Prisons Ombudsman (Hansard, 31 October 1996)

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Blatch)
My Lords, the role of the prisons ombudsman is to consider grievances from prisoners who have failed to obtain satisfaction from the Prison Service's internal complaints system. The prisons ombudsman is performing this role effectively and the Government do not currently consider that the role needs to be enhanced.

§ Lord Taverne
My Lords, given the importance which is attached in the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, on Strangeways to the appointment of the prisons ombudsman, will the noble Baroness strongly urge the Home Secretary to access in full the recent recommendations of the House of Commons Select Committee? In particular, can she assure us that the prisons ombudsman, Sir Peter Woodhead, will have full access to the papers that he needs, which he says he has not always had, and that his brief will also allow him to question the administrative decisions of Ministers? Is it not particularly important that the ombudsman should be given full scope to perform his job properly at a time when the Home Secretary is determined to fill our prisons to bursting?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, first, as the noble Lord knows, the report came out on 29th October, which was yesterday, and we shall be responding to it in due course. The noble Lord will then see the Government's response to it. As for access, the prisons ombudsman has unfettered access to papers relating to eligible complaints. The ombudsman has been asked on a number of occasions to produce the evidence for his allegations. To date, no evidence has been produced to support any allegation that the Prison Service removes documents from files other than those concerning advice to Ministers or deliberately obstructs the ombudsman by delaying the production of files.
The noble Lord's second point concerns ministerial scrutiny. It was never intended that the ombudsman should review decisions by Ministers. It would be quite 440 wrong for the ombudsman, a civil servant appointed by the Home Secretary, to review decisions by Ministers for which Ministers are accountable to Parliament. The decisions of Ministers may be challenged in the courts by way of judicial review or on grounds of maladministration by recourse to the parliamentary ombudsman. Ministers are constantly appearing before Select Committees, again as a form of accountability for their work.

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, the prisons ombudsman and his staff perform a valuable role. Prison staff and inmates sing his praises and many Ministers have taken full advantage of his recommendations. All I ask is that the prisons ombudsman's points of view receive the full attention they deserve.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, we very much value the work of the prisons ombudsman. We responded fully to the suggestion in the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, in 1990 that there should be an independent element to enhance and develop on the existing internal complaints system which he thought worked very well. We shall continue to do that. We shall also continue to consider seriously any criticism made by the ombudsman and reply to it. We have written a number of times asking for evidence of the criticisms that have been made. To date, no evidence has been produced to support the allegations. More than 90 per cent. of all recommendations made by the ombudsman in his findings have been accepted by the Prison Service. Only in a very few cases has there been any debate about his conclusions.

§ Lord Harris of Greenwich
My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that in the report of the Select Committee for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration the committee came down on the side of the prisons ombudsman and not on the side of the Home Secretary? Is she further aware that in the course of the report it was said that Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Woodhead, appointed, of course, by the present Government as the ombudsman, warned of the effect of the changes that had been made on his independence and his reputation as an impartial investigator of grievances? Is that not a truly appalling situation?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, as I said, the report has only just been published. We have had only a very quick read of it so far. We shall respond fully to it. We are aware that the Select Committee has taken the side of the ombudsman in some views. It is a free world. It came to its own conclusions as a Select Committee. But the concept of the ombudsman reviewing the administrative decisions of Ministers is not one which we readily recognise. Any decisions by Ministers are matters on which they are accountable—fully accountable—to Parliament. I have already said that they are accountable through judicial review in the courts, through the Parliamentary Commissioner, through the Select Committee process and, at the end of the day, as politicians, to the electorate.

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey
My Lords, we are well aware that the Government are anxious to restrict the accountability of Ministers and to restrict the extent to which they take responsibility for their actions. But even on that restricted basis, is not the Minister's answer a travesty of what the ombudsmen were set up for and have been established for over the past 30 years? If they cannot question ministerial decisions, how are they keeping to their remit and to their obligations to society as a whole?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I find breathtaking what the noble Lord has just said. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has been highly accountable in a very public way. He has been subject to judicial review—

Noble Lords
Oh!

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, noble Lords may scoff. All I can say is that Ministers of the Crown are accountable publicly in Parliament, as I am at this moment; they are publicly accountable in the courts of this land; they are publicly accountable to the Select Committee process; and, at the end of the day, as a personal responsibility, they are publicly accountable to the electorate. I do not find that a matter for fun. We have a highly democratic process in this country and therefore I do believe that we are accountable.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and I both come from the same stable in local government. He will know that the local government ombudsman can only look at the processes leading to the grievance of an individual. We have given power to the prisons ombudsman not only to look at the process which may find maladministration leading to a grievance but also to look at the merits of decisions taken by Prison Service staff. That is a power over and above all the other ombudsmen.