Westminster Hall Sitting of 17 March 2004

Preamble
[MR. FRANK COOK in the Chair]

National Offender Management Service
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned—[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
9.30 am
Mr. Neil Gerrard: I am grateful to have the opportunity to introduce such an important debate. This is the first time that we have had the chance to discuss the new national offender management service. No one would disagree that improvements must be made to the way in which offenders are managed. That is not to say that some progress has not been made. In their response to the Carter report, the Government had a lot to say about improvements, such as the policies that have been adopted in prisons to deal with mental health and drug abuse. This year, 50,000 prisoners will be subject to clinical detoxification, which is an enormous improvement on what was happening a few years ago. As for education, I think that 50,000 prisoners will gain basic skills qualifications this year.
Significant improvements have been made. The percentage of prisoners who are in work or training compared with a few years ago has improved enormously. We all recognise that progress has been made but there are still some problems. We must bear in mind two key issues: first, the number of people in prison, which is far too high and is still rising and, secondly, the reoffending rates, which do not show any great signs of coming down.
Although there have been improvements, there have been worrying shortfalls in some parts of the country. I am thinking in particular of the probation service in London, which has significant resource problems, and the capability of the service to do the work that it should be doing. I shall cite a recent example. An offender was leaving prison after a fairly short sentence, but there were problems with completing his probation report. No one was available to undertake such necessary work.
Although we shall be discussing the structures of the service this morning, there are clearly resource implications. We must consider what resources are available. The services are overstretched and, if we do not examine resources, we will not solve the problem. In the past two or three years, there has been a tendency not to use the extra money that has been put into the service to fund front-line services. There have been large increases in bureaucracy at national level within the probation service but, as I said, money has not gone into front-line issues.
There are two stated aims of NOMS: first, to punish offenders appropriately and, secondly, to reduce reoffending. As for the structure that is proposed, Martin Narey has been appointed to head the service. There will be 10 regional offender managers. I am not clear why reorganisation is regarded as so important that it must be done quickly by June this year. The regional managers will be in place within the next year,
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but it has only been three years since the probation service was last reorganised and some of that reorganisation has hardly had time to settle in. That is causing concern to many people who work in the probation service.
There was not any serious consultation with stakeholders prior to the publication of the Government's plans. Patrick Carter did not appear to carry out any consultations with stakeholders or trade unions. I was told in a written answer that he was conducting an independent review, so he was not expected necessarily to consult, and that the Government's response to "Reducing Crime—Changing Lives" would seek views from stakeholders on a number of issues. However, the paper was published on 6 January and the closing date for responses was 3 March, although the Cabinet Office guidelines recommend a standard 12-week period for consultation with key stakeholders. There seems to be a rush to get things through.
It would have been better if there had been consultation before, rather than after, announcements were made. That leaves us with a lot of uncertainty about how the new organisation will work, and I hope that the Minister will deal with that. We are told that one of the key aspects is that the reorganisation is about ensuring that individual offenders are managed right through the system. I cannot see how 10 regional managers will be able to deal with all the individuals concerned. I am unclear about what will happen on the ground. What will be the relationship between people in the Prison Service and people in the probation service? Where will decisions be made about what happens to an individual offender?
Mr. Andrew Turner: I apologise for the fact that I shall not be able to stay for the whole debate. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with representatives of the Prison Officers Association in my constituency that the consultation did not make it clear whether those who work in prisons will have the same training under the new system as they have under the existing system? If that training cannot be delivered, security in prisons cannot be delivered.
Mr. Gerrard: There is a serious issue about training. I attended a meeting yesterday evening that Martin Narey addressed. The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), who is on the Opposition Front Bench, and the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) were also at that meeting. Training was mentioned. There is not enough training in general for prison officers; there is a nine-week training period for prison officers. The training period for probation officers is much longer. I hope that that will be addressed. If we expect prison officers to be much more involved in rehabilitation, dealing with reoffending, education provision, drug testing schemes and so forth, there is a case for there to be much more training, regardless of what is happening with the restructuring of the organisation.
There is a lack of clarity about what the plans will mean for staff in other respects. There are issues to do with governance, employment status, collective bargaining and the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981. A part

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of the proposals involves what is now called contestability. That is a new word that I had not come across before I studied these proposals; some of my hon. Friends might have something to say about what it means. That has serious implications for the employment status of current staff. Naturally, there are concerns about that in prisons—there are suggestions that groups of prisons will be put out to tender—and in other parts of the service.
I was struck by a comment by the Probation Boards Association about the impact on staff. It commented as an employers' organisation on the industrial relations issues that it would need to deal with, particularly during the transition period. It said:
"An agitated workforce, already threatening industrial action over workloads is in danger of becoming demoralised by the proposals to disband its service and jettison its name. Of equal concern is the likely loss of senior managers who, seeing no future in the new structure, may look for alternative employment at a time when they are most needed to deliver the changes."
Clearly, employers in the probation service believe that, if staff in the service do not receive the reassurance that they need, there may be serious consequences over the next year, before we reach the point at which the new structure should start to operate.
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: The hon. Gentleman is introducing and laying out his case extremely well. Does he agree that one point made to us by representatives of prison officers is that pay is on average 24 to 32 per cent. lower for those employed in the private sector than for those employed in the Prison Service, and that pensions are between 10 and 13 per cent. more valuable in the public sector than in the private sector? There is real concern among prison officers and their families about the implications of what may be happening with so-called contestability and about the lack of consultation.
Mr. Gerrard: That is absolutely right. When considering pay levels in the different sectors, people will naturally be concerned about what may happen to them if the prison in which they work becomes part of a group of prisons that ends up in the private sector. I understand clearly the rationale for involvement of the not-for-profit sector when we are dealing with community-based sentences, but I am far less convinced by the case for putting large sections of the service out to tender. I remember being involved in such arguments in this place 10 or 12 years ago, when the then Government embarked on the privatisation of prisons.
Another issue on which we need to be clear is the need to create a level playing field, so that public sector bidders are not disadvantaged. The Probation Boards Association stated:
"The government will need to create a level playing for voluntary and not-for-profit organisations to … enable them to participate."
The association also made a rather technical point when it said that
"the current Home Office re-charge system for probation property would seriously disadvantage an 'in-house' bid in probation areas with low commercial property costs."
Those issues must be addressed, so that a level playing field is created.
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Another point, which is not part of NOMS in a sense but is critical to its success, is what happens on sentencing. Martin Narey, as head of the service, will be an observer on the Sentencing Guidelines Council, which I think has had its first meeting in the past two or three weeks. However, he will not be a member of the council. If the council does not work and does not lead to changes in sentencing, we will face serious problems in the new structure—indeed, in any structure.
Perhaps the Minister will comment on what messages will be sent about sentencing, because that is the key to bringing prison numbers down. In particular, people should not be in prison doing short sentences that could be dealt with as community-based sentences. One message that came out in the meeting that some of us attended yesterday evening concerned the futility of many short sentences, because people going into prison for a short sentence do not get into drug treatment programmes, education programmes and so on. They end up doing very little while they are in prison. That message needs to be got across, particularly in magistrates courts, where there has been an enormous increase in the use of custodial sentences over the past few years.
David Taylor: I declare an interest as a member of the Magistrates Association. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister and his colleagues should consider carefully custodial sentences for offences such as shoplifting? The number of people in prison now compared with 10 years ago, when I was last sitting actively, has increased by a factor of 10. That is astonishing. Surely something needs to be done.
Mr. Gerrard: My hon. Friend is right. If I remember correctly, about 1,400 people are in prison for shoplifting, whereas a few years ago there were 100 and something; the numbers have increased by a factor of 10. That is not the only kind of offence that is relevant. Many people are in prison because of unpaid fines and motoring offences. We accept that there are some very serious motoring offences that should lead to a prison sentence, but whether everyone who is in prison for such offences should be there is another matter.
Peter Bottomley: The best kind of contestability may be to ask magistrates and judges whether they have seen any studies on whether the person they are considering sending to jail would be better disposed of in the community. The one thing that I suspect we all favour—it is one of the purposes for which NOMS was created—is seamless care and control of the person who has been convicted. We all have examples in which someone has come out of prison and the probation service has not managed to look after them. That is as big a concern as having people in prison who should not be there in the first place.
Mr. Gerrard: That is absolutely right. We also need to get the message across that community-based sentences are not necessarily soft touches. I am not sure whether that needs to be communicated to magistrates, but it certainly should be got across to the public. There is an image that, if people are given a community sentence, they are being let off, whereas such sentences can—and should in many cases—be fairly demanding to do.

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I know that many hon. Members want to speak, so I will make my final points. With regard to parliamentary scrutiny of the process, it does not appear at all certain that legislation will he involved unless the role of probation boards changes substantially. Another area of uncertainty concerns what will happen to probation boards, which are currently the employers and managers of staff. There are some issues for us about how Parliament will examine the profound changes that are taking place in the rapid reorganisation. The lack of clarity about the detail is causing concern among a number of hon. Members. We do not want to repeat the mistakes that were made in other reorganisations.
As I said at the beginning of my contribution, we all want to see cuts in the number of people in prison and success in preventing people from reoffending. We want to be certain that the new structures being put in place will do that. We do not want to end up with confusion about responsibility, and over-centralisation of services such as the probation service that have been developing well at local level. I hope that the Minister will reassure us on those issues.
Several hon. Members rose—Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is advisable to remind hon. Members that, in these 90-minute Adjournment debates, it is customary to commence the first of the three winding-up speeches 30 minutes before conclusion. Five hon. Members have indicated to the Chair that they want to contribute to the debate, and another two have added themselves to the quest to catch my eye. That makes seven, and we have 41 minutes left. That means that, if I am to squeeze everyone in before 10.30, hon. Members will have to be very careful about the time that they take in making their contributions, and about allowing or responding to interventions. I ask all hon. Members to bear that carefully in mind.
While I am making announcements, I should say that I would be remiss in carrying out my duties if I did not remind the Chamber that, when any of the four senior Chairmen of the Chairmen's Panel occupies this seat, they are to be addressed as Mr. Deputy Speaker. That was the decision of Mr. Speaker.
9.50 am
Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: I speak as a great supporter of the probation service, who has 30 years' experience in the criminal law—not as an offender, I might add. The probation service and its independence should not be interfered with, because if it ain't broke, why fix it?
In these days of the big conversation, I cannot understand why there has been so little consultation on such a fundamentally important change. As was mentioned by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), whom I congratulate on securing the debate, the changes appear to breach the Government's own commitment on consultation in the Cabinet code on written consultation.
As the hon. Gentleman said, there does not appear to be a mechanism for any real parliamentary scrutiny of these wide-ranging changes. The National Association
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of Probation Officers has been told that legislation will not be required unless the role of probation boards, which manage staff locally, alters substantially.
The changes are profound, and the role of probation boards will be altered. I understand that the new service will have the power to affect the professional livelihoods of all staff currently employed in both services. That is a fundamental question, worthy of full parliamentary consideration.
The other question that I have to ask is whether the open market is appropriate for administering punishment and justice. There is a long list of unanswered questions about the detail of NOMS, including whether the national probation directorate will continue to function and what role, if any, local probation areas will have. Of course, such detail is vital and should have been consulted on properly.
NAPO considers it totally unacceptable that there should be no information about what the new structures will mean for the employment status of staff: in other words, terms, conditions, collective bargaining, trade union rights and the implications of TUPE. Many believe that the reasoning behind NOMS is flawed. A key purpose, apparently, is to reduce the projected prison population for 2009 from 93,000 to 80,000. It is difficult to see how the new structures will do that.
I fully endorse what the hon. Gentleman said about non-custodial sentences being useful. Indeed, in many cases, they lead to less recidivism. They are not a soft option, but a labour-intensive option, which is, I suspect, why magistrates tend to send people to prison rather than impose further burdens on the probation service, which, as we all know, is overburdened as it is.
We are looking at a very difficult position. NOMS is to increase co-operation between prison and probation staff—nothing wrong with that. However, that might be better achieved by other means: for example, by an increase in targeted resources, sentence planning in and out of prison and an increase in support.
Many believe that the reorganisation is an effort to cut costs. It is obvious to all who know anything about criminal justice that the prison and probation services need more resources on the front line. The probation service is in financial crisis, with probation areas facing a compulsory 2 per cent. underspend for this financial year and a further real-terms standstill budget next year. Therefore, it is of great concern that those two under-resourced services should be asked to improve performance and to implement a further layer of bureaucracy without there being a commitment to additional funding.
As has been mentioned, the last restructuring was in April 2001. Many people do not think that the changes have had time to bed down properly. The first half of "Reducing Crime—Changing Lives" praises the work of both prison and probation services: Would it not be better to build on that expertise and encourage closer working relationships without including further layers of bureaucracy, which always drain resources from the front line? The progress made does not logically point to a need for the wholesale reorganisation of both services.
In "Reducing Crime—Changing Lives", there is a list of achievements. Considerable achievements have been made; it would be wrong to deny that. There has been an increase in literacy programmes for offenders, greater

