prison he said: The kitchen and dining hall are infested with vermin, cockroaches and birds … If the kitchen and dining hall were serving an institution other than a prison, we would expect immediate closure for rebuilding or refurbishing". The chief inspector added: In our opinion only the protection of the Crown immunity prevents this kitchen from being closed". Similar severe criticisms have been set out in his reports on other prisons—on Maidstone, on Pucklechurch, on Albany, on Hollesley Bay, on Dartmoor, on Medomsley, on Stocken and on Blundeston. Each had conditions which would not have been tolerated if they had existed in the private sector. Parts of each of those establishments would have been closed and there would probably—almost inevitably—have been prosecutions.

When I suggested to the noble Earl on 29th June that as long as Crown immunity continued so would degrading conditions in some of our prisons, he told me that I had come to, an astonishingly incorrect view". Later he said: The noble Lord knows perfectly well that Crown immunity does not mean that the Crown does not try to keep up correct standards".—[Official Report, 29/6/90; col. 1818.] All I would say to that is that if the Government are doing their best to keep up correct standards they do not appear to be spectacularly successful. Until 1984, when 19 patients died in a food poisoning outbreak at Stanley Royd Hospital in Wakefield, the DHSS strongly resisted the removal of Crown immunity from hospitals. As a result of that tragedy, immunity was lifted in 1986. I do not doubt for a moment that hospital administrators did all they could to maintain decent standards before 1986, just as members of the prison service are attempting to do at present so far as concerns the prison department establishments.

However, the blunt reality is that if the Government were to announce that as from a particular date—be it 1992, 1993 or even 1994—Crown immunity in prisons would be abandoned, I believe that it would lead to a dramatic improvement in the standards of our prisons. I say that for one very obvious reason. Ministers of this and, indeed, any other government would take considerable care to ensure that they did not find themselves being prosecuted. That is the relevance as regards the Crown immunity issue.

I am of course aware that a great deal is being done in regard to improvements. I am aware of the scale of the improvement programmes and the noble Earl does not have to convince us of that fact. I am also aware of the substantial size of the prison building programme. All those improvements are to be welcomed, as is Section 54 of the Food Safety Act 1990 as a result of which after April 1992 environmental health officers will be given some authority in connection with prison kitchens. However, Crown immunity will still remain after 1992. I believe that it should go. It must go in regard to prison kitchens. Additionally, there must be legal sanctions for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act in prisons.

I believe that the withdrawal of Crown immunity would lead to a substantial switch of resources from new building to a greatly enhanced refurbishment programme for existing prisons. It is clear that this should now be our first priority. We just cannot tolerate men and women being kept in conditions of the kind that I have described year after year, and these matters being drawn to our attention by successive reports of the Chief Inspector of Prisons.

In conclusion perhaps I may remind the noble Earl of what the chief inspector said in his annual report of 1988 about one aspect of Crown immunity. He said: The Government continues to maintain its view that Crown immunity should remain in force in respect of prison kitchens… The thoroughness and high standards of the inspections of prison kitchens that do take place is not in doubt. But they are useless without sanctions to enforce action on the recommended improvements. The unpalatable truth is that in many establishments food is prepared in disgraceful conditions better suited to another century, and inmates and staff are liable, not only to the ordinary hazards of kitchen working—hot fat, sharp knives and other heavy equipment—but also to the risks of slippery floors, pervading dirt, pest infestation, poorly maintained machinery and, often, totally inadequate washing facilities". That deals with only one aspect of Crown immunity. I have mentioned the others. The inspector's report on Birmingham Prison does indeed touch upon some of those other matters which are covered by the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. I hope that as a result of this debate and the chief inspector's report on Birmingham Prison, and his annual reports, that we shall receive some message of hope from the noble Earl today.

4.25 p.m.

Lord Elton

My Lords, I, and the rest of your Lordships are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for providing us with an opportunity to touch upon a number of major issues concerning the prison service which go beyond Birmingham. Having followed the noble Lord, at a distance, to the Home Office, I am well aware of the difficulties that the prison service faces and the way that those difficulties have been heightened by the recent outbreak of violence at Strangeways. I should perhaps add that the prison at Birmingham was one of those I visited during my three years of responsibility, and that I visited it at a time when there was considerable overcrowding and in weather at least as hot as that today, which had lasted, if I remember correctly, for some weeks.

It was the overcrowding that concerned me then. It is the overcrowding that concerns me now. Your Lordships are sufficiently familiar, I am sure, with its consequences in terms of regime, morale and conditions generally. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, illustrated that point well. I intend therefore to make only one comment on its internal aspects before turning to a possible external cure.

When I made my visit about six years ago, I wanted to see how the younger inmates in particular—many of them on remand—were coping with hot and congested conditions. I therefore asked many of them whether, if modern, uncrowded prison accommodation with a reasonable regime and time out of the cell became available to them at a distance—say 20 to 40 miles—they would wish to move there. To my considerable surprise, and with one exception only, they all said, "No". They wanted to stay in town where they could have their visits. I hope that the Minister and the department will bear in mind that reaction and perhaps test it when considering the location of future local prison accommodation.

That reaction does not diminish my concern, or the concern that we all properly feel, on reading the report. I am in no doubt about the commitment of the Government and the department to cracking the overcrowding problem. Policies developed since 1979 have resulted in truly massive programmes of building and refurbishment and even in some reduction in rates of custodial sentencing, notably among young offenders, which we must all welcome. I remain concerned at the phenomenon of what I call unnecessary imprisonment.

I had not served long in the Home Office when I recognised, first, that the imprisonment of some people is a necessity; and, secondly, that where it is not a necessity it should at all costs be avoided. Imprisonment promotes reoffending; it is, almost without exception, the most expensive response to crime known to the human race; and its consequences focus on places such as Birmingham.

It was for that reason that I determined that when I was free to do so I should try to do something to divert people from offending and to provide alternative, more constructive treatment for those who did offend and who were then convicted of custodial offences. That leads me to declare my second interest in today's debate as chairman of the Intermediate Treatment Fund and a member of the council of the Rainer Foundation.

It seems appropriate to spend just a moment of our consideration of conditions in the Birmingham prison on questions of what can be done outside Birmingham to diminish the demand for places in it, and thus to improve the regime and other conditions. The same of course applies to all local and Category B prisons. The work of the two bodies to which I have referred has that object as a principle and, in the case of the Intermediate Treatment Fund, as an overriding priority.

My chief concern remains for the young, merely because in the majority of cases the first step into criminality leads almost inevitably to a second, a third and a long journey. That is not altogether surprising: children and young adults spend a great deal of their time trying to discover who they are; by what sort of signs they should be recognised by others; what trademarks they need to secure to earn the recognition and respect of their peers. As parents we have seen that in our children and have given them our closest attention as they try to establish their own identities at school.

The unformed adolescent has no simple statement to make about who he is. He is just someone else's classmate and someone else's child. If he is noticed, it is probably without interest, and certainly without respect, except from a favoured few; but let him be convicted of a crime and he is halfway to an identity. Let him do time and he knows damned well who he is. He can read it in the eyes of most of the people he talks to. He is a hard man, someone to be reckoned with, not to be taken lightly. He has achieved a status and a role and in 60 per cent. of cases at least he will act it out and maintain it until he reaches early middle age, the age of "criminal burn out", as I have heard it called.

That self-stereotyping lays waste to the soul, ruins careers, destroys relationships and must be avoided wherever possible. There are ways in which it can be avoided and I wish to welcome the efforts which Her Majesty's Government are putting into them. They are having an effect. Figures published in the Home Office statistical bulletin this week show a drop of no less than 32 per cent. in imprisoned young offenders under 17 between 1988 and 1989 nationally. That is part of a steady and creditable fall since 1981 when 7,700 young offenders were sent to custodial institutions compared with 2,200 last year.

The issue remains a major one and exceedingly relevant to Birmingham. I wish to commend the work of the chief inspector on this. In paragraph 3.30 of his report, he records a throughput of no less than 849 young offenders, more widely defined than in the bulletin, at that prison between January and September 1989. That gives an annual rate of over 1,100 young offenders in that prison alone.

I repeat that there are a number of means of avoiding unnecessary imprisonment. My purpose in speaking is simply to ask my noble friend and his right honourable and honourable friends to pursue a particular group vigorously. By so doing they can save the taxpayer large amounts of money and preserve countless families from sorrow and distress.

The reasons for the progress already made with young offenders are well documented. They include the expansion of cautioning, the development of a wide range of crime prevention projects based in the local community and the provision of intensive, focused alternative to custody programmes for the more serious young offenders. My own organisation has made its not insignificant contribution to this success. Over the past 12 years the Intermediate Treatment Fund has made over 1,250 awards to voluntary organisations working with young people at risk of involvement in crime in their community. It has channelled £3½ million of government money to this area in relatively small amounts. In addition, the fund has attracted a broadly similar sum from other charitable trusts for these or similar projects. The Minister of State, Mr. John Patten, recently visited one such project in Durham where he expressed his approval. The project has involved the probation service, the police, the county council and national and local voluntary bodies in providing programmes that have contributed to a striking 85 per cent. fall in prison sentences and care orders for young offenders since 1986. That is a notable achievement. Promotion of co-operative efforts of this kind between statutory and voluntary bodies is a highly effective way of increasing the impact of our attack on levels of offending.