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enforcement of community orders, a reduction in the number of escapes from prison, the launch of the custody to work initiative, the effective roll-out of drug treatment and testing orders, effective assessment of need and of risk to the public, and the establishment of multi-agency public protection arrangements, to name but a few achievements.
"Reducing Crime—Changing Lives" does not refer to the fact that the probation service was substantially reorganised in April 2001, under the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000. The number of services was reduced from 54 to 42, and a national service and directorate were created. Many of the new combined services, particularly the service in London, have not yet bedded down. As a consequence, the changes are yet to come through properly. The national probation directorate increased its number of employees from about 90 in 2001 to 460 in November 2003. In the same period, however, there was no commensurate increase in the number of field staff.
When the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service came into being, many of us warned that its introduction was rushed and not thought out properly. We have seen the result: it has been an absolute disaster. Much as I respect those who work in the field, they cannot be asked to do a 48-hour job in 24 hours. Many commentators assumed that the growth at the centre was a precursor to an increase in capacity in the field.
The conclusion that one draws is that there has been a failure adequately to resource prison and probation services. Both services are ill equipped to deal with yet another reorganisation and further layers of bureaucracy. The projected national offender management service could be an organisational disaster, compared to which the problems faced by the Criminal Records Bureau will pale into insignificance.
9.57 am
Mr. Austin Mitchell: I am grateful for the conveniently labelled plan before me, so that I know in what terms I should talk.
I want to concentrate on the speedy way in which the change has been brought in. It has been produced out of the blue and imposed without consultation. There has been far too much of that in Government policy in recent times. One of the Prime Minister's policy advisers gets a bright idea on, say, foundation hospitals or top-up fees and suddenly it becomes Government policy. We workers and peasants in the party—looking around, it seems it is the old lags in this case, and some young lags, too—are asked to vote it through without being convinced of it. That seems to be happening again in this case.
The Leader of the House has promised that we will not do that kind of thing any more, and has said that the Government will consult thoroughly before new policy initiatives are announced. However, here we have another policy initiative, again coming from the No. 10 policy unit and the Government's all-purpose privatiser, Mr. Carter. It was rushed through—the Government's response was announced on the same day that the report was published.
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Looking at the document, I can see that there is no necessary link between the stated aim, which is to reduce the increase in the prison population, and the merger, at national and regional levels—and eventually totally—of the two services. Prison numbers, as hon. Members have said, are a response to the panic climate of the "bang'em up" culture, produced largely by the clamour of the Daily Mail, but responded to by Ministers and Departments. That culture says that the only way to deal with the increase in crime is to send more people to prison. We face a very retributionist mood. If that is the real cause of the increase in the prison population, I cannot see that the merger of the services will have any bearing on it. The hon. Member—I forget which constituency he represents now.
Peter Bottomley: Worthing, West.
Mr. Mitchell: I thank the hon. Gentleman. He said that we need a seamless service. However, carving out chunks of the service by privatisation will not produce that seamlessness. It will produce a fragmented service in which it is difficult, if not impossible, to follow things through. Therefore, merging the services will not produce anything that will reduce prison numbers, or achieve better treatment for prisoners. This is a question of more resources and more staff, particularly in the hard-pressed probation service, which is under considerable strain, as I can testify from representations that have come to me locally. It has just had a reorganisation, which has not quite settled down yet and has disturbed the service. It has been given tight financial targets and it is under-staffed and under-resourced. The answer to the problem is better staffing and better resources.
Mrs. Helen Clark: Would my hon. Friend suggest that Home Office policy is being dictated not by the needs of the nation but by the demands of certain national newspapers? That applies to the asylum issue as well.
Mr. Mitchell: That is exactly right. It is a panic situation, to which the Home Office feels it necessary to respond. The national press, particularly the Daily Mail—this also goes for The Sun and other Murdoch papers—experiences a hackneyed fear of crime. That produces a retributionist sentencing culture on the part of magistrates who are panicked into it. The way to deal with the matter is to staff the services better and to fight against that culture, rather than submitting to it by introducing this kind of proposal, which works against staffing improvement. It seems that there is a hidden agenda to cut costs and that is why there is talk of privatising chunks of the service.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) made a point about contestability. I remember it in New Zealand in the 1980s under a Labour Government there. It is a contest that the public sector always loses, because its costs are inevitably higher. It is maintaining the system and along come people—the Minister has gone to America to try to interest prison providers there—who offer a much more glamorous and exciting prospect. They are often given contracts on preferential terms, or they have been in the Prison

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Service, and in the glamour stakes they win. Therefore, it is not real contestability—it is a contest that is loaded against the public sector.
My basic point is that this is a question of money and resources and not one of this type of reorganisation, where so many questions have gone unanswered. I have a long list of questions, which I would like to put to my hon. Friend the Minister, but time is pressing. We do not know how many additional staff will be needed or what the role of the offender manager will be at area level. We do not know about the relationship between the local areas. A business case has not been presented to us. We do not know how the continuity of offender supervision will be maintained in the interim period. All those questions have been unanswered.
However, I cannot see any answer to the central question. The one principle of bad government is that, when things go wrong, order a reorganisation. Things are going wrong in terms of prison numbers and a reorganisation has been ordered. Perhaps the Minister can convince me with his charm and his honeyed words that this restructuring, merging of the services and opening to privatisation of chunks of the service will tackle the fundamental problem of reducing prison numbers. I do not know, but I always hope, in tense excitement, that I can be convinced.
10.5 am
John McDonnell(Lab): I will be brief. We have had compulsory competitive tendering, market testing, the public-private finance initiative, public-private partnerships, better value and now we have contestability. In reality, all paths lead to privatisation, so we may as well call it that. It is straightforward privatisation.
The origins of NOMS go back to November 2002, when the then Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Benn), announced a review of the correction services. Seminars were held in central London to discuss the wider functioning of the two services. As has been exemplified before, in February 2003, suddenly and without any consultation, the policy and the review were taken over by No. 10. Without any consultation with stakeholders, Patrick Carter was appointed to head the review. It became apparent what the review process was about: the answer to the problems of the probation service and the Prison Service was not increased investment but privatisation.
It is extremely worrying that the concept will not be the subject of legislation. We will never have the opportunity on the Floor of the House to debate any measure to implement the supposed reforms. Therefore, there will be no detailed parliamentary scrutiny. The probation service works increasingly closely with the police service and the Prison Service on public protection issues, and the House should, through the legislative process, not in Adjournment debates, properly discuss whether the market is the appropriate vehicle for delivering these services.
The Government envisage that the state of contestability should be achieved by 2009. Under that arrangement, national offender managers. supported by 10 regional offender managers, will purchase prison places and community supervision from a range of public, private and voluntary providers. I reiterate that
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our concern is not necessarily with the voluntary providers. We understand the role that they can play, but we are worried that a market is being introduced, and it is difficult to envisage how it will work. Many tasks undertaken by the services are already multi-agency—for example, public protection panels—and could not be the subject of tendering in competition, as we have seen elsewhere.
The 101 hostels in England and Wales provide 2,500 residential places, primarily for ex-prisoners. More than 40 per cent. of the hostel places are taken up by sex offenders and others known to local multi-agency protection panels. If public confidence is to be maintained in the service, it is essential that the public sector, in conjunction with the police, monitors those ex-prisoners to minimise the risk to the public.
Let us look at the prison experience. The main sector from which non-public organisations could recruit would be the probation service, which is already understaffed and under-resourced. The unions feel that one consequence would be that wages would be depressed and service quality would suffer. The trade unions' experience of the market and of the public finance initiative in the justice system in the past decade differs starkly from what the Home Office has told us on successive occasions.
For example, prison officer pay is on average 24.6 to 32.4 per cent. lower in the private sector than in the Prison Service. Pensions are between 10.5 and 13.5 per cent. more valuable than pensions available to those employed by the private sector. The Prison Service offers between 5 and 28 per cent. more leave than the private sector and limited competition from the few firms bidding means that in many instances there has been only one bidder for the tender.
David Taylor: Will my hon. Friend comment on the recent merger between Group 4 and Securicor and the ability of the much vaunted market to respond in such circumstances?
John McDonnell: What is happening throughout the process is that cartels, or monopolies, are being formed, which reinforce their ability to drive down wages and suppress conditions. There is a general lack of transparency. Information is withheld, in particular from trade unions, on the ground that it is commercially confidential. Many of the questions tabled by MPs have been unable to elicit the information required to make a proper judgment of the process of privatisation at a prison or elsewhere. Consultations with the unions on the planning and procurement processes have been negligible.
Judging from recent experience, private sector involvement in the probation service has been pretty disastrous. In 2002, the national probation directorate privatised hostel facilities, including cooks, cleaners and maintenance staff. The contract was awarded to Morrison's and costs subsequently rose by 62 per cent. In 2003, the NPD decided to privatise the management and maintenance of probation premises. The increase in costs in that case was less—35 per cent.—but still outrageous.
The situation is becoming a comedy of errors, almost merging into a combination of "Fawlty Towers" and "Porridge". Staff in probation hostels have reported a

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catalogue of problems bordering on the farcical. I will not detail the numerous examples with which we have been supplied but there have been several complaints about standards of hygiene in kitchens and environmental health officers have been called in. People have asked how many private contractors it takes to change a light bulb in a hostel—usually only one, but it will take about four days with consultation. One hostel in Sheffield has had no regular cleaners for 12 weeks. A London hostel needed its boiler switching on and Morrison's sent a carpenter from Portsmouth. Costs build up through the inefficiencies and incompetence of the private sector.
Is it still the case, as we believed in opposition, that profits should not be made from incarcerating people, or is that now the Government's policy? It is difficult to see how the market will improve offender supervision and how it will not have the same results as we have seen in prisons of demoralising staff and driving down conditions of employment and wages. There is a real fear that the purpose of centralisation and of the review is to act as a forerunner to the wholesale privatisation of the service. That would lead to fragmentation of the service, erosion of local accountability and the failure of quality standards.
Several hon. Members rose—Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There are 18 minutes remaining and four hon. Members seeking to contribute. Please bear in mind the remarks that I have made.
10.12 am
Mr. David Drew: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall certainly bear in mind what you said and I shall not re-cover old ground.
I have been greatly influenced by my discussions with two probation officers in Gloucestershire, initially Gill Mackenzie, who went on to national prominence, and more recently John Carter. The fact that we do not know with who or what Mr. Carter will be replaced concerns me. I am meeting a representative of NAPO on Friday—I know that she will read the debate and will no doubt express her concerns to me.
I want to talk about something that has not yet been mentioned but is important, which is how the probation service interfaces with employment, housing and health authorities. I shall deal with the last of those three first. The Government are, according to their rhetoric, decentralising the health service, and I support that. There is an important element of discourse with the different health authorities, particularly primary care trusts, to try to get them to spend more money on caring for offenders, many of whom will have a drug problem.
However, while we appear to be decentralising the health service, we are nationalising the probation service and dividing it between a potentially more unaccountable set of bodies. I do not understand that logic. It would make sense to bed down some of the other changes, such as those to criminal justice boards, in which probation should play an important part. Unless I have understood incorrectly, those boards are
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based along county lines. I asked a parliamentary question to elicit who would sit on my local board, and they were all worthy people from Gloucestershire, including the chief police officer and people from the county council. I do not understand why we are taking what appears to be a contradictory approach, and that might matter for the other side of probation community service. With the best will in the world, no national body will be able to find employment that people who are serving their sentences in the community need to have found for them.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will assuage some of my fears. From all the evidence, including that from my friends in the probation service, I know that this is a period of uncertainty that comes on the back of another reorganisation, which has yet to bed down. I hope that the Minister will consider how we assess whether this reorganisation is the appropriate way forward. If we are to have a genuine national probation service, I want assurances that that will not be pushed into the market, or removed from local accountability.
10.16 am
Julie Morgan: I am pleased to speak in today's debate because I am a past member of the South Glamorgan probation committee, which preceded the present board; I was a local authority representative on that committee. As my background is as a social worker, I have worked closely with probation officers in south Wales and discussed this issue with them. I can confirm that there is anxiety and concern about the proposals.
I, too, am concerned about a change so soon after the previous change in 2001. In my area of Cardiff, three probation services came together in 2001—mid, south and west Glamorgan—to become the south Wales probation service, coterminous with the police and court boundaries. We supported those changes. However, this new change, along with the change in chief officer, has caused a great deal of uncertainty and worry. It is far too soon to launch another change so swiftly after other big changes. I will be interested to hear from my hon. Friend the Minister about the future role of probation boards. I hope that he will respond to that uncertainty.
I regret the probation service becoming even more of a correctional service than a social work service. That is a move in the wrong direction, and we cannot overemphasise the good that can be done with the traditional method of advising, assisting and befriending. The document entitled "Reducing Crime—Changing Lives" states:
"Believing that offenders in the community will reduce their re-offending through occasional interviews with probation officers is also naive."
That belittles what probation officers have managed to do with offenders over the years. They have been a great success, because they have been people whom the offender can turn to and trust.
The points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) pertain especially to Wales, because the probation service will be moved away from all the agencies with which it should work closely, such as local government, social services, housing departments and drug and alcohol services. With the existence of the

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National Assembly for Wales, another dimension causes difficulties. The probation service needs to be fully involved in the crime and disorder partnerships and the community first partnerships set up by the Assembly. It is difficult to get probation involved at the moment; certainly, prison is not involved at all. Things will become even more difficult when the service becomes national. When problems arise, it is important that young people in particular are seen as a part of the local community and that solutions are found in the community.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said, we are moving away from the Government's commitment to localism towards a more national structure. That is going in the opposite direction of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, which is being devolved to Wales. Can the Minister say whether Wales will be classed as one of the 10 regions? Will there be an all-Wales manager? I draw his attention to the response of the Probation Boards Association, which asked:
"In a regionalised structure would the NOMS function in Wales become the responsibility of the Welsh Assembly?"
I should be grateful if the Minister commented on the role of the Welsh Assembly, which is not being taken into account in these proposals. It is so important that probation services operate at a local level, for reasons of employment and links with the voluntary sector. If contestability happens in Wales, not many people will put their names forward because we do not have much of a private sector, although we have a voluntary sector. The proposals are not at all suitable for the climate in Wales.
The other issue to take into account is the Welsh language. It is already difficult to deliver a service in Welsh. How will the devolved service and the competition for jobs deal with that sensitively? I should be grateful if the Minister addressed those points in his response.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Nine minutes and counting.
10.21 am
Jim Knight: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on securing this debate. I echo his opening comments on the improvements to the Prison Service under this Government, as well as many of his other comments. I should also make it clear that I see some benefits of joining up the prison and probation services. We need a clearer pathway from prison through rehabilitation to resettlement for prisoners to become law-abiding citizens again, and it is possible that the proposal to create NOMS will achieve that.
I represent three prisons, all on Portland, which has a residential population of about 12,000 voters, and a prison population of 1,500. Some 300 people are employed in those prisons. One of them, the young offenders institution, had a £3 million custody to work programme funded by the Government, which shows that reoffending can be reduced if accommodation and employment can be found for young offenders on release, so that they have a pathway to a decent and secure future outside. As for the problem of overcrowding, there are young offenders in that prison from as far away as Newcastle.
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The notion that officers working in those prisons can develop relationships with local authorities all over the country is very difficult. That reflects the importance of developing a regional approach, so that there is a limit to the number of agencies with which prisons have to liaise in order to secure that pathway.
I obviously welcome the aim of reducing the prison population that is implicit in the proposals, but I must reflect the concerns put to me by the chair of the Dorset branch of NAPO, Avril Harris. The Minister must answer the main questions that have arisen from this debate. A number of good questions about contestability were articulated, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). If there is going to be a transfer to the private sector, we must secure the pay and conditions of all those officers working in the service on Portland. If their pay and conditions are cut to the extent that has been described in this debate, that will have a noticeable impact on the economy of the island. There are exceptionally valid questions about contestability. Why the hurry, and why the need for another reorganisation after 2001?
There is also the question of probation service funding. There is a potential vulnerability in merging the two services, especially if the Government were elected on the basis of "Prison works", rather than "Probation works". When I have had conversations about crime and antisocial behaviour in my constituency, my constituents tell me that they want to see tough community sentences, but they do not see necessarily that the answer is prison, which too often becomes a university of crime.
Problems have been created by the national probation directorate's £20 million overspend, which has been devolved to local probation services. In Dorset, it meant cuts in funding of 2 per cent. this year and 8 per cent. next year, and the 14 current job vacancies will become 14 job cuts. That is a serious diminution in the service.
I have taken note of your comments, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall conclude. I am not instinctively against the proposals, but in the absence in particular of proper consultation, they raise too many questions at best and considerable opposition at worst. To echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), it is time that this Government learned not to impose new ideas or to bounce us into agreeing to new policies without proper consultation. They would have a much easier time if they relaxed, took their time and ensured that we all understood what they were doing before we had to agree to it.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: There are five minutes remaining for the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mrs. Clark).
10.25 am
Mrs. Helen Clark: I shall shed half my speech and be as prompt as I can.
I do not believe that the case has been made for a further reorganisation of prisons and probation, primarily because of the recent changes to the service and the achievements that the Government acknowledge have been made since 1997. Those