The 1,250 projects supported by the fund included almost half of all the projects started under the Department of Health and Social Security, as it then was, IT initiative in 1983. These and similar projects have achieved the first and essential preliminary to reducing the prison population. They have successfully gained the confidence of magistrates that they can provide effective controlling programmes for the more serious young offender. They recognise that such programmes confront the young person—much more effectively than can prison—with the consequences of his or her criminality and that they can successfully address the wider issues which have led to crime. We cannot reduce the prison population unless we convince the sentencers that there exists something more constructive to which the offender can be sentenced. That is the object of the exercise.

To give just three examples set up by the Rainer Foundation, the Well Hall Project in Greenwich should be of interest to the noble Lord, Lord Harris. That project successfully reduced custodial sentencing of young offenders by two-thirds from 36 a year to 12 a year between 1983 and 1986 by providing social skills training programmes that focused on the offence committed. The Rainer project in Southend achieved similar results and the Woodlands project in Basingstoke helped to set up the notion of a "custody free zone" for young offenders.

The response of the Rainer Foundation to the Home Office White Paper Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public, pays particular attention to the disproportionate sentencing of black young people to custody, and the need for support to be given to black voluntary organisations to develop services in the community for black offenders. We welcome the Home Office funding of voluntary organisations working with young adult offenders. The foundation has established two projects in Wolverhampton and Dudley to cater specifically for black offenders.

There is evidence to show that in each of the projects I have mentioned the young people sentenced to programmes had similar offence patterns and similar histories to those sentenced to custody, yet they produced either similar or lower re-offending rates and the re-offending itself was less serious and less frequent than before involvement in the project. The cost both to society and to the Exchequer was significantly less. Therefore whether it is the Exchequer or the community that my right honourable friend wishes to assist, the message is equally clear.

This kind of treatment of offenders which addresses the whole range of young adult and adult offending is surely a more humanitarian, a more cost-effective and a more effective means of coping with crime than sending prisoners of any age to endure the conditions described in the report that is now before us. Admittedly one cannot solve problems by throwing money at them, but the charm of what I am talking about is that it involves throwing less money at the problem. In any case there is more to this matter than just giving grants to the voluntary sector. The Intermediate Treatment Fund for instance is not simply a grant-giving body as over half of its time is spent stimulating, developing and advising the voluntary sector and, more importantly perhaps in some respects, in bringing statutory services and voluntary groups together.

Last year the fund paid particular attention to the North West of England. It organised a consultation between the voluntary and statutory services which has led to the development of a wide range of initiatives intended to provide magistrates with credible new sentencing options in that community. The fund is about to undertake a similar exercise in Cleveland. The Rainer Foundation has also taken an active role in supporting the Government's efforts to involve the voluntary sector in work with this age group. That is recognised in paragraph 2.17 of the Home Office discussion paper on partnership. This paper recognised the contributions made by the voluntary sector to reductions in crime. It states: Voluntary organisations are already heavily involved in the delivery of programmes for juveniles by their existing involvement in intermediate treatment schemes, the purpose of which is to reduce the use of custody for young people. Such involvement is funded by the Department of Health or local authority social services. The Government would want to maintain that involvement". At a time when the future of some government sources of funding is in doubt, that is an important commitment and one which I and my colleagues welcome and will wish to discuss with the colleagues of my noble friend in due course.

That discussion paper has come to be referred to as the peppermint paper because of the narrow range of colours now available for discussion papers. It is of critical interest to many of us in the voluntary field. I warmly welcome the Government's determination to make consideration of it a formal and effective process in what. I think is a new and imaginative way. The voluntary sector has responded with a steering group drawn from the Central Council of Probation Committees, the Association of Chief Officers of Probation, NACRO and the Rainer Foundation. The group is planning four regional conferences and these are to be funded by the Government. They will address the issues raised in the paper. I have just been asked to chair the first conference to be held in London on 10th October. I look forward with great interest and pleasure to doing so. Those who are interested in this matter and who read the columns of Hansard may wish to note the dates of the other conferences. They will be held in Leeds on 9th November, in Birmingham on 6th December and in London on 16th January.

I do not wish to anticipate the conclusions of those conferences, but they will certainly be looking at the involvement of the voluntary sector, in partnership with the probation and social services, in dealing with offenders in the community instead of in prison—and instead of in Birmingham Prison. That is an alternative to custody and is to be desired for all the reasons I have given. I hope that my noble friend and his honourable and right honourable friends will read the conclusions with care. As they do so, will they please keep constantly at the back of their minds the grim picture of Birmingham Prison drawn by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons in the report? For many thousands of young people that will be the alternative.

4.40 p.m.

The Earl of Longford

My Lords, I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Harris, not for the first time, and to endorse his general line of argument. He has given much more thought than I have to the abolition of Crown immunity, but I am sure that he is absolutely right. I shall take more trouble over that subject in future. I am also very glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and to welcome him back to our discussions of penal matters in which he played so distinguished a part when he was a Minister.

I shall not speak for long because the main points have already been made very clearly by the two previous speakers and it is late in the day. However, I should like to make one point that has not been mentioned and which may not be known to everybody. I understand that Judge Tumim, whom we must all wish to praise, is to be closely associated with the recommendations of the Woolf Report. I understand that he is to be jointly responsible for them. I cannot imagine any more helpful development.

I had the pleasure of interviewing him not long ago in connection with a book that I am writing. He has a very incisive appreciation of the situation and very clear views. He tells me that he would like to see remand prisoners dealt with in secure hostels. For the rest, except in extreme cases of terrorism for example, he would like training to be paramount. Training is his signature tune. We all know how far we are from that position. We must all be glad that he will be closely involved.

I shall not go over the ground that has been covered so well, though briefly, by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. However, I believe that there is one point that he did not mention which is raised in the preface to the Tumim Report, namely: The overall result is vastly depressing at this date in an important institution set in a great city". That is what we are discussing this afternoon—a report which is vastly depressing. He goes on to say: This state of affairs should be acceptable to no-one". I do not believe that there is any other feature of British life today which presents such a disgraceful picture. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, suggested that if those who were responsible could be prosecuted they would be prosecuted. That may be true. It is a shocking picture, and it is worth asking ourselves why that should be. Why, in 1990, with all our good intentions, these earnest debates and a high-minded Minister—I would not say that all of the Government are high-minded, but this Minister is and other Ministers, such as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, have been—is there this terrible state of affairs?

It is possible to say that it is all due to the increase in crime. Certainly over the last half century there has been a remorseless increase in crime. When I first visited prisons in Oxford 50 or more years ago there were 10,000 people in prison. Now we have touched 50,000, although it is a little less now, and according to a Home Office estimate—a forecast which has not yet been repudiated—there may well be more than 60,000 people in prison before the end of the 'nineties. That is the situation that we face. It is true that it could not happen if there was not a great deal of crime, but compared with other countries where crime is neither better nor worse, on the whole we send more people to prison. We have more people in prison because the judges send them to prison.

If I may say so, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in his very constructive approach to the voluntary side—I have been associated with youth work in various forms all my life—still did not tackle the matter of the judges. I do not know whether it is fair to say that he shrank from tackling them. The Minister may shrink from criticising the judges today. I opened a debate on sentencing a short time ago and one observation that the representative of the Minister did not offer was any criticism of the judges. Everyone criticises them behind their backs and some of us do it to their faces, but understandably the Government do not wish to say anything to affront them.

Lord Elton

My Lords, if the noble Earl will give way, I wish only to say that I am just beginning, so give me a chance. The noble Earl said that I should perhaps be tackling the judges as well as the magistrates, but I am only just beginning my task and cannot vouch for what may happen later.

The Earl of Longford

My Lords, I shall not repeat the speech that I made not long ago when opening the debate on sentencing. I shall just say once again that we have too many people in prison because the judges send them there. That is a problem for the Government. They have to handle the situation tactfully; but I hope they will do so firmly. Until something is done to induce the judges to send fewer people to prison these problems will continue.

I do not want to spend the last minute or so simply repeating what I have said before. I should like to offer the House another thought, of which I have given notice to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, who handles these matters with so much desire to be helpful. The other day I was shown figures for overcrowding in British prisons. According to the figures, which appear to come from official sources, in February the system overall was only 5.3 per cent. overcrowded. As the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, there has been a welcome reduction in the number of young people sent to prison. So some of those prisons can be far from overcrowded; indeed, very much the opposite. We are told that there is only 5.3 per cent. overcrowding generally. But in February overcrowding in Leeds Prison was 95 per cent., in Bedford Prison 88 per cent., in Birmingham Prison 75 per cent. and in Leicester Prison 72 per cent: At the end of March, Strangeways Prison was 65 per cent. overcrowded.

I have given notice of my question to the noble Earl. Leaving aside the judges, let us assume that a large number of people are sent to prison. Why is there such terrible maldistribution of the prison population? I must repeat the question: what steps does the Minister propose to take to improve the distribution of the prison population?

4.47 p.m.

Baroness Ewart-Biggs

My Lords, once again we are debating a report by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons. This time it is Birmingham Prison. We are very fortunate that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, has brought this subject before the House. Clearly, the report is of very great significance.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, put to the Minister some very specific questions and attached to those questions some very specific points that he drew from the report. I look forward to hearing the answers to those questions and to the question put by the noble Lord about Crown immunity. It is true that it would be quite intolerable to see conditions of this kind in any other public institution, be it a hospital, school or whatever. Yet these conditions in prisons are brought before us time and again and there seems to be no way of changing them.

I was very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, spoke about the whole area of work done by intermediate treatment. I myself have been involved in such work. There is absolutely no doubt but that it is both a humane and practical way of dealing with young people, all of whom, as he rightly said, go through a particular stage in their youth when they are against all kinds of authority. We have certainly seen that in our own children. If we can get them through that stage, we can keep them out of the tunnel of crime and prisons.

I should simply like to make a few specific points about the report and then put a couple of general points to the Minister by way of proposing action that he might take to improve the intolerable situation in so many of Britain's prisons. The first point that I should like to stress is that made by Judge Stephen Tumim in his conclusions when he says that, Birmingham's sights have been set too low". That is a polite way of saying that Birmingham Prison is not fulfilling its duty, which is clearly inscribed in every prison as one enters it; namely: to look after prisoners with humanity and to help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release". The fact that sights are too low means that that is a failure.

The next point that Judge Tumim makes, which is of great significance to every prisoner who suffers in this respect, is that: Cells had no integral sanitation and prisoners dined in their cells. Most men were therefore spending more than 20 hours per day in multiple occupation". The implications of those facts are too horrifying to contemplate. It is all very well for us in this House to speak about the grand principles of penal reform, but what matters to inmates of prisons is what happens to them every minute of the day. One reads that: Daily exercise was irregular and one shower a week was the norm". A prisoner is not therefore able to carry the burden of a long imprisonment, given those intolerable circumstances. The lack of regular exercise shows that we do not comply with European conventions. It goes against the standards that are laid down.

The other point that Judge Tumim makes in his conclusions is that: Good order was maintained without oppressions but was low on justice and humanity". If prison officers were with the prisoners for only four hours a day, there would only be scope for a functional relationship between them. There would not be any scope for justice and humanity. There simply would not be time. Given such a short period of contact, it is clear that the prison officers would find it impossible to do more with the prisoners.

At the end of his recommendations, Judge Tumim says: Our recommendations stress the immediate importance of some factors, eg. the provision of a new kitchen and better hospital practice and the urgent need for a full regime. Birmingham prison has been constrained and become content with its low level of functioning. That state of affairs should be acceptable to no one". He ends by saying: We repeat the points referred to in the Preface". The words in the preface are ominous. They were quoted by my noble friend Lord Longford. The chief inspector said: The overall result is vastly depressing at this date in an important institution set in a great city … At Birmingham, we found most of the factors we have so often deplored in our reports, particularly in relation to locals and remand centres". Apart from the inhumanity and the wrongfulness of the situation, there is also the threatening aspect. That is exactly what the inspector said about Strangeways. It is exactly what he prophesied would happen in Strangeways, and we now know exactly what happened there. I can see no reason why the same fearful results should not come out of a prison such as Birmingham which has been described in that way.

The general points that I wish to make are, first, that the NACRO report includes a code of standards based upon UN and European rules. They call for the active employment of prisoners and ample opportunities for education, recreation and time out of the cell. They call also for single-cell accommodation and clean and decent sanitary facilities.

The report before us stresses once again the critical need for the Government to draw up a code of minimum standards for conditions and regimes. They must also announce a phased timetable for bringing all prisons in line with the code. I should be grateful if the Minister would give his view on the recommendations that NACRO has made. They are reasonable and understandable proposals and I should like to know why the Minister does not wish to follow its advice.

I also draw his attention to a Prison Reform Trust report published on 25th January. It puts forward a charter for prisoners on remand. It stresses the fact that the care and custody of remand prisoners is different from that of sentenced prisoners. Noble Lords will know that remand prisoners constitute about one quarter of the total prison population. The numbers have doubled during the past decade. We know that four out of every 10 remand prisoners are not subsequently received as convicted prisoners. The Prison Reform Trust report is important and I should be grateful if the Minister would give his views.

I wish to comment on a prison system which I admire enormously, as do many people; it is that as used in the Netherlands. I have visited some Dutch prisons and read an interesting report made last year by the two winners of the Butler Trust Travel Scholarship. They were a governor and a principal officer who visited various European prisons and reported on them. Anyone who has gone from a British prison to a Dutch prison feels that he is stepping on to a different planet. The Dutch prison service has achieved humane containment. If the Dutch can do so, why cannot we? Their prison ratio and crime figures are about the same as ours.

The Dutch authorities have succeeded for a variety of reasons. First, they have the principle of one prisoner per cell. They contain prisoners within small groups. Mentally unstable offenders are treated in special clinics and, therefore, prison officers have a great deal more time to work with normal prisoners. Most important, their philosophy is that it is not sufficient that imprisonment does no harm: it must do good. To that end, and besides maintaining decent living conditions, the Dutch system stresses the contact that prisoners must keep with their families and the outside world. There are more generous visiting facilities, sometimes unsupervised. The authorities stress the importance of telephone calls and provide television, radio, newspapers and journals. Those are ways of trying to keep a contact between the prisoners and the outside world. Clearly, that is of help not only during the sentence, because it keeps down tension, but also because it assists the prisoners to resume a normal life when they are released. Much is also done to retain a prisoner's individuality and sense of dignity. For example, the prisoner wears his own clothes and he knows what are his rights. The report before us shows an ignorance among the prisoners as to what are their rights and what the prison is about. Of course, prisoners in the Netherlands have the privacy of a private cell.

The winners of the Butler Trust award came to very much the same conclusions when they said in the report that the Netherlands prison system has a very well deserved reputation for a positive approach to imprisonment and that imprisonment can be a point of growth. The system is well resourced and staff morale seems entirely different. That is very clear when one enters a Dutch prison. The report concludes by saying that we in Britain might usefully learn from the example of the Netherlands.

The first advice is that we should not lock up people in toilets and that integral but not intrusive sanitation should always be available. I do not know how many times that point has been made in this House. The report also believes in the greatly expanded home leave scheme. That is funded by the inmates' earnings which are very much higher there. Everything should be done to minimise the harm which imprisonment can do to families. The report also states that training rather than production should be encouraged. Higher rates should be paid for training.

Any of us who have visited prisons in those countries which are trying to move forward and which have a better prison service are enormously depressed when we read a report such as this in spite of all the good work, which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, was quite right to point out, that is done by the prison staff. Nevertheless, the final condemnation is numbing. I know that the Minister will do his very best to answer the questions which have been put to him.

5.2 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for tabling this Question today because it is an important matter. I am grateful to him for what he said about being here at the end of a hard week with yet another one to follow. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord with great courtesy, the noble Lord's intervention has made the week that much harder but that is what we are all here for.

Before turning to the detail of the report, perhaps I may refer to one or two of the matters mentioned by the noble Baroness in her very interesting speech, particularly when she commented on the Dutch system. She referred to the report of the Prison Reform Trust. That is a very well presented and detailed report which officials will wish to study. However, I believe that more is being achieved than the trust's research at six establishments might suggest. All sorts of different rules are recommended as is a charter for remand prisoners. That will be studied with great care.

The noble Baroness referred also to the Dutch system. I was interested in that. She asked whether a code of minimum standards would lead to an improvement in prison conditions. The mere existence of a new code would not necessarily improve matters. There is no fundamental disagreement as to what those pressing for the code of minimum standards and ourselves wish to achieve. Our clear priorities are to reduce overcrowding, to increase the proportion of cells with integral sanitation and to extend the regime of opportunities by increasing the number of hours in which prisoners are occupied in work, education or recreation. There is nothing between us as to that. It is merely how it should be achieved which is important. However, I shall see that the anxieties of the noble Baroness are considered and taken into account, along with the features of the Dutch system which she mentioned.

Perhaps I can turn to the detail of the report. The report by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, his honour Judge Tumim, on his inspection of Birmingham Prison in September 1989, has been noted with considerable care. The Chief Inspector begins the preface to his report with a brief reference to the remarkable and useful work being done at Birmingham Prison by members of the prison service at all levels and others who help and support them.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, for his generous comments to the staff and people who work there. They are not always acknowledged, and when one reads a report such as this it is too easy to find it wholly condemnatory. Contrary to the impression given by some noble Lords to the general flavour of the debate, the report is not wholly critical. The Chief Inspector commended the achievements of Birmingham in bringing about improved activity hours for inmates, achieving production targets, and preparing the way for more education.

There is also favourable comment on the efficiency of the prison's court work and the observation, classification and allocation of new prisoners; on the very good reception facilities; on race relations; on the good clinical service provided by the medical officers, and on the low proportion of inmates who are placed on disciplinary report. All that is good.

I was interested in what was an intellectually penetrating speech by my noble friend Lord Elton, and in his analysis of why young people strive to become a personality. He said that they do it successfully when they have been "inside". I find that a rather alarming prospect though I have no doubt that he is correct.

Her Majesty's Government agree that it is better to do service within the community where that is possible, especially for the lower levels of crime. That is one of the shifts which we are trying to encourage. As the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said, prisons must accept what the courts send to them. That is what they are there for. I am also interested in the conferences on offenders in the community referred to by my noble friend. This is a shift which we must bring about.

Birmingham has operated as a local prison since it opened in the mid-19th century. It accommodates adult unsentenced males and produces them at court as required. It also holds sentenced male adults and young offenders in order to assess their security category and their appropriate subsequent allocation to other prisons. An extensive programme of building work to provide the prison with facilities in keeping with modern standards and to relieve overcrowding has been under way for the past 10 years, though one might not have thought that from some of the comments made. That work will continue well into the 1990s. We fully recognise that more needs to be done to improve conditions in existing prisons. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has already made arrangements for funds to be switched from the new prison building programme to allow more improvements to be made.

Because Birmingham is a large and busy local prison there are severe constraints on undertaking major building work. That inevitably affects the pace at which work can proceed. The Chief Inspector acknowledged in his report that the long timescale for effecting improvements is unavoidable. The total cost of the redevelopment programme is around £16 million. Major items which have already been completed include a new entry complex with new facilities for prison visits and for the reception and discharge of inmates. Work at present being undertaken includes a new accommodation block for 172 inmates, which is due for completion in July 1991.

The Chief Inspector made a number of recommendations regarding the physical conditions at the establishment, and action is in hand on them. The refurbishment of the main bath house will start next month with completion due in March 1991. To answer a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I can assure him that during the refurbishment work additional showering facilities will be available in a temporary building.

Work is also planned to start in the autumn of this year on resiting and re-equipping the laundry. The construction of a new kitchen is due to begin in early 1992, once the related building work has been completed. In that connection we are spending £11 million a year on improving kitchens at 28 prisons and a further £28 million over the next two years in another 22 prisons. A great deal is therefore being done on prison kitchens. Work is also in hand on repairing structural defects and the early installation of integral sanitation and better pest control.

Understandably, the chief inspector was critical of the overcrowding in the prison. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, spoke of the overcrowding at certain local prisons and called for urgent action. The trouble is that the prison service does not have an unfettered hand in transferring prisoners. It is true that there are vacancies in other parts of the system, but it is not always feasible to put any prisoner in any vacancy. Different types of prisoner need different types of prisons.

On top of that, the numbers of unsentenced prisoners who need to be near the courts and the importance of prisoners being able to maintain links with their families are among the factors which constrain the freedom to manoeuvre. However, there has been a review of the use of the whole prison estate, which was reappraised in the light of the pressures which were caused by the April disturbances. This will enable us to announce decisions very shortly on the use of accommodation.

It is a Prisons Board priority for 1990–91 to maintain full occupancy of adult closed training prisons and to ensure that, wherever possible, no inmates who are suitable for open conditions are retained in closed establishments.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to overcrowding. Of course, overcrowding has been exacerbated by the disturbance at Strangeways and the consequent pressure on the remainder of the prison service. There are, though, a number of ways in which it is intended that overcrowding will be reduced over the next 18 months or so which were not referred to in detail in the report.

The first is the opening of the new wing at Birmingham, to which I referred earlier and which will have integral sanitation. Secondly, a new establishment for young offenders will open at the beginning of 1991 at Brinsford, which is not far from Birmingham. This will help to ease the pressure at Birmingham. The third is that the opening of the new local prison at Blakenhurst early in 1992, and other accommodation which is being built in the Midlands, will also ease the overcrowding at Birmingham. The fourth is that the general effect of the Government's overall strategy of reducing the number of convicted people who are committed to custody—a desire expressed by my noble friend Lord Elton—will of itself increase the number of prison places which are available to those who have to have custodial sentences. This policy is already having an effect. The total prison population is at present about 3,300 down from what it was last year.

The Governor and senior management continue to give high priority to the development of the regime for inmates. The inspectors commented favourably in the report on the achievements of the local regime committee. Significant improvements have been made there since the introduction of Fresh Start working. Despite being one of the most overcrowded prisons, in 1989–90 Birmingham provided its inmates with an average of over 14 hours of structured activity for each inmate per week—for example, on work and education. This is slightly above the average for a local prison.

The daily contract hours, to which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, referred, were for structured activities only in 1988–89. They do not represent the full picture of time which is spent out of cell; including exercise, visits, association or time spent in the canteen on meals. The average time out of cell at Birmingham is in all, about 31 or 32 hours per week.

Local management is considering further improvements all the time and is working, in particular, on the expansion of activities during the day, the evening and at weekends, as the inspectors have recommended. The governor is, for example, developing plans and assessing the resources in terms of building costs and staffing needs for providing additional areas for association on four landings in A, B and C wings and also considering provision for G wing.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to education. We have not yet achieved the recommendation of education on four nights a week, but Birmingham is now resourced for the provision of 48 weeks a year of full-time day classes and action is being taken to recruit new teachers to bring it up to that standard. That is an improvement on the 42 weeks a year available at the time of the inspection.

Evening association takes place once every 10 days for B Wing prisoners, who are unemployed adult prisoners. Young offenders have association every evening. All prisoners are allowed out of their cells once a week to see video films. The chief inspector commented that inmates were given little information about the prison. Action has been taken on this and a revised edition of the local information booklet will be available shortly.

New procedures for dealing with inmates' requests and complaints are to be introduced through the prison service in the autumn of this year and new guidance for both staff and inmates is being produced. Action is also being taken on all the recommendations on medical matters. The inspectors raised the question of the closing of the psychology unit at Birmingham Prison and the future of the research work that was being undertaken by the psychology unit there.

The position is that the psychology unit was closed because of a requirement to increase the psychological assessment and treatment of young men at other establishments in the Midlands; namely, young men serving life sentences and particularly those under the age of 21. That was seen as a priority task for the limited psychological resources which were available. Psychologists' posts were, therefore, redeployed in order to open a psychology unit at Swinfen Hall and to increase work with lifers at Featherstone and Sudbury.

Arrangements have been made with Reaside Clinic—the regional secure unit which is located at Rubery Hill Hospital, Birmingham—to assist when required with individual prisoners in Birmingham. In the past, the main research contribution of the psychology unit at Birmingham had been the treatment of sex offenders. The psychologist who played the major part in this research has left the prison service, but the results of his work are being used in other prison establishments.

The inspectors concluded that the general condition of the kitchen was reasonable. The food which they sampled was, they said, very good, and they considered that the menu was satisfactorily varied. There are, however, shortcomings in the kitchen arrangements, many of them caused by the inadequacies and poor fabric of the building. Much has been and will continue to be done to raise standards there before the new kitchen is brought into use in 1993. Close attention is being given to maintenance and the cleanliness of the catering arrangements. We have already improved the toilet and other facilities for inmates who are working in the kitchen.

Although the Crown is exempt from the requirements of the Food Hygiene (General) Regulations 1970, it has always been government policy that hygiene standards which are set in legislation should be met in prison establishments. I know that this was one of the matters that concerned both the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and the noble Earl, Lord Long ford. Both were also concerned about Crown immunity. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, said that if Crown immunity were removed standards would rise. Crown immunity will be formally abandoned under the provisions of the Food Safety Act, but the precise date is yet to be fixed with the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food. It will probably be in April 1992.

It has always been government policy that the hygiene standards set in legislation should be met in all establishments. Hygiene inspections of prison catering facilities are regularly carried out by the regional catering managers of the prison service and members of the Home Office health and safety section. On top of that, random, unannounced validation inspections are undertaken by environmental health officers from the Department of Health. All that is done in order to ensure that each establishment's catering facilities are formally inspected at least once a year.

Over the past two years the prison service has been pursuing a number of initiatives in order to raise the general standard. In July 1989, and more recently in May of this year, advice and guidance were issued to all prison establishments in order to bring together the legal requirements and the best hygiene practice. These cover all aspects of prison activity and particularly that relating to the food processing chain.

Good hygiene practice can do much to compensate for poor building fabric particularly in those prisons which are of Victorian origin. However, the bad fabric does not make good hygiene easy. Another relevant development relates to the provisions of the Food Safety Act and their effect on Crown immunity in the prisons. The provisions of the Act will allow local authority environmental health officers the right of entry to prison establishments in order to carry out inspections of the catering facilities and to make recommendations by way of Crown notices.

Work was put in hand on many other matters which the report brought to the attention of the director general, the regional director and the governor. The present governor of Birmingham, who took up the appointment only two months before the inspection was carried out, has already provided two reports on progress locally in implementing the chief inspector's recommendations. Indeed, he had introduced before the inspection was received a system of checks on adjudication procedures. I cannot reply on the specific cases to which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred, but in general delays in the parole process, whether at the prison or at headquarters, have been largely eliminated. The system is now managed so that the review process almost inevitably begins on time and is effectively supervised. Even when it began late in two out of 60 cases dealt with in the last three months, the prisoners were released on the date they became eligible for release.

As your Lordships will be aware, the prison department has a thorough procedure for following up on inspection reports. This report will be followed up by the deputy director general of the prison service, and he will visit Birmingham in order to do that. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons will be informed of the progress on his recommendations.

As I think noble Lords will appreciate, much work and effort —and considerable financial resources—have been put into improving the conditions and the quality of life for inmates and into improving staff morale at Birmingham as well as elsewhere. A great deal has been done, more is already under way and yet more is planned for the future. This all adds up to a great deal more than is apparent from a reading of the text or the chief inspector's report.

The regional director for the Midland region has kept a close eye on the prison and has noted with encouragement the gradual and sustained improvement in the overall regime there during the time both of the present governor and the previous governor. There has been much hard work by staff of all grades and all disciplines at Birmingham. That is not always easy in old buildings, in a sensitive area of life and in a high profile occupation. But they have done it, and they have done it well. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for having recognised that.

They have worked hard to maintain and to improve the prisoner opportunities at Birmingham within what can only be described as a calm and relatively happy atmosphere in the prison. The staff/prisoner relationships are particularly good and are part of the main strength of the establishment. We all recognise that there is much still to be tackled and completed and are concerned to see this achieved. I feel confident that the staff and management at Birmingham will see it through successfully.

I apologise for the length of my speech—particularly on a Friday afternoon. I realise that it is a most anti-social time to make a fairly extended speech. But the noble Lord, Lord Harris, put down this Question. It was fairly critical and the report was fairly critical. I felt that I owed it to the House and to those involved at Birmingham Prison to give a full account of what is happening there and of the Government's reaction to the report.