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developments should be monitored, evaluated and built on rather than made the subject of further disruptive change—that that is my view about many other strands of current Government policy, particularly in the field of home affairs.
The substantial reorganisation of probation service structures implemented in April 2001 should have been monitored and independently evaluated prior to the introduction of yet further structural changes. If we had had such sensible and careful evaluation, we might have concluded that the creation of the national offender management service was not needed.
It is vital that the probation service is close to the community that it serves. I welcomed the 2001 reorganisation, which established coterminous boundaries for police, local authorities and the Crown Prosecution Service. That process is continuing, as the reorganised court structure will also be coterminous by spring 2005. Many hon. Members have praised probation, and it plays a key role in representing the local community, particular ethnic minority groups such as those in my constituency.
The Prime Minister talked about centralisation in his The Guardian lecture. He said:
"When central government becomes too big it sucks up resources that should be at the front line. It runs the risk that ministers and officials try to intervene even when there is little value they can add. We must create a centre that is streamlined and focused, developing strategic frameworks, for example the thinking the Home Office is doing on how different kinds of criminality—organised crime, repeat offending, anti-social behaviour—require different organisation and policy responses. A centre that acts as a resource for best practice, that sets and monitors minimum standards, that intervenes in the front line rarely but in the case of failure doing so swiftly and effectively."
I agree with that. I am not an advocate of change for the sake of change. We need to build on the foundations that we have to create public confidence in such essential services and home affairs policy in general.
10.28 am
Mr. David Heath: I congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on securing an important debate.
The Minister may leave this debate thinking that there is a measure of disquiet on the Government Benches about his proposals and that he needs to provide some reassurance. I share some of the concerns expressed. The key question on the issue of the service being correctional, or one that provides social assistance to offenders, is whether it protects the public and reduces reoffending. That is the test that needs to be applied to the reorganisation.
Any sensible person would argue that there is a case for better integration of the Prison Service and probation service. Inherent in some of the Government's other policies such as custody plus, which we have welcomed, is the aim of ensuring a seamless transition between different elements of sentencing policy. I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Walthamstow that there have been some improvements in the management of offenders in the present Prison Service and probation service. I sometimes think that those improvements are slightly over-advertised and
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that there is an awful lot to do in terms of prison education, dealing with health—particularly mental health problems—and women in prison. Those are still real issues. Nevertheless, there have been improvements.
The major problem faced by the Prison Service is that we send too many people to prison and we have not got the accommodation to meet their needs. That problem will not go away as a result of a structural reorganisation of this kind. More consideration must be given to better fine management as an alternative and the use of the Sentencing Guidelines Council (Supplementary Provisions) Order 2004 to provide public confidence in the alternatives to prison and ways of sentencing offenders. That leads, incidentally, to much higher visibility for non-custodial sentences, so people feel that something is happening in their community to those who have offended against it.
I have the highest regard for the probation service, which comes from way back in the days when I was working with it as leader of a county council. The service is facing huge problems, as the hon. Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight) said. The problems of financing the probation service are becoming an almost unbearable burden on its effective operation. I have heard nothing from the Minister or his colleagues that suggests that that funding crisis is being addressed. We have a structural change, but the immediate problem of not being able to provide a sufficient number of officers in the probation service to do the job that we want them to do is not being dealt with. That has knock-on effects for the police, the court system and, of course, most immediately for offenders and their families.
The financial crisis in the probation service is made worse by an absurd system of target management, whereby fines are imposed on probation services for not meeting the targets that the Government have set. I understand—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that 37 of the 42 probation services have been fined a total of £4.3 million in the past year for failing to meet their targets. There is a correlation between a target-based approach and a failure of the service.
The reorganisation is yet another aspect of the restless change that is endemic in the Home Office. There is an almost permanent state of revolution in the area of home affairs, which, uniquely, is rallying to the standards raised by the leader writers of the Daily Mail. That is not an attractive aspect of the Government's programme. Hon. Members have already drawn attention to that. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) mentioned the analogy with CAFCASS and the fact that it was a mess because the Government did not take the time to get the measures right in the first instance, but rushed through a reform and repented at leisure. That must not happen again.
On looking at the parliamentary answers to questions asked about the national offender management service, I find all too often that the Minister says that it is too early to say what the answer is to a particular question. We must start getting those answers, and we need them quickly if the speed of change envisaged by the Government is to continue.
There is so much uncertainty occasioned by that vagueness on the final outcome that inevitably it causes concern among practitioners in the service, who simply want to be able to do their job more effectively. It is not

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an easy change. As I said when it was first announced, we are melding two organisations with a different ethos and different ways of doing things. If anyone imagines that the transition will be effortless, they are wrong. Much careful thought needs to be applied to the process, and I have no confidence that that has yet been done. One of the greatest worries for all of us is that, in implementing the proposals, we will lose some of the essential elements of inter-agency working, which is so valuable in that area of work.
We know of the concerns that have been expressed by probation officers and prison officers. Some of those concerns have been have been raised in the debate by other hon. Members, so I shall not repeat them. Probation officers and prison officers look at the process, which has been rather grandly labelled "metamorphosis"—with a fine disregard for both Kafka and Ovid in its implications—and know that it follows on from a process that was, equally absurdly, labelled "a new choreography". They wonder at what point the new choreography becomes the metamorphosis, and how those processes overlap. They consider their terms and conditions, which are perfectly proper considerations for those working in the service, and wonder where the process is going. They also examine the new concept of contestability—I wonder how many more euphemisms Governments, whether it be this Government or the previous right-wing Government, will find for this essential process of privatisation. I think that it was the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) who read out a list of terms that have been applied to what is essentially the same process. We now have a new term, contestability, and we must see how it works. There are benefits in the process for some aspects of the Prison Service—I will not take a rigid ideological view—but I wonder how it will be applied in any valuable way to the work of probation officers.
I seek an explanation from the Minister on the regional dimension. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) tabled a written question about whether the national offender management service would work closely on a regional level with the complementary services, including the police. The Minister's reply was that the supervision of offenders
"is best managed at regional level where effective links can be forged and joint strategies developed with complementary services including police, health, education and employment."—[Official Report, 9 February 2004; Vol. 417, c. 1269W.]
Have I missed something there? We do not have regional police forces. Police forces are based on police authority areas, which are coterminous with the present probation boards. We do not have regional education services; we have local education authorities. Health is no longer organised on a regional basis; the trusts, which are not regional bodies, are now the prime operatives for health. What is the regional co-ordination that the Minister says will be improved by the new structure operating on a regional basis?
I am concerned that we will lose innovation at local level through seeking consistency, which may be of value in some cases, but too often will be a dumbing-down of the process. I am also concerned that there is insufficient parliamentary scrutiny of the process. I return to my initial point. The test is whether the
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proposal will reduce reoffending and protect the public. The Minister must persuade his hon. Friends and the country at large that the changes will achieve that. Assertion will not do it. There must be a fully rounded strategy that demonstrates where the added value in the process lies.
10.39 am
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: I congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on securing the debate. Many of us, having heard some of the comments about the NOMS proposals, decided to apply for such a debate, and I was glad that he led the charge on this occasion. Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. If there were contestability for the role of the speaking clock, I know whom I would back.
Rarely have I heard so much disquiet expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber about a Government proposal. I am sad to hear the concern expressed by all hon. Members this morning, not least because, in the short time that I have been speaking on prison matters for my party, I have seen some of the excellent work that is being carried out in our prisons and some first-class work that is being carried out by not-for-profit agencies. Many individuals in the probation service, the Prison Service and the voluntary sector do sterling work in this difficult and sensitive area. We should set our debate today against the background of that excellent work and the current chronic overcrowding in our prisons.
I appreciate that the Minister will have only 10 minutes in which to wind up and that he has another debate on prisoners this afternoon, but today's debate cannot pass without taking into account the fact that more than 75,000 prisoners are now in custody and there are fewer than 200 places available before we have meltdown in the service. I hope that the Minister will be able to comment on that. Can he confirm that women prisoners are being moved out of Winchester and Edmunds Hill to other accommodation? How many of our police forces are on standby for Operation Safeguard? We have a Prison Service that is in crisis as we debate this matter.
I want to congratulate the Government because I have rarely seen such speed. Patrick Carter presented his report to the Prime Minister on 11 December 2003. In the intervening period, we had Christmas but on 6 January the Government were able to produce "Reducing Crime—Changing Lives", their response to the Carter report. That breaks all records for a Government response. It is a miracle what can be achieved over the Christmas period when one sets one's mind to it.
When we see how rapidly the Government responded, all the alarm bells start ringing. We heard them today. The Home Secretary proudly declared that this was the next phase of the Government's strategy to improve the criminal justice system, a system that he acknowledged needed attention when he spoke of the deep disquiet about it. We never expected him to have a ready-made response on the drawing board before the Carter report was presented, so that it could be whipped out at the beginning of the year.

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The debate has highlighted the concerns of the probation service, the Prison Service, the unions and politicians on both sides of the House. The Minister will have a difficult time answering the massive amount of questions that have been raised by hon. Members. I hope that he will not try to produce all the answers in his allotted 10 minutes but will write to each and every hon. Member who has participated, whether in an intervention or in a short speech. He has to start putting the flesh on the bones of these proposals and to come out with the detail.
Like many of the organisations that have been cited today, I was surprised that the proposed changes required no parliamentary scrutiny. I should be grateful if the Minister confirmed that he still does not plan to allow any parliamentary scrutiny at any stage other than through the medium of Adjournment debates or questions. Does he consider that adequate, bearing in mind that he is creating a completely new service that will take over the employment of thousands of people and responsibility for the entire downstream part of the criminal justice system? Victims of crime, offenders and people who work in the criminal justice system are concerned because, again, we appear to be seeing the creation of a centralised monolith, to say nothing of the budget that it will command. People need to see that there is parliamentary scrutiny and accountability.
The response of the probation boards to NOMS sums it up. They say that they are dismayed that the Home Office appears to have taken far-reaching decisions without public or parliamentary scrutiny. They raise further questions, reflecting the surprise that, after the major and costly reorganisation of the probation service less than three years ago, the Government now propose to dismantle the service with little or no evaluation of the effects of the original reorganisation. Can the Minister say why no business case or costings have been available on NOMS and, in particular, what the implications are for the investment that has already been made in the probation service's reorganisation? Is that an investment that the Government are now prepared to write off?
NAPO has registered fundamental concerns about the proposals. It does not hold back on the questions that it asks and the criticisms that it makes. It believes that the proposals have been hurriedly announced and that they appear to be ill thought out and lacking in detail. Following a meeting of NAPO's national executive committee on 29 January, representatives from its 37 branches unanimously passed a motion to oppose the introduction of NOMS as currently proposed. That took place some time ago, and I am sure that it has been communicated to the Minister.
I hope that the Minister will address the concerns that have been expressed and say how he will handle the obvious problem that is developing with the unions. They have concerns with the timetable, and they make the point that the Government's own code of practice requires a standard 12-week period of consultation, which does not appear to have taken place in the case of NOMS—they are disregarding the code on occasions. I want the Minister to explain why, or to announce that
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he will reorganise the timetable, so that we have longer to consider the implications of these changes and the way in which they can be brought about.
Many speeches have reflected the high degree of uncertainty that probation staff and NAPO members have about their future. That will have serious consequences for recruitment and affect the functioning of the probation service. There are some alarming statistics on the numbers of prison officers who have joined and left the service over the past few years. During the past three financial years, 3,647 prison officers have left the service and only 2,245 have joined. The Minister must address the uncertainty among staff. That is also reflected in the figures that show the differences between remuneration packages in the private sector and in the Prison Service.
The logic behind the Minister's creation of NOMS escapes everybody. We all appreciate that changes need to be made to the service. I have been acquainted with this area a short time, but it seems that nothing much has changed since I started visiting prisons as an articled clerk just a few years ago. There still does not appear to be a seamless service between how offenders are treated in prison and how they are reintegrated into the community when they come out. People have been trying, but there has been continual failure. Everyone would support the proposals if NOMS could create that seamless service, so that we could reduce reoffending. However, it is difficult to understand how the reorganisation, as it is currently proposed, will help to achieve those aims.
Last night, the hon. Member for Walthamstow and I listened to Martin Narey. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) will be interested to learn that Martin Narey made much of the fact that he is intending to save money over the period that he is in charge of the reorganisation and merger of these two sides of the criminal justice system. I would be interested to hear from the Minister how much money he is anticipating saving on those budgets, because the cat is out of the bag now and we need to know that.
There are 1 million questions, and I hope that the Minister is becoming familiar with them. The proposals will affect a large number of people. Many believe that they are panic proposals. That has been articulated today. There is little confidence in the process and a distinct absence of detail. We are looking to the Minister to provide us with an explanation and enlightenment on the handling, logic and uncertainty that exist around the creation of NOMS.
10.50 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department: Ten minutes is not a long time in which to respond to all the questions that have been asked. I will do my best in the time available, but I will write to all hon. Members who have participated in today's debate to ensure that they receive a full answer.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on securing the debate and thank him for doing so. There was an opportunity to question my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary when he made his statement to the House in January, but this morning's debate has provided an opportunity for a

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more thoughtful discussion, having had the chance to reflect on the document that was published at that time. This thoughtful debate is built on the tremendous amount of experience that all hon. Members who have participated in it have of the correctional services.
There are three key reasons why the proposals in "Reducing Crime—Changing Lives" are so important. First, there is the day-to-day experience of the people who operate our prison and probation services. We all know, because we talk to those people, that there are still many gaps in the service—too many cracks in the system—through which offenders can fall back into crime. Although I know full well from my visits to prisons and the probation service that there is a lot of anxiety about the impact of changes on individual members of staff, there is a recognition that joining the two services together as we intend will provide a more effective service.
Secondly, Patrick Carter provided a powerful assessment in the correctional services review. Hon. Members have had the opportunity to read the document. I shall refer to a number of key points that it contained, such as the sentencing drift. My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) referred to custodial sentences for shoplifting. The fact is that people are three times more likely to receive a custodial sentence in a magistrates court for that now than 10 years ago, and twice as likely in a Crown court. The prison population increased from 55,000 in 1996 to 66,000 in 2002, and is 75,000 today. That inexorable rise does not reflect an increase in criminality.
Patrick Carter identified regional disparities. For example, someone who is convicted of an assault in Lancashire has a one in 50 chance of going to prison, whereas in parts of London the chance can be as high as one in three. Patrick Carter's projections were that, if we did nothing to the correctional services, by 2009 there will be 93,000 people in our prisons and some 300,000 people on community sentences. He concluded that, even if we allowed that to happen, it would not be an effective way to reduce reoffending. Accordingly, he advocated greater use of financial penalties and called for a more effective use of community sentences, not least using electronic surveillance, which is increasingly available.
Patrick Carter called for a new role for the judiciary, particularly the Sentencing Guidelines Council—looking not just at what is an appropriate punishment but at what is effective. His conclusion was that, if we could rebalance the correctional system with more people out of short-term prison sentences and on to community sentences, and more people fined, rather than given probation, we could have a stable prison population of about 80,000 by the end of the decade. Such matters would all have to be underpinned by effective case management of individual offenders.
Thirdly, there is the Criminal Justice Act 2003, within which we are creating the new generic community sentence and, perhaps more important, new sentences of custody plus and a new arrangement whereby people on determinate sentences of more than 12 months will serve half their sentence in prison and half in the community under supervision. In other words, no longer will we have prison sentences for some and community sentences for others—we will have increasing numbers
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of sentences that combine the two elements. Therefore, it is essential that we bring the prison and the probation services together.
My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) said that change occurs when there is chaos and when there is crisis. That is far from the case in respect of the matter under discussion. As hon. Members from all parties have said, much has been achieved in our prison and probation services in recent years, of which we should be proud. We are now spending £3.2 billion on prisons and probation. That is an increase of £900 million in real terms. There have been 11,000 additional members of staff, and some 5,000 of them have gone to the probation service over the past six years, so I do not recognise the description of that service as being denuded of staff.
Hon. Members have paid tribute to the achievements in terms of education, detoxification and drug treatment in the Prison Service. That there have been achievements is equally true of the probation service, which has been rebuilt, having dwindled under the previous Government, when no investment was made in training, and there was very little public commitment to it. That service is now putting new sentences into place, such as the drug treatment and testing order and the intensive control and change programme. That is real innovation, and provides the effective alternative to prison that so many hon. Members have called for.
Mention has been made of the speed of implementation. The correctional services review was announced in the "Justice for All" White Paper published in July 2002, so it was not a surprise that a review was taking place. "Reducing Crime—Changing Lives" is the Government's initial response to the Carter review, and gives an indication of the direction in which we go. It will take at least five years from the implementation of the national offender management service in 1 June for the new system to be fully operational.
I want the process of moving to that service to be inclusive for the staff delivering front-line services. I offer the Chamber an assurance that that is how I intend the reform to happen. For example, I want staff representation on the board of the national offender management service, so that there is interface and dialogue between the Home Office, Ministers and senior officials in the Department and those who provide front-line services.
Mention was made of training. There will be a continued commitment to appropriate training. The training offered to a prison officer in a high-security establishment will be different from that offered to a probation officer working with drug treatment and testing orders and responsible for the supervision that they involve.
The word "contestability" was used. We are talking about contestability, not privatisation. Contestability is about getting the best value out of the investment that the taxpayer makes. We have seen from the contestability applied to the Prison Service that there is much to be gained from it, certainly in terms of an improved service and better value for money. I tell my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby that the public sector does not always lose. Blakenhurst and Buckley Hall, two prisons that were in the private sector,

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are back in the public sector, providing better value than the private sector could offer. I want a contestability philosophy in correctional services that allows us to include the best of the public, private and not-for-profit or community sectors, the latter of which is so important.
On staffing issues, I understand that there will always be anxiety among members of staff when their service is to be reorganised in a way that may impact on them. I pledge, as I have done throughout, that there will be full negotiation with the relevant trade unions and staff if there are to be any changes to staff's terms and conditions.
I have been asked about parliamentary scrutiny. If there were to be a change to the employing body for probation officers and a change to the local area boards, that would be subject to legislative change, and there would be the usual parliamentary scrutiny associated with that. If the prison population is to be stable when it has increased by 5,000, and if probation officers are not just to provide intervention but to become the offender managers of the future, what with the additional capacity required to implement the Criminal Justice Act, there will be a role for every prison and probation officer in the service, and more besides. That is because we need to do more, with ever greater numbers.
My final point is that, in the end, the reorganisation is not just about rearranging the furniture; it is also about reducing reoffending. That has to be our overall objective.

Offshore Oil and Gas Industry
11 am
Mr. Bob Blizzard: It is five months since I last secured a debate on this topic. It could be argued that not a lot has changed, so why we are having another debate? The slow pace of progress is the main problem, and what is happening in the UK oil and gas industry—or, rather, what is not happening—is now clearer. We can now see that it is even more urgent for certain things to happen if we are to maximise opportunities and not witness the premature decline of our oil and gas industry.
I note that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and the Regions will reply to this debate. I hope that she will take back today's central message to her Department and work with the Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services on the issues that I raise. Those issues are important to regional economies and manufacturing in the UK—which are both in my right hon. Friend's portfolio, I believe—as well as to energy policy and Treasury revenues.
For any country, reserves of oil and gas are an extremely valuable asset. They represent a huge source of national wealthߞin our case from tax revenuesߞand a source of employment. More than 350,000 people used to be employed in the industry, although that is sadly not so today. Oil and gas reserves also provide a secure energy supply. On any of those counts, it is vital to maximise recovery of our oil and gas, and added together, they demonstrate that it would be irresponsible not to do everything to extract all the reserves that can be economically exploited. However, that is what we risk doing at a time when we need all the energy that we can getߞalthough we could do without last week's exaggerated scare from the BBC.
I intend to argue that, if the Government set the direction, the oil and gas industry could play a huge part in meeting our environmental policy commitments to reducing CO2emissions. However, I want first to speak about the Government's draft allocation plan for the emissions trading scheme. The emissions allowances for the offshore oil and gas sector must be incorrect, as they are not based on business as usual and involve reductions of 30 to 45 per cent. The natural characteristics of oil and gas reservoirs also mean that the pressure in the reservoir falls as the field matures, which results in the need for increasing amounts of power to extract hydrocarbons and deliver them to shore. There is a real problem in the draft plan that needs sorting out, and I hope that it will be.
Our oil and gas is not running out. The industry, the Government and experts such as Professor Alex Kemp of Aberdeen university agree that, as 33 billion barrels of oil equivalent have already been produced from the North sea, between 22 billion and 31 billion barrels are still left. That is enough for significant production to continue well beyond 2020ߞplus that which may yet be discovered. However, the activity survey published in January by the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association and the Department of Trade and Industry paints a worrying picture. We are simply not on course to recover those amounts. Only 14 billion barrelsߞabout 50 per cent. of what is availableߞare even targeted, and only 70 per cent. of that will be produced by 2010 if all the planned work goes ahead.

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Even more worrying is the question of whether the work will go ahead. There are low levels of new activity, even though the oil price is $33 a barrel and has been high for one of the longest sustained periods ever. If there are not higher levels of activity on the United Kingdom continental shelf in that scenario, one can only wonder what might happen if oil prices dropped back to the low $20s or below. The survey reports that forecasts for near-term oil and gas production continue to slip. It concludes:
"Urgent action by all stakeholders, including Government, is required to increase investment in marginally economic fields, maximise the recovery of reserves in producing (brown) fields and stimulate the exploration and appraisal activity that is essential for future production."
The most significant measure of activity that gives a pointer to the future is drilling, which was even lower in 2003 than the previous low levels of recent years. It was 10 per cent. down for exploration and appraisal wells in 2002, and 20 per cent. down for development wells. Historically, those are pitifully low levels. If we do not drill, we do not find, we do not produce and there is no tax revenue.
The supply chain industry is contracting; thousands of jobs have already been lost, as fabrication yards along the coast have closed or lie idle. The yard in my constituency has been virtually empty for months, although the company is actively pursuing contracts and wind turbines are being assembled there instead. Why is that happening? It is easy to call for tax breaks from the Government; fiscal incentives have a part to play, but we must consider the behaviour of oil companies.
Too often, the prevailing view is that the best that can be achieved is managed decline, but some companies want to explore, and others want to develop brownfields and in so doing invest significant proportions of their capital in new activity. New entrants that specialise in mature provinces are being attracted, and some well-established players want to do more. However, some companies appear to be harvestingߞderiving huge revenues from substantial production levels from existing fields, especially at the record high oil priceߞyet reinvesting only a tiny proportion of those revenues in the North sea, placing most of what is available for investment in other parts of the world to gain higher returns. That may be good business for those companies, but it is not so good for UK plc, although even such minor reinvestment adds up to a substantial amount and it is a large proportion of the reduced total of investment in the North sea. However, that is not a recipe for maximising recovery, tax revenue, employment and energy for UK plc.
A great deal of work has been done in the joint industry-Government body PILOT: excellent initiatives on fallow fields, undeveloped discoveries, progressing partnerships, and supply-chain efficiency. Unfortunately, the end result is as I described: the PILOT vision of maintaining production at 3 million barrels in 2010 will not be achieved if we carry on as we are.
The success rate of exploration drilling has been higher in recent years, but much less has been carried out and, sadly, too often the UK continental shelf is seen as a difficult, time-consuming and costly place to do business. What is wrong? Time and again, oil companies
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that are keen to develop the field complain about access to infrastructure or high charges for use demanded by other, usually larger, companies.
There are complaints from companies that believe that they have a good prospect about access to assets and licences owned but not used by other companies. Sometimes, partnerships cannot be realigned because one company is reluctant. Such problems are not unique to the UK continental shelf, but it is unacceptable that it seems to take so long to reach agreement and negotiate the necessary deals. One executive told me recently that what takes 30 days to sort out in Canada or the Gulf of Mexico can take 30 months here.
The Government cannot let the UK's assets be wasted or not fully and efficiently exploited because of commercial interests or lack of interest. Our licensing and regulatory regime suited the earlier years of regular, substantial discoveries, but it is not so appropriate to today's circumstances. We have already had one voluntary code of practice on infrastructure access, which did not work, and another is being negotiated. Will the terms be tougher? Will they be adhered to? Will the new code be any better than its predecessor? Is it taking too long to draw up? It certainly is. New developments need to be taken forward before the existing infrastructure is decommissioned or shut down.
The point is that oil and gas is not running out, but time is. Those who do not use assets must give way to those who will use them, and the Department of Trade and Industry must use its powers to determine price disputes between companies. We must ensure that all assets are made available in one form or another to those best able and willing to invest in and make maximum use of them.
I will say something about fiscal measures; it is Budget day, after all. Last year, the Treasury undertook a major consultation on low levels of activity, involving unprecedented engagement with the industry. The problem was that it was difficult to get a unified view, except that what seemed to be on offer from the Treasury would not make a difference. Unsurprisingly, that view did not appear in the pre-Budget report.
There still does not appear to be much unity of view between companies investing a high proportion and those investing a low proportion of their returns in the North sea. However, we need a fiscal regime that encourages movement from so-called harvesting towards investment in exploration and development. Could that be done at no cost to the Treasury, and without unwanted consequences? I do not know. We have to accept that there are marginal fields that are not economic to develop under the present fiscal regime, but it is obvious that it will be difficult to persuade the Treasury to give anything away unless the industry changes the culture on non-fiscal matters that are preventing the maximisation of hydrocarbon recovery. We have only a two or three-year window to get this right; otherwise, we may enter a decline that it might not be easy to arrest.
There is another reason why we need to act quickly. Our oil and gas industries have an important role to play in wider energy policy relating to our obligation to meet targets on emissions of CO2: carbon capture and storage, and enhanced oil recovery. The idea is to capture the CO2 emitted from gas and coal-fired power

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stations fitted with special equipment, pipe it under the sea and bury it by injecting it into oil reservoirs that are nearing the end of their lives. The effect of that will be to enhance the oil and squeeze out more of it—a new chapter in maximising the recovery of valuable assets.
We know that that is technically achievable, and I am grateful to Dr. John Gibbins of Imperial College for the information that he has provided. However, the bigger prize is near-zero emissions in electricity generation. The technology would provide the legal and lower-cost storage that we need for the first few decades, and could maintain and extend the necessary infrastructure for long-term storage for hundreds of years, using aquifers deep beneath the floor of the North sea.
Why do we need that? If we consider the electricity projections to 2020, we see a substantial rise in consumption. Even if we reach the target of 20 per cent. generation from renewables—and there must be some doubt about that—given the reduction in generation from retiring nuclear power stations, the overall projection is that zero-emission generation in the UK will not increase significantly between 2010 and 2020. Therefore, there will be insufficient reduction in CO2 to meet our stated targets, including the target of a 60 per cent. cut in carbon emissions by 2050.
Unless we go down the road of carbon capture and storage, the only answer will be to create another generation of nuclear power stations. Whatever one thinks of nuclear power, a new generation of such stations would present political problems. In any case, it would be sensible to have another option; we may need both. Carbon capture and storage is the only other option. That is why we must move forward with that and with enhanced oil recovery, as detailed in last year's energy White Paper, which recognised the strong case for both and set up a study.
I understand that the DTI is about to publish the report. I imagine that it will state that the market will not deliver carbon capture and storage and enhanced oil recovery, and that oil industry revenues will be too low and too long-term under simple market conditions to deliver them. Their delivery would therefore require some strategic priority from the Government, but so would nuclear build, and that might be even more expensive. If carbon capture and storage and enhanced oil recovery are to be an option, and because of the long lead-in times involved, we must move forward now. Even more crucially, if enhanced oil recovery is not started in the second decade of this century, oilfields will be closed and the opportunity lost for ever. Additional revenue from increased oil production will not then be available to offset carbon capture and storage electricity generation costs.
This is a great opportunity for the UK to take a global lead in these technologies, and to bring future economic success and jobs. The technology is also key to enabling developing countries to participate in CO2 emissions reduction while still using their own resources for the economic and social development that they need and from which they will riot want to turn away.
Time is of the essence. The key point that I want to make is that time is running out and that unless all stakeholders and the Government ensure that action is
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taken now, those great opportunities to maximise the recovery of our oil and gas reserves and to pursue new environmentally beneficial technology will be lost, and, along with them, jobs in parts of the country that really need them and much needed tax revenues and energy.
11.15 am
The Minister for Industry and the Regions: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) on initiating this debate, which is, as he said, a follow-up to the debate that was held last October and is part of his ongoing work to bring these issues to Parliament's attention, to put pressure—understandably—on Government, and to engage stakeholders more widely. He plays an important role in that. I hope that I can give him some encouragement not only about progress since October's debate, but about progress on initiatives that were instituted before then.
My hon. Friend is right that the energy White Paper, which was published just over a year ago, reaffirms our commitment to maintaining an active and successful oil and gas industry and to promoting the future development of the UK's oil and gas reserves. There are still huge quantities of oil and gas to be produced from under the North sea—potentially more than we have already produced. The Government are committed to working closely with industry, the oil companies and their supply chain to secure the best licensing, environmental and business frameworks to attract the investment activity that is needed to deliver that potential. We believe that, working together, we can explore and produce every economic drop of oil; but there is no room for complacency.
Through the PILOT process and the Government-industry oil and gas forum, we are making progress on providing the right incentives for continued and new investment from existing and new players. In particular, we are continuing enhancements to our licensing processes; considering ways to free up more fallow acreage; working to ensure third-party access to infrastructure on fair and reasonable terms; seeking continued improvement to commercial behaviours; pursuing further innovations; and working with industry to ensure that the UK supply chain remains competitive.
Mr. Stephen Byers: I know that the Minister is aware of the importance of the offshore industry to employment and the manufacturing sector not only in the United Kingdom generally, but in the north-east of England specifically. We were particularly worried about the failure of AMEC to win the contract for the Buzzard development. In the light of that experience, will her Department reconsider the licensing regime to identify the ways in which it can benefit the UK offshore industry and secure British jobs in British yards?
Jacqui Smith: As I said, we constantly update the licensing regime to ensure that it encourages activity. I understand my right hon. Friend's disappointment about the case of AMEC, although the Buzzard field is directly sustaining around 1,000 jobs between Hartlepool and Scotland in companies that won contracts. I assure him that we shall continue to do what we can to support the UK energy industry supply chain

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companies such as AMEC to help to build up their competitiveness. That is a key role of the DTI's oil and gas industry development directorate, which works with regional partnersߞnot least in my right hon. Friend's constituency—to ensure that we are in the best possible position to take advantage of the activity that taking place.
The licensing regime must adapt to the changing commercial environment and bring about activity as quickly as possible. That is why, in the 21st offshore licensing round last year, we offered a new form of licence to attract new entrants. The promote licence was offered at a 10th of the cost of a traditional licence, and proved very popular. The response to that round was the best for years: 89 licences were awarded, including 53 promote licences. During last year's debate, my hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services mentioned the Prospect fair, which was a successful event that gave those awarded with promote licences an opportunity to inform industry and financiers of their plans for acreage and to attract investment. We are looking forward to seeing which of the promote licensees will be the first to deliver a firm drilling commitment. As regards progress since last October, earlier this month we announced the 22nd offshore licensing round, which makes available the largest number of blocks since the second round in 1965.
Mr. Frank Doran: My right hon. Friend rightly points to the positive measures that the Government are introducing to encourage activity in the North sea. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Blizzard) made a powerful speech setting out the disincentives to activity, such as the difficulty in gaining access to infrastructure and the fact that several companies are holding on to acreage. Around 80 per cent. of explorable acreage in the North sea is held by just half a dozen companies, which are investing elsewhere in the world while queues of new entrants are desperate to get access to that acreage. Are the Government addressing that problem?
Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend has made that case strongly before. The 22nd round adds to promote licences the new frontier licences, which allow companies to apply for relatively large amounts of acreage at reduced cost. That will allow more time for exploration arid development, reflecting the additional technical challenges, especially in the Atlantic margin west of the Shetland islands. The change in the licensing regime will help to promote the introduction of new entrants and activity that my hon. Friends the Member for Waveney and for Aberdeen, Central (Mr. Doran) have called for.
There is no doubt that we need to encourage more exploration activity. In 2003, there was a small increase in the number of exploration and appraisal wells drilled in the UK, although if one scans back over the past decade it is clear that the number is still relatively small. Nevertheless, there are some encouraging signs—for example, the recent drilling success of new entrant Oilexco on the Brenda prospect, where good quantities of oil appear to be present. That acreage was specifically identified by the DTI, and it was promoted and awarded in the 20th offshore licensing round in 2002. That is
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good news for the UK continental shelf. It gives us confidence that there is sufficient untapped potential to encourage experienced players from overseas and that that can be done within two years.
Mr. Alex Salmond: Will the Minister give way?
Jacqui Smith: Yes, but hon. Members must recognise that giving way limits what I can say.
Mr. Salmond: The Minister said that good things are happening, and I accept that there are encouraging signs. I agree with the hon. Member for Waveney that there is huge untapped potential and little sign of firm action to release the substantial amount of fallow acreage. What more does the Department intend to do to secure the release of that fallow acreage and to get the exploration figures to a more reasonable level?
Jacqui Smith: I was coming to that. Early indications are that more exploration and appraisal wells need to be drilled in 2004 than last year. Certain fiscal measures, especially the tax change, are designed to stimulate exploration activity in the North sea by companies without current taxable income. The exploration expenditure supplement will increase the amount of exploration and appraisal expenditure that can be carried from one accounting period to the next for a maximum of six years. It is important to set the right climate for investment, and that is what we are doing.
Several hon. Members referred to fallow blocks. We have continued to push hard in dealing with that. For example, 151 fallow blocks are identified on the DTI's oil and gas website, including 109 blocks that were added to the list this January. They must have significant activity planned within one year of being put on the website, or be relinquished. In addition, there are 83 fallow discoveries, including 17 that were added to the list in January, for which a licensee or third party has two years from publication to come forward with plans for significant activity. That drives precisely the kind of emphasis on action on fallow blocks for which hon. Members have argued. In fact, since the PILOT process began in 2002, eight exploration or appraisal wells have been drilled on those blocks. As a result, three new fields are being developed and two other wells have been announced as discoveries. Since 2002, 10 discoveries are no longer fallow because they have had new dedicated seismic, and a further eight discoveries have had appraisal drilling. Thirteen discoveries are no longer fallow because they are included in development plans approved by the DTI or are part of fields now in production.
Despite those outcomes, there is no room for complacency. We will continue to work with the industry to push for even more acreage to be made available. We have taken action to ensure that there can be no more inactivity on licences. All new standard licences issued now have a shorter overall term to ensure that new acreage that is acquired but not worked on is handed back and made available for others to exploit.
On infrastructure, the key issues relate to perceptions about access and the time that it takes for some deals to go through on the UK continental shelf. I am pleased

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that the industry has been fully engaged in discussions on that and has reached an agreement to take forward measures to allow the Government to intervene in cases in which commercial negotiations are stagnating. That is a response to concerns that were raised in the previous debate about the unwillingness of those suffering to come forward to complain; it establishes a process for such intervention. That consensus was reached last October, and detailed implementation of the infrastructure work group is progressing well.
In terms of commercial practices, last year the industry signed up to the master deed agreement. The commercial code of practice is also relevant. The DTI and the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association—UKOOA—are pulling in the results of a code of practice survey for 2003 and intend to report to PILOT in the coming months on trends and industry performance. Action is therefore under way on ensuring access to infrastructure. Work is also being undertaken on the great potential for additional production in our brownfields. The PILOT brownfield work group published its second brownfield benchmarking studies in 2003.
We already have good examples of the industry's commitment not to miss out. UK independents are making significant investments. Those include Paladin; Energy North Sea's recent plans for the Montrose and Arbroath fields, where substantial drilling contracts have just been awarded; and Venture's acquisition, with Dana, of the Kittiwake fields.
More generally, at this stage in the life of the UKCS, a wide spectrum of companies—existing and new players, large, medium and small—must be involved if we are fully to exploit all the opportunities. I have explained how we are making progress through the licensing process and action on access to infrastructure.
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My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney asked about CO2 capture and storage. We are aware of the benefits that carbon capture and storage could provide in contributing to our energy White Paper target. Indeed, we recently undertook two studies of the feasibilities of those technologies and concluded that, in time, they could assist us in meeting that target, although in the longer term—beyond 2020. The first study investigated the feasibility of carbon capture and storage; the second considered the possibility of using CO2 for enhancing the recovery of oil from our depleting oil fields as a lead-in to CO2 storage by enabling an infrastructure to be developed. We are about to publish that second report.
Meanwhile, we are developing a carbon abatement technology programme that will provide a basis for a strategy for the use of fossil fuels for power generation. We plan to publish that strategy towards the end of the year. We also have an ongoing research programme—the sustainable hydrocarbons additional recovery programme—that is specifically targeted at identifying areas in the North sea where improved oil recovery techniques might be applied.
There is still a great deal to do. Industry, too, recognises the need for change. Only recently, Alan Booth, Managing Director of EnCana (UK) Ltd., outlined a number of areas in which industry must quickly adopt new approaches if it is to ensure that it gets the full benefits of what the North sea has to offer. This year, PILOT and the Government will focus on concluding the new procedures that will improve third-party access to infrastructure and on finding ways to enhance oil and gas recovery from brownfields. We know that the production gap exists, but the UKCS is still thriving and we are committed to working with the industry to overcome production barriers and to find innovative solutions for the future.
11.30 am
Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.

Prisoners (Mental Health)
2 pm
Mrs. Annette L. Brooke: We are here to discuss an important subject this afternoon, notwithstanding the alternative attractions: some people are listening to the speeches on the Budget, and others are talking to the media. I particularly wanted to have this discussion following the annual report of Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons for England and Wales for 2002–03. I tabled an early-day motion earlier this year welcoming the report, but also calling for an urgent review of how those with mental illnesses are treated.
Hon. Members will almost certainly have witnessed the sad results of girls self-harming in prison, and I have a tragic memory of visiting the special unit in Feltham young offenders institution for young men with severe mental health conditions. The dedication of the staff was impressive, but that memory stays with me. Prison suicides currently average two a week.
The chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers, suggested that the most serious incidents of self-harm, as well as deaths in custody, should be the subject of official investigations. In her annual report she said that the inquiries should not only ensure that help is focused on suicidal inmates, but should identify inmates who are so mentally ill that they should not be in prison. She suggested that a new network of mental health units should be set up to provide support and treatment for hundreds of disturbed offenders who could be detained there instead of in prison, where overcrowding is having an insidious and chronic effect.
Today the prison population stands at more than 75,000. The vast majority of the men and women locked up in our jails have mental health problems. Recent research by the Office for National Statistics found that seven out of 10 prisoners suffer from two or more mental health disorders. In many cases those include problems with substance abuse. Therefore, as I speak, more than 50,000 people who are mentally ill are locked up in our jails. They are supported by staff who are dedicated, but are not always trained psychiatric nurses. Many are trying to do their best in very difficult circumstances. One prison officer recently told a national newspaper:
"We are no longer prison officers, we are mental health workers. We are enthusiastic, but we are only amateurs."
I do not like to call those people amateurs, because they are professionals, but they are not fully trained to deal with the full range of mental health problems.
First, there are the seriously and acutely mentally ill. Martin Narey, the head of the recently formed national offenders management service, which we were discussing this morning, says that at any one time there are some 5,000 prisoners who should be immediately transferred to secure psychiatric settings. It is difficult, verging on impossible, to provide the right kind of environment for those people in prisons. Prisons are not by their nature therapeutic environments, so they are not places where prisoners can be compulsorily treated. They deal with extremely disturbed people, and prison staff struggle, and do a terrific job, simply trying to contain the degree of illness and danger.
Compared with 10 or even five years ago, the transfer of prisoners who are sectioned under the Mental Health
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Act 1983 to secure NHS facilities is improving. It is usually possible to do it within three months of diagnosis. Even in those three months, a prisoner's circumstances can deteriorate dramatically. The situation is not as good as it should be. The chief inspector of prisons pointed out:
"The arrival of mental health in-reach teams in many prisons has been of benefit both to prisoners and staff, enabling those with chronic mental disorder to be better managed on the wings."
I do not wish to undermine the improvements that have been made and the excellent ongoing work. Today's debate is about what more can and should be done in our prisons.
In parts of the country in which mental health trusts are unable to find room, deeply troubled prisoners can remain festering in prison for many months, locked up for many hours and remaining a danger to themselves and to other prisoners and staff. Many seriously mentally ill prisoners are not sectioned because, as they suffer from personality disorders, they are not considered to be treatable. A staggering 64 per cent. of male and 50 per cent. of female sentenced prisoners have a personality disorder. They are not always being accepted into mental health institutions, and those that are will sometimes be returned to prisons because they are too dangerous and difficult to deal with in special hospitals. Governors are reluctant to take those prisoners.
As is highlighted by Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, there is a policy in the Prison Service shockingly called "sale or return", whereby prisoners are sent by one governor to another on the understanding that if they misbehave, they will be returned. That is not the way in which we should deal with people who may be difficult but who have great needs and are usually damaged. A whole category of prisoners is on a merry-go-round, although "merry" is hardly the right word to use. They go from one prison to another for weeks at a time, usually to provide respite for prison staff. That does little to help them, but instead exacerbates their mental condition.
In a prison, disturbed men and women are often held away from the main wing, either in the health care unit or in special segregation units. As the independent monitoring board—the prison watchdog appointed by the Home Office—recently reported to the Home Secretary of Her Majesty's prison at High Down in Surrey:
"It is distressing to watch mentally ill men being shuttled between the segregation and health care units. Their condition is adversely affected by segregation, but their behaviour cannot be adequately managed in our standard prison health care unit."
There are also levels of mental disorder associated with substance abuse. I do not discount the advances made in recent years for prisoners with drug problems, but there is still a long way to go. The Government proudly tell us that more than 40,000 detoxifications take place across the Prison Service each year, but there are question marks over the quality of those detoxifications. How many of them took place in health care centres rather than on prison landings? How many detoxified prisoners received follow-up, and of what kind?

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The Home Office also says that more than 40,000 initial assessments were made last year under the CARAT programme for prisoners with drug problems. But how many of those initial assessments led to the full process of counselling, assessment, referral, advice and through-care? I do not underestimate the extent of what I am identifying and I realise that it cannot be solved overnight, but it is right to outline the whole situation.
How many prisoners complete treatment and rehabilitation programmes? How many prisoners have access to treatment and support services on release, and with what delay? Is there any information about the number of prisoners with dual diagnosis, and what coordinated Prison Service provisions address their needs? Those questions are all being asked by prison reform groups such as the Prison Reform Trust, but the Home Office has not provided satisfactory answers—perhaps the Minister will be able to help today.
The situation is compounded by the severe overcrowding in jails across the country. According to the Prison Reform Trust, 85 of the 138 jails in England and Wales are overcrowded and more than 16,500 prisoners have to double up in cells designed for one person. The large local jails up and down the country have in effect become vast transit camps, where tens of thousands of prisoners are processed each year. There is a danger, because the system is so overstretched, that staff will fail to identify and monitor vulnerable and the mentally unstable prisoners.
We are already seeing the consequences of cramming mentally ill people into overcrowded jails. Incidents of self-harm among prisoners have increased fivefold since 1998. Last year, there were 17,300 such incidents recorded. Among female prisoners the level of self-harm is particularly alarming. A far higher proportion of women injure themselves repeatedly. Many of them will have suffered domestic violence and sexual abuse. For them, and for the many desperate men in our prisons, self-harm is a way to release their mental pain. As one former prisoner wrote in a recent report by the Prison Reform Trust:
"During the two-and-a-half years of my incarceration I was to discover the depths of despair one can fall into, believing I was losing my mind, believing I was dead, believing I was buried alive, believing I would never be free. I learnt about self-harm, physically and emotionally, I learnt how to survive, yet at the same time how it feels to want to die every day … Prison is not a place for the mentally ill and too many … are there already that should not be."
In her annual report, Anne Owers says:
"Women in prison are at ever greater risk of suicide and self-harm. There were 14 self-inflicted deaths this year, and six of them occurred within the first eight days in prison … This places local prisons, which receive women directly from the courts, in the front line. The key elements they need to have in place are effective strategies on self-harm and bullying, effective detoxification, proper mental health support and a sufficiently active regime. None of the three local prisons that we reported on this year met all these requirements; though between them they showed that it is possible to have effective practice in all these areas."
Although there were many worrying statements in the annual report, there was some light. There are those pockets of good practice—if only we could spread them more.
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The chief inspector goes on to say:
"Proper detoxification is a key part of safer custody. Holloway had extremely good detoxification, which we say should be a model of good practice. But sadly it is not a model that is followed elsewhere. In our inspection of Styal, we found that inadequate detoxification severely affected women's physical and mental health and future chances. We noted that the Governor's two bids for additional resources for detoxification had been rejected. Our report was unequivocal: 'Our strongest recommendation is that drug detoxification programmes should be introduced immediately'. It is inexcusable, that, 18 months after our inspection, this was still not the case and, in the interim, six women drug users had died there within a month of admission … Styal had no proper detoxification unit. We describe women, in their early days there, fitting and vomiting in their cells, with staff unable to do more than observe and try to alleviate their distress. This had profound and damaging effects, both on women's safety and on their chance of effective education and training."
We have recently heard that the successful therapeutic project at Winchester is to be uprooted and transferred to Her Majesty's prison Send as part of emergency plans to find extra spaces and avoid holding male prisoners in police cells. That rushed plan is surely a symptom of the crisis in the Prison Service. It is difficult to imagine that those vulnerable women will not be affected by the move. The overcrowding crisis is now so great that the Government perpetually seem to be running behind the problems.
I welcome the strategy for women prisoners, which was announced on the same day as the announcement about moving the special unit at Winchester. It has long been argued that women prisoners need different treatment, and it is a sad reflection on society that the number of women prisoners has increased by 173 per cent. in the last 10 years. Their sentences may be short but the women are very vulnerable, and it is a problem for them to be located far away from their homes and families. About 50 per cent. of women are more than 50 miles from their families, and a quarter are more than 100 miles away. There are different circumstances, but it is worrying that women are receiving more severe sentences than they would have been given a decade ago for the same offences.
We must get the right message across about sentencing policy. I am not convinced that the Government always give clear signals to the justice system. There are many good schemes in the Criminal Justice Act 2003: more community service, custody plus, custody minus, and intermittent jail sentences. However, women are still going to prison when other settings would be more appropriate.
Research by Young Minds concludes that more than 1 million children have a mental disorder and half of all children who have been involved with the police have a mental disorder. That is not to say that all children with a mental disorder offend, but it is important to expand children's mental health services rapidly as a preventive strategy to help to such vulnerable children.
I welcome the fact that the Government have invested heavily in child and adolescent mental health services. We might speculate that some of the problems that we face might not be quite so desperate if that investment had been made earlier. In my former life as a councillor, I was frequently frustrated by the lack of money for children's mental health; although the Government have done an enormous amount, there is much more to be done. I am straying from Home Office to health

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issues, but one reason why I wanted this debate was because we need joined-up thinking to tackle the issue from all sides.
Why have prisons become dumping grounds for the mentally ill? The answer is simple: according to the mental health charity Mind, 50,000 psychiatric beds have been lost over 20 years. There is nowhere for people to go when they have a mental breakdown, and that often leads to prison for people who commit minor offences. The courts are remanding increasing numbers of mentally ill offenders in custody to await pre-sentence psychiatric reports, because there are not sufficient places available in bail hostels.
In addition, there is a shortage of court diversion schemes so that offenders who are acutely ill or at risk of suicide can be given hospital places or the treatment they need. The solution in these tragic circumstances is not to turn prisons into treatment centres on the cheap; the solution lies outside the criminal justice system.
So much offending by mentally ill people is really a public health, rather than a criminal justice, issue. The problem will certainly not be solved by cramming more people into jails or by investing in another prison building programme, as it costs £36,500 a year to keep a person behind bars. The solution is to provide more services for mental health care, drug treatment, court diversion, and mental health support and supervision centres throughout the country. With that investment, surely we could find the money for the treatment that our mentally ill people need? Why should we continually throw so much money at our prison system, when the more prisons we build, the more demands to send people to jail fill the tabloids? Does the Minister accept that we must invest to save not only money but people, and their self-esteem?
The World Health Organisation has highlighted the link between access to physical education, work and the arts—all of which are restricted in prisons, especially at times of overcrowding—and mental health. We have had a lot of information about prisons in which the inmates are kept in their cells for up to 23 hours a day. That is all part of the crisis of a shortage of staff and space. We have a self-perpetuating crisis of overcrowded prisons, including the presence of prisoners with severe mental health conditions, who obviously absorb a lot of staff time; meanwhile, we are making the mental health conditions for other prisoners worse. That vicious circle must be broken.
I would like to see a clear strategy from the Government on mental health, because it is the biggest area that needs to be tackled to improve our Prison Service. We need genuine rehabilitation for those who offend, along with the punishment that is clearly needed for all offences—we accept that there must be longer prison sentences for those who have been involved in violent or sexual crimes. However, we also need good sense, because our prison system is not working. There might be small cuts here or there in reoffending, but I have not seen any figure of less than 50 per cent. for that, although there may have been large percentage reductions. There is a revolving-door phenomenon. When people go in through that door, those who may have entered without a mental health condition can develop one because of prison conditions. Worse still,
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those who should have hope in their lives are not receiving the education or support that they need, and they are not engaging in rehabilitation activities.
There is so much to be done. For those with severe mental health conditions and drug addictions, it is important to invest to ensure that there is total through-care. I hope that the Minister will tell us about both the short-term plans, which I hope are not just quick fixes, and the long-term strategy, because we have a real crisis. There are already tragedies of suicide and violence in prisons, and it will not be much longer before there is a bigger tragedy. We need action and a long-term strategy that will address the problems that I have outlined today.
2.24 pm
Mr. Paul Marsden: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) on securing this debate. I realise that an interesting debate on the Budget is taking place in the main Chamber, but it is still disappointing that so few Members are present in this Chamber.
As my hon. Friend said, the problem of mental health in prisons is avoidable and can be resolved. We are talking about some of the most vulnerable people in our society. I have often found on my travels that people who have been in prison have also been homeless or have experienced all sorts of suffering in socially deprived areas. They are people with a lot of baggage. We need to find ways to help that hardcore group of people. They have problems—and, to be honest, many of them create problems, too. Mental health services have been neglected for many years, and it is to the Government's credit that they have put their money where their mouth is and begun to address the problem that they inherited.
There is a pitiful lack of resources for helping people with mental health problems inside prisons. I remember going to Shrewsbury prison, where excellent staff attention is given to looking out for the obvious problems of the prisoners who go quiet and do not express themselves, and for those with a background of mental health problems. It also has a good counselling room, where staff can try to talk to prisoners. However, the fact remains that there are too many people in prison who should not be there.
The statistics alone are worrying, and even they belie the real truth of the heartache—the details of the cases behind the numbers. None the less, they show that in 1992 there were 41 self-inflicted deaths in our prisons, and that by 1997 there were 68; the latest available annual figure is 94. The Minister will probably say that the number of people in prison has dramatically increased for a variety of reasons, and that is right; in 1992 there were 45,817 people in our prisons on average, and the latest figure is 74,960. However, if the proportion is worked out on a pro rata basis—per 100,000 prison population, let us say—there has still been an increase: the latest statistics say that 125 people per 100,000 in the prison population commit suicide, but in 1997 that figure was 111, and in 1992 it was 89. The trend is going up, over and above any increase in the prison population. People in British prisons are now 13 times more likely to commit suicide than people in the outside world.

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Something is seriously wrong. There is a breakdown in the way in which our overstretched public services are dealing with this issue, because at the same time the statistics in the wider community are getting better. The Government and the Minister can rightly take credit for that. Extra resources are going into the wider mental health services and the suicide rate is decreasing; it has come down from almost 11 per 100,000 to about nine. That is good.
However, although resources are being spent and that is creating some success, not enough is being done. On 9 February,The Guardian reported:
"Incidents of self-harm among prisoners in England and Wales have increased fivefold since 1998".
Those new figures were revealed in response to a parliamentary question from Lord Lester, QC. The annual report of HM chief inspector of prisons for England and Wales 2002–03 states:
"Mental health continues to be a major problem in prisons, with a large number of prisoners who have either acute or chronic mental disorders. We have noticed some improvement in moving seriously mentally ill patients to NHS care".
The Government were right to do that. The report continues:
"Nevertheless, three months"—
the target time for assessment—
"is a long time for prisons to hold seriously ill, often potentially violent, prisoners that they cannot treat and who deteriorate visibly. The regimes available in healthcare centres rarely provided the support and stimulation that such patients need."
Likewise, on 9 February in The Birmingham Post, Professor David Wilson of the university of Central England said:
"Prisons seem to be for the homeless, people with social problems and the excluded. It is a disgrace to our nation. They are for locking people up, not treating people with mental problems, no matter how many times they offend."
He warned that if prisons continued to house the mentally ill they would lose the public's respect, and I think that he is right.
My hon. Friend mentioned problems at Styal prison in Cheshire. Five of the six women who died there last year were in the induction wing, which was found to be "isolating and forbidding". There was inadequate provision for mental health treatment and there were inadequate facilities for dealing with drug-dependent prisoners. I am sure that the Minister will say that action is being taken on that, and that there will be extra resources. Nevertheless, surely we have to change the procedures and expand capacity—possibly in the community, certainly in secure mental health hospitals—to make sure that such people, who should be treated, do not constantly go in and out of prison. That is counter-productive in every way.
The present situation produces many problems on the streets, as I saw recently when I spent an evening on patrol with special constables in Shrewsbury. I was with them between half-past 5 in the evening until half-past 11, when they finished the patrol, and the first four call-outs were all to deal with problems on the streets caused by people with mental health problems who were known to the police.
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The policemen told me that in each case, all they could do was to calm the people down and move them on; there was simply no provision for getting mental health workers out in the evening. The police pointed out two individuals who had criminal records and who had previously been to prison. It is only right and proper that we make those responsible for crimes and for their actions to pay for their actions, but there are clearly too many people on our streets and in our prisons who are not necessarily responsible. Prison is the wrong place to send them.
Finally, the Prison Reform Trust has said:
"One in five men in prison, and nearly 40 per cent. of women, have attempted suicide at some time—rates that are much higher than in the general public. At some stage in their sentence most prisoners are going to experience personal distress, mental health problems, drug dependency or a lack of family support—all factors which increase the risk of suicide."
With almost two people a week now committing suicide in our prisons, it is time that this terrible tragedy came to an end.
2.33 pm
Mr. Mark Oaten: I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) on securing the debate. Often prisons and matters to do with mental health are seen as a Cinderella issue. However, this debate is not the only one we have had today; it follows the debate this morning on the soon-to-be-established national offenders management service. That debate set the background for the new structure that the Government are putting in place, and I hope that the Minister will make it clear that one urgent priority for that new system will be to address some of the issues that my hon. Friend has raised; the two subjects work closely alongside each other.
My hon. Friend was right to focus on some of the figures involved. There are 5,000 individuals with serious mental health issues in prison, whom all the professionals recognise should not be in prison. Beyond those 5,000, there are a considerable number—seven out of 10 prisoners—who have some form of mental illness. Those are damning figures indeed.
My hon. Friend mentioned what took place at Feltham some time ago. I visited Feltham a couple of weeks ago and I would like to put on record the enormous progress that has been made at that institution. I was extremely impressed with what I saw—the dedication of the staff and the way in which they have turned round an organisation that had the problems to which my hon. Friend referred. The institution—touch wood—now has a regime that has calmed things down and is making enormous progress. I was extremely impressed with the work that they do there.
My hon. Friend made a damning point about the cost of keeping individuals in prison: £350 a night. Imagine how that money could be invested in tackling mental health problems. It is a very large sum. If we could put all that into solving some of the problems that she mentioned, that would surely be better value for money.
I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Marsden) for his contribution, in which he made three or four telling

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points. He drew attention to the increases in the prison population, and mentioned an extremely damning figure, which I had not heard before: people in prison are 13 times more likely to commit suicide than those outside. One would have thought that people would be less likely to commit suicide in a secure institution, and that they would be secured from that vulnerability and put into a system that would make them safer. It is an absolute disgrace that they are 13 times more likely to commit suicide.
I concur entirely with my hon. Friend about the experience of going out with the police on a Friday or Saturday night. I did that in my constituency too, and it was amazing how the police knew the names of all the individuals. Sometimes they even knew the medication that some of them should be taking, and were asking them whether they had taken it. On the streets on a Friday or Saturday night, the police were almost like mental health experts themselves. Without that knowledge, people can often misinterpret behaviour, not understanding that there is a mental health reason behind it. One can easily see how such disturbing behaviour can lead individuals into prison. My hon. Friend was right to raise that concern.
The background to this debate, as has been said, is the increasing prison population. I do not want to go into the issues behind that, other than to put on the record the fact that we are heading towards a crisis. We know that the Government are trying to juggle the figures every week, to avoid police cells having to be used to cope with the numbers involved. Something must be done in the system to tackle the growing numbers of folk in prison, as prison cannot do the job that we would all like it to do. The problem manifests itself in move away from the concept of a community prison to prisons that have no connection with the community in which the prisoners are held. Prisoners are always being moved up and down the country.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole raised the case of my own constituency prison, Winchester, where the decision has recently been taken to close the women's prison and to move the therapeutic community experiment that was taking place there—the only experiment of its kind in Europe. I have visited it, and the concept of giving the prisoners some responsibility is exciting. They set their daily timetable and consider the prison's agenda and the tasks that take place there. Most importantly, individual prisoners start to have some responsibility for how their lives are run. Such issues are all too often taken out of their control when they go into an institution, and when they leave prison, not having had responsibility for themselves can cause great problems.
That is excellent work; I acknowledge that the Minister has been helpful in keeping me posted on the issue, and I do not criticise him for his communications. He has reassured me that the unit will move to a different location, and stay together as much as possible. He recognises, as I do, the importance of keeping as many of the women and staff that started the experiment together when they move. When he responds, perhaps he will be able to update me on negotiations with staff, as we obviously want to persuade the staff who are taking part in the experiment to relocate, at least in the short term, to keep it going. However, the point remains
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that moving prisoners around the country like that cannot be good for the purposes that prison is supposed to serve.
The debate is not about prison and reoffending, but something is wrong with a system that allows 87 per cent. of 18 to 21-year-olds to reoffend. It is a national scandal that 87 per cent. of the individuals in that captive audience come out and commit a crime again. The figure is 57 per cent. for the rest of the prison population—something is clearly going wrong.
We cannot debate education and training today, but we must do more to ensure that individuals leave prison with the ability to read and write. and the skills to get a job. However, none of that can happen while the size of the prison population is going out of control and the staff are under increasing pressure. The prison officers to whom I speak about issues related to prisoners with mental health say, "Frankly, Mark, it's enough for us to be able to get through the day, to make sure the prison is secure and that we don't have riots or other serious incidents on our hands. Don't talk to us about prisoners with mental health or health problems, or about trying to get more education and training. That's an ideal that we could move towards, but we're trying to survive from day to day."
Others have rightly mentioned the chief inspector of prisons' report—the language used by the inspector is strong, and I am glad that she took some trouble to raise concerns about the mental health of prisoners. I will quote one example that the inspector gave in connection with my local prison. About mental health problems at Winchester prison, the report says:
"Patients had a very impoverished day, with very little activity: only out of their rooms for two to three hours at most on many days. Disturbed young men should have some space and human contact."
The conditions in which we hold ordinary prisoners—who often stay in their cells for 23 hours a day—are unacceptable, but those conditions are particularly acute for prisoners who have mental health problems. If someone is in that sort of environment without contact, without exercise or sport or anything purposeful to do, that will not help with the condition that they had when they entered prison. Indeed, it is likely to make that condition worse.
The inspector discussed some examples of good practice, and the mental health inreach teams that have been put in place in several prisons. Could the Minister give us an update on the progress in establishing those teams? How many are there, and what sort of progress is being made putting them into as many prisons as possible? Those teams have a role to play in solving the problem.
The inspector also raised the question of assessment, and the importance of ensuring that when someone arrives in prison an assessment takes place quickly. The target is that the assessment should take place within three months. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham said, that is not a particularly effective target, because someone in that condition should not have to go for three months without any proper assessment.
However, I want to draw the Minister's attention to an assessment that should happen even before that—the one that happens to a prisoner in the first five or six

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hours after they arrive at the prison. I am extremely concerned that the assessment procedure for a prisoner who has just arrived remains inadequate. That is not necessarily the fault of the Prison Service; it may be the fault of the back-up system. If someone arrives at a prison, it is important that medical notes and any case history or doctor's evidence are made available as soon as possible. I know that in some of the cases of suicide that occur in prisons, which often happen in the first 24 hours, that crucial back-up information has not been made known to the prison. I hope that the Minister can tell us what can be done to improve not the three-month assessment of prisoners' mental health needs, which is more complicated, but the assessment within 24 hours, so that any indications on a medical note or a doctor's note that there could be mental health problems are spotted quickly. We know that those first 24 hours are critical.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole mentioned the work of the children's charity Young Minds. In a briefing that Young Minds gave to a number of MPs a couple of days ago, it said that some 95 per cent. of young prisoners have a mental health disorder. It seems that among young prisoners and young offenders, problems with mental health are more acute. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that and will see what can be done for those particularly vulnerable groups.
Both my hon. Friends mentioned suicide figures and self-harm, and I do not wish to rehearse those issues. However, there is another set of figures that I am concerned about: those to do with attempted suicide. The Minister gave me an answer to a question on that issue a couple of Mondays ago. We know that suicide and self-harm rates are increasing in prisons, but I was concerned to find that in 2002, some 154 prisoners were resuscitated. That means that they were in such a vulnerable state that they were trying to commit suicide. Last year, 211 prisoners were resuscitated. Those figures are alarming: they could so easily have added to the suicide rate.
Obviously, the good news is that those people were resuscitated. Fortunately, something happened in the system to prevent them from committing suicide when they were so close to doing so. The bad news is that we need to look at the self-harm, suicide and resuscitation figures as a whole, and they show that there is an increasing problem with suicides and the threat of suicides in prison. In response to my question, the Minister said that there was a three-year programme to develop policies and practices designed to reduce prisoner suicide and manage self-harm in prisons. He said that the results of that programme and research would inform future suicide prevention and self-harm management strategy. Will he let me know when that three-year programme is due to conclude, and what early indications he has received of the kind of programmes that the Government will put in place following that?
I have a final question about mental health in prison, relating to the practice of DNA testing people in prison. I understand that the Government's policy involved a prisoner DNA sampling exercise. That took place between February and September 2003. The aim was to
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take a DNA sample from all convicted offenders held in prison or mental health establishments. I am slightly concerned, and wanted reassurance, about the way in which DNA tests are carried out on those with mental health problems. I understand that people held in mental hospitals who have been found unfit to plead or have been acquitted of an offence on grounds of insanity are also included in the DNA testing process. Will the Minister run the rationale for that past the House, and give us reassurance about exactly how the process takes place? Obviously, that is a sensitive issue, given that those concerned have been found unfit or insane.
What is the way forward? I think that we should start to recognise that prison is not like hospital. If a person is ill and has something wrong with them, and they go to hospital, something happens in hospital to put that right; they go into a bed, have drugs or an operation, and come out better. In contrast, if a person goes to prison, although something is wrong with them, nothing happens to them in prison to put it right. That is the opposite of the way in which the hospital service works. People stay in prison and do not come out—and when they do come out, unfortunately, a large majority of them are not better, and have to go straight back to prison.
Is it not our aim that the philosophy and principles that apply to the treatment of those going into hospital should also apply to those going into prison? That must be the overarching aim towards which the Government should move. However, they also need to recognise that prison may not be the most appropriate place to deal with those with mental health problems. That means moving towards more community prisons, so that those with mental health problems are near local services, and perhaps family back-up and support, which can be invaluable. That is better than family and relatives having to travel miles to visit such people. It also means reducing overcrowding in prisons, and giving prison staff responsibility and more space, so that they can look after those with mental health issues and get involved with those problems.
That approach means understanding why people with mental health problems are sentenced in such a way. Most importantly of all, it means understanding why those with mental health problems are committing the crimes that lead to sentencing. I accept that that goes way beyond the Minister's remit and involves general cross-cutting policy. Surely at the heart of the issue is the need to understand why people with such problems get into the crime culture in the first place. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole for raising this important issue, and I hope that the Minister can tackle some of the points raised and find a positive way forward.
2.50 pm
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan: I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) on raising this debate. The Minister and I have spent a considerable amount of time in this Chamber today. This is our second debate, this morning's having been on the national offender management service, and the two subjects are interrelated. Indeed, we could have run one debate into the other, which would have given us a welcome opportunity to consider all the relevant issues.

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I, too, am sad that there is such a dearth of Members in this Chamber today, but as you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, there are other attractions today in the main Chamber. Some of us have not even managed to have our lunch yet, as we have been running between the two Chambers. Sometimes I wonder whether Westminster Hall could not be re-timetabled to allow us to have some normality in our lives.
The subject chosen by the hon. Lady is not glamorous or often highlighted, as it almost seems taboo to discuss mental health. However, one in four people will suffer with mental health problems at some stage in their lives, so everyone in this Chamber will know someone—a friend, relative or colleague—who has had mental health problems, whether in their early or their later years.
Mental health issues cover a broad spectrum, from post-natal depression to psychotic behaviour and from Alzheimer's to schizophrenia, so we are talking about the full range of illness. Whatever incidence is found in society at large, it is concentrated in the prison population, and whereas once we hid our mentally ill in asylums, we now find them in our prisons.
The Minister will be familiar with the Prison Reform Trust, as it does such sterling work in this area. It provides us with some grim statistics, which possibly need some updating—I hope that Minister will be able to fill in the gaps. Most prisoners have significant mental health problems, and some 72 per cent. of male and 70 per cent. of female sentenced prisoners suffer from two or more mental health disorders. Neurotic and personality disorders are particularly prevalent: some 40 per cent. of male and 63 per cent. of female sentenced prisoners have a neurotic disorder, which is more than three times the general population. Some 64 per cent. of male and 50 per cent. of female sentenced prisoners have a personality disorder.
I want also to consider the position of older prisoners, as 85 per cent. of prisoners over 60 suffer from chronic illness, and I hope that the Minister can shed some light on how many prisoners currently in custody suffer from Alzheimer's or other debilitating diseases that generally affect people later in life. A significant number of prisoners suffer from a psychotic disorder—7 per cent. of male and 14 per cent. of female prisoners exhibit signs of one, which is 14 to 23 times the level in the general population.
Other hon. Members have spoken about the increase in reported incidents of self-harm among prisoners and the alarming statistics on prisoner suicides. I understand that there have been 27 suicides in our prison system already this year. I hope that the Minister will comment about the change in how suicides are investigated, as they will soon be investigated by the prisons ombudsman. It would be helpful to know whether, in the course of those investigations, the ombudsman will consider the mental health of the deceased and the treatment that they received, or did not receive, when they entered the prison system. That is a sensitive and painful subject for the families of those who have committed suicide, but we may be able to learn some lessons and adjust our practices and procedures in the prison system to ensure that more prisoners do not lose their lives.
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A high proportion of prisoners have been treated in psychiatric hospitals. Some 20 per cent. of male and 15 per cent. of female sentenced prisoners have previously been admitted for in-patient psychiatric care. The Prison Reform Trust has done some work on the female prison population, and as many as 40 per cent. of the women whom they interviewed reported having received help or treatment for mental, nervous, or emotional problems in the year before going to prison. There must be some early indicators that we may be missing.
I hope that that sort of information will inform the way in which we handle women in the prison system. There is no doubt that there has been a vast increase in women going to prison. That must be considered closely, because if women are imprisoned there are tremendous social on-costs and implications, particularly if they have families. As we all know, if a woman in prison has a family, she loses her home and her children go into care, and a cycle is set up whereby the children, too, can end up in the criminal justice system. The Minister must reassure me, and others, that he will carefully consider the mental health issues as they apply to women.
There is another alarming statistic from the Prison Reform Trust, upon which I hope that the Minister will throw some light. Research suggests that people are twice as likely to be refused treatment for mental health problems in prison as outside. I understand that the Government's social exclusion unit concluded that mental health care in prisons was in significant need of improvement. That is an understatement, bearing in mind the number of prisoners who have been identified as suffering from significant mental health problems. If a high proportion—some 50 per cent.—are turned down when they ask for mental health treatment in prison, we have an even bigger problem than I thought.
There is a shortage of mental health professionals working in the prison system, as I think everybody would acknowledge. I acknowledge that progress is being made—certainly, that seems so from the answers to my questions to the Department of Health—and there are targets for increasing the number of mental health professionals in prisons, although I am not entirely convinced that those targets have been met, and that the numbers are fully up to the levels anticipated by the Department.
It is troubling to think that anyone who is mentally ill and has a brush with the law could find themselves in surroundings that are almost Dickensian and are certainly inadequate for the treatment that they require. I believe that I am right in saying that facilities often amount to little more than sick bays with limited primary care provision. The assessment of a prisoner on his or her arrival at prison typically takes just a few minutes, and is often conducted by a retired GP or a locum, who may not have specialist knowledge of mental health. The level of training of staff does not always match the complexity of the conditions with which prisoners present.
Earlier, I briefly met some of the representatives from the Salvation Army, which does some sterling work in this area. They look at a throughput of some 60,000 people and have identified the complexity of need. They

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are finding that some of their methods are helping to deal with the complex needs of mentally ill ex-prisoners and people still in custody.
The report from John Reed, the medical inspector at Her Majesty's inspectorate of prisons, states:
"A period in prison should present an opportunity to detect, diagnose, and treat mental illness in a population … hard to engage with NHS services. This could bring major benefits not only to patients but to the wider community by ensuring continuity of care and reducing the risk of re-offending on release."
The fact that that opportunity is not grasped is an indictment of the current system. In Nursing Times in 2000, John Reed said something that strikes horror in all our hearts: that many prisoners
"are quietly mad behind their cell door and are not getting any treatment. Care for mentally disordered offenders in prison is a disgrace."
That was written in 2000, but we still need to reform many areas of the Prison Service as a matter of urgency. Research is still required to determine the impact that the prison environment, and in particular, overcrowding, to which I referred in this morning's debate, have on mental health. As we have the luxury of more time in this debate, I hope that the Minister will update us on the latest figures for the prison population, which exceeds 75,000. As the Prison Service is in crisis in terms of numbers, will he tell us what arrangements have been made and how many police forces are on standby for Operation Safeguard? As the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) noted, the police have to take the overflow from the system, and that worries all hon. Members.
I was also worried to read "Securing Our Future Health: Taking a Long-Term View", the interim report by Derek Wanless. Part of that dealt with the costs of mental illness and the savings that could be made by introducing a better system, and it says:
"It is difficult to estimate the exact value of potential savings, but it does not seem unreasonable to assume that there might be a 5 per cent. reduction in the costs of mental illness and a 2 per cent. reduction in the costs of crime … giving a net saving across government as a whole of some £3.1 billion a year."
That may be so if the nettle is grasped and the problem dealt with as Derek Wanless recommends. What will the potential savings be if the system is improved, perhaps along the lines that the Minister started to explain this morning, but did not quite finish?
I appreciate that some progress has been made. I spoke to Steve Gannon at Holloway prison, where he has made great strides in the treatment of mentally ill prisoners over a very short period. He told me, and I believe it, that the inreach teams have made a big impact, mostly because they came in with a little money. Having resources attached to the inreach teams works wonders.
However, there are still tremendous difficulties. For example, it is difficult to allocate key workers to a prisoner, because prisoners are often moved around the country. Will the Minister comment on the reports that women prisoners are being moved out of Winchester and Edmunds Hill as we speak, because of overcrowding, so that male prisoners can be accommodated? How will those individuals receive the
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continuing support that is needed? If prisoners are moved around the country, they will be away from their home, friends and support systems. There is an obvious social dimension to mental illness, and if support systems are not accessible, the individuals involved are less likely to benefit from interventions, and the outcomes will be poorer.
I am also worried about the transfer of the responsibility for commissioning to primary care trusts. How will that fit in with the new structure of the national offender management service? Will that money be ring-fenced, or will it go to options that are more attractive to the PCTs than mental health in prisons? I hope that the Minister will reassure us about that, because I am thinking particularly about the pressure under which PCTs operate at the moment. Many of them are turning in deficit budgets. The transfer of responsibility and the dedication of that money is extremely important to improving the conditions of prisoners with mental health problems.
There appear to be limited resources to identify prisoners with learning difficulties. Those prisoners have a number of problems, and need to be identified at an early stage, not least for their own protection in some instances. What resources are available to identify them?
Starting a process is always difficult. I appreciate that there have been targets for the number of staff working in mental health teams in prisons, and a number of my questions have been answered. However, the nine-week basic training that prison officers receive is not only cursory, but almost wholly inadequate.
I am particularly worried about the lack of information on the treatment of mental health disorders in each prison establishment. I asked the Secretary of State for Health how many people were employed to treat such disorders in each prison establishment, but I was told:
"This information is not available."
The answer continued:
"By March 2004 we expect to meet the NHS Plan commitment for 300 additional staff to provide specialist community type mental health services to over 5,000 prisoners."—[Official Report, 23 February 2004; Vol. 418, c. 289W.]
If, however, we do not have the information on how many staff work in the area, I lack confidence in the way in which the Government are handling the prison system.
The enormous problem that we are discussing could well be exacerbated by the major reorganisation being carried out by the Government. Once again, we look to the Minister to reassure us that he is in charge of the situation—that he has the necessary information at his fingertips and an action plan to deal with it.
3.6 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department: This is indeed the second time that some of us have attended a debate in Westminster Hall today, and the first debate was on similar issues. I admire the capacity of the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) not only to participate in debates, but to ask the Prime Minister a question, meet the Salvation Army, and, no doubt, table another half dozen questions to me for written answer. I pay tribute to her energy.

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I compliment the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) on obtaining this very important debate. She spoke this afternoon as she always does, whether in Committee or on the Floor of the House—with great care, knowledge and concern. It does her great credit that she brings such issues to our attention in that way. She asked many questions, some of which I hope to be able to answer during this debate. On those that I do not answer, I will write to her, as I will to other hon. Members.
Behind some of the hon. Lady's factual questions lay deeper questions about how correctional services are organised, who prison is for, and how we can effect changes in sentencing so that people who need and deserve to be in prison are in prison, while people who can be dealt with in the community are in the community. Those issues were also at the heart of the debate that we had earlier about the national offender management service. The discussion will continue, and I want to encourage it. I want people to participate in it not only in Parliament but throughout the work force, because we must get the system right. Too many people who are in prison today should not be there, and could be dealt with more effectively in the community. Whether or not they have mental health problems, or are first-time offenders, or non-dangerous people, more of them should be in the community, and that is the direction in which the Government want to move.
A number of statistics were used about the prevalence of mental illness in prisons. I shall add two statistics that show the seriousness of the challenge that we face: 90 per cent. of prisoners have at least one significant mental health problem, and 20 per cent. have four of the five major mental health disorders. This is, therefore, a very serious issue, and not one that the Home Office or I, as the Minister responsible, seek to shy away from. We are facing the issue head on, and trying to devise solutions.
The overall aim of the programme to improve health services for prisoners, which we began in 2000, is to provide prisoners with access to the same range and quality of health services as the general public expect to receive from the NHS. There should be equality of access to health care whether one is in prison or in the community. Of course, ensuring that prisoners have access to good health care can improve their physical and mental health. In so doing, we increase the extent to which they can participate in education, work on offending behaviour, and other aspects of prison life. In turn, that improves the potential for their successful rehabilitation and resettlement in the community.
"Changing the Outlook", the Government's strategy for modernising mental health services in prisons, was published in December 2001. It set out a vision of where prison mental health care was expected to be in three to five years' time and identified the steps that would need to be taken if that vision were to be realised. "Changing the Outlook" was published against a widespread consensus that the care and treatment of prisoners with mental disorders was in need of drastic improvement. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole referred to the independent monitoring board for a particular prison. I receive reports from all the independent monitoring boards for prisons throughout the country, and they still regularly raise the issue of the mental health of the prisoners for whom they have responsibility.
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It was also acknowledged in "Changing the Outlook" that the best way to achieve and maintain an improvement in prison health services in general is for prisons and the national health service to work ever closer together. I have been asked this afternoon about the move to the commissioning by primary care trusts of health services for our prisons. I am pleased to confirm that from April this year, 18 primary care trusts will be commissioning services for the prisons in their area. The commitment is clear that by 2006, all prisons will have health care commissioned by primary care trusts. I am sure that, not least because of additional investment, as well as the professionalism that is being developed, we will have better health care in general, as well as better mental health care, in our prisons as a result of the close partnership between the NHS and the Prison Service.
The Department of Health's NHS plan, which was published in 2000, included firm commitments that by 2004, the 5,000 or so prisoners who at any one time have a severe mental illness should be receiving more comprehensive mental health services in prison. If there is one matter over which I take issue with the hon. Lady, it is the description of 5,000 prisoners all needing to be in hospital. Those people with those severe mental health problems do not all need to be in hospital, any more than a member of the public with a severe mental health problem who lives at home in the community needs to be in hospital.
It is possible to provide appropriate primary and secondary care for people in the community and for those in prison, and that is what we strive to do for the 5,000 people whom we estimate have a severe mental health problem. The NHS plan also confirmed the Government's view that all prisoners with severe mental illness should be in receipt of treatment, and no prisoner with a serious mental illness would leave prison without a care plan. Indeed, there is a clear commitment within the new partnership between the NHS and the Prison Service that 300 additional staff will be employed in providing mental health services in prisons. I am pleased to confirm that we are on target to deliver on that promise, and that those 300 members of staff will be employed in our prisons.
The means by which the commitments in the NHS plan are being implemented is the prison mental health inreach project. The hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) asked me for some updates on the project, which began in 2001. Dedicated funding has been made available to provide mental health services for prisoners along similar lines to the community mental health teams that already provide mental health services in the wider community. The inreach project began at 18 establishments in England and four in Wales in 2001–02, and was extended to another 26 sites during 2002–03. This year, a total of £10 million will be spent on NHS prison inreach services in England alone, as professional teams are developed in another 46 establishments. We can see that the investment is there and that the inreach work is extending ever further throughout the Prison Service.
Resources are also being made available to tackle the more specialised mental health needs of the small number of prisoners held in close supervision centres. Between March 2004 and March 2006, I expect NHS mental health inreach investment to double so that it reaches £20 million a year by 2005–06. That means that

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within the next three years, the services will be available to every prison in England and Wales. The extra investment will also help many of the existing inreach teams to expand the services that they currently offer.
"Changing the Outlook" signalled the intention to establish a prison mental health collaborative to support and empower staff to modernise clinical services for prisoners with mental health problems. I am pleased to say that that collaborative action is now well under way, in partnership with the National Institute for Mental Health in England and the NHS modernisation agency. Its aim is to identify and share good practice, as well as to identify the training required as we try to modernise clinical services in our prisons. Central to that approach is the determination to empower staff, to bring about better peer group support and to improve satisfaction for service users.
There are two other developments in prison mental health care that I would like to draw to the attention of the Chamber. We know from research that prison reception screening processes were failing to identify up to three quarters of prisoners who had a severe mental illness. Several hon. Members referred to the fact that many of those people were missed at the point where they were received into prison custody. To rectify that, new triage-based reception health screening arrangements have been developed and successfully piloted. They focus on identifying and managing a prisoner's needs on first reception into prison custody. That work has been closely linked to the development of the Prison Service's suicide prevention strategy. Much comment has been made and many questions have been asked about that this afternoon, and I will return to the subject in a short while.
Four of the reception screening pilots form part of the Prison Service's "Safer Locals" programme, and as a result there has already been a substantial improvement in the identification of prisoners with severe mental illness. I am pleased to confirm that that new approach to reception health screening is now being phased in at all local prisons, in a programme that will be completed this year.
We remain firmly attached to the principle that prisoners who need in-patient treatment for their mental disorders should be transferred to hospital as soon as possible. The number of prisoners transferred to hospital as restricted patients under sections 47 and 48 of the Mental Health Act 1983 rose from 180 in 1987 to 785 in 1994. It then remained relatively stable, at an average of 745 each year, until 1999. In 2001, 635 prisoners were transferred to hospital. In 2002, the latest year for which we have figures, the number was 639.
Generally speaking, the arrangements for assessment and transfer work smoothly, and many mentally disordered prisoners can be transferred to hospital quite quickly. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole made a positive comment about that. Increasingly, we are able to identify and move people on more rapidly than we used to. I am the first to accept that delays still occur in individual cases. Some prisoners have to wait longer than we would ideally like before they can be transferred to hospital. At any one time, there are likely to be about 40 prisoners who have been waiting for three months before being
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transferred to an NHS hospital. We appreciate that such delays can be enormously distressing for the prisoners concerned, the prisoners around them, the staff, and the prisoner's family and friends.
The prison health team and NHS regional commissioners of forensic mental health services have examined ways to reduce the time that prisoners might have to wait for a hospital place. Tighter regular monitoring has been introduced, together with a protocol that sets out the actions required of the Prison Service and the NHS when a prisoner reaches that three-month deadline. I emphasise that it is a three-month deadline, not a target. As I said, at any one time there could be 40 people who have reached that deadline. When someone reaches it, everything is done to ensure that they are moved as quickly as possible.
Following the publication of "Changing the Outlook", all prisons, in collaboration with their local NHS partners, undertook a detailed review of their mental health needs and developed action plans to fill any gaps in services that they identified. We do not underestimate the challenge—indeed, no participant in the debate has underestimated the challenge that we face, but we confidently expect that in the next three years or so there will be further progress. For example, fewer mentally disordered prisoners will be accommodated in prison health care centres, more resources will be deployed to provide day care and support on prison wings, and there will be a reduction in the average time that mentally disordered prisoners spend in the remaining prison health care beds. There will also be a more appropriate skill mix among those who provide mental health services in prisons, and quicker and more effective arrangements for transferring the most seriously ill prisoners to appropriate NHS hospitals and transferring them back when appropriate. I expect ever closer collaboration with NHS staff in the management of prisoners who are seriously mentally ill, including those who may be vulnerable to suicide or self-harm while they are in prison.
Several hon. Members raised the issue of population pressures. It is true that there are more than 75,000 people in prison—75,059, to be precise. We have plans in place to ensure that we can continue to expand prison capacity; we have added 14,700 places to the prison estate in the last six years and we will add another 2,500 this calendar year. We intend to ensure that we stay ahead of the undeniable pressure in the system.
Mr. Oaten: I understand the capacity problem, but can the Minister confirm that no cells will contain three people as a result of the attempt to maximise capacity?
Paul Goggins: No cell designed for one person will accommodate three people, as was the case not so very long ago. Cells designed for two people may accommodate three people, but the days of three people in a cell designed for one are, thankfully, over.
We will not be making routine use of police cells as part of Operation Safeguard, although it may be necessary to make occasional overnight use of a police cell, as is done now if there is a lockout, and when someone is held overnight prior to being moved to another region. It is not appropriate for prisoners to be

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held in police cells, or for police officers' time to be tied up in looking after and supervising those prisoners. I am adamant that we will not make routine use of police cells as an extension of the prison estate.
Mrs. Gillan: Can the Minister confirm that he is moving women prisoners from the two prisons that I identified earlier? How many women prisoners are involved, and where will they be moved to?
Paul Goggins: Yes, I can confirm that there is a re-roll, as it is called, at Winchester prison, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Winchester, and at Edmunds Hill. It was a step that had to be taken in view of the rising population pressure on prisons. When there is a re-roll, staff must be informed; questions are asked and detailed discussions have to take place. I can confirm that the therapeutic community will go to the prison at Send, and we will try to maintain the momentum of that important work.
There is some good news: in June we shall open a new prison for women at Ashford, because of the projected increase in the population of women in prisons, which has risen dramatically in recent years, far outstripping the general increase in the prison population. The number of women going to prison is levelling off, which means that we can open the new prison and re-roll the existing women's prisons for men. We can therefore provide newer accommodation for women, and additional accommodation for male prisoners.
I am not running away from the fact that the prison population is under enormous pressure. I return to my previous point that we must rebalance the system so that those who need and deserve to be in prison are in prison, and those who can be dealt with and supervised in the community are in the community.
In opening the debate, the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole forcefully drew attention to the serious and interrelated issues of suicide and self-harm in prisons. Of my many responsibilities, I regard that as of the highest importance. Too many people self-harm or take their lives in prisons, and we must do everything possible to drive that number down. There were 94 self-inflicted deaths last year, and 14 of those people were women; a disproportionately higher number of women than men took their own lives. There have been 26 self-inflicted deaths so far this year, and 24 deaths have occurred in prison for other reasons. Those figures are high. Every death in custody—I am notified immediately of every one—is deeply distressing, and a tragedy for the individual and their family, no matter what they have done to end up in prison.
It is sometimes suggested that overcrowding is a direct cause of suicides and self-harm. The prison population is a related matter, but more important is the degree of
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movement in the system because of population pressures. People are moved around the system more quickly, and vulnerable people are more exposed to risk. That, rather than simply the numbers involved, is the problem. The prison population includes a large number of people who come into custody already struggling to cope with a wide range of problems including drug and alcohol abuse, difficult family backgrounds, histories of sexual and physical abuse, and the problems of mental ill health that we have discussed.
I have a couple of points to make in response to questions that were put to me. A question was asked about detoxification, and reference was made to the chief inspector's report on an inspection at Styal prison. I am happy to say that things have progressed substantially at Styal since that inspection. The detoxification programme is now in operation; the money was already there but the problem was in recruiting staff to run that programme. I visited the prison last July and was concerned that the detoxification programme was not up and running, but since September it has been operating. I visited again in January and was pleased to see and hear directly from the prisoners about the difference that the programme is making. Every woman who needs one is on a methadone programme, and the system is better than the previous one.
Mention was also made of the CARATs system and the staff who work on those programmes. I am sure that hon. Members visit prisons in their constituencies and elsewhere, and will be aware of the fantastic work done by CARATs workers. I was in Norwich prison last week and met some of the team. The work that they do with prisoners to try to keep them off drugs, and to follow them once they leave prison to ensure that they receive the necessary support in the community, is essential.
The role of the ombudsman was also raised in relation to Styal prison. I commissioned the ombudsman to undertake an investigation into the six deaths that occurred over 12 months at Styal to ascertain what similarities there might have been between those deaths. Stephen Shaw produced an excellent report, and has also produced one or two other reports. From 1 April, he will be responsible for investigating all deaths in custody. That is an important step because, despite the fact that there is an investigation into every death in custody, the greater independence of Stephen Shaw and his team will be invaluable. Tragic as every death in custody is, we must learn whatever lessons we can from each one.
I can confirm that last week, the women's offending reduction programme was published—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must now move on to the next debate.

Police Funding (Southend)
3.30 pm
Mr. David Amess: For some time now, I have been concerned about what many people regard as inadequate police cover in my constituency. My mind really focused on the issue when I was called to an emergency meeting of Leigh crime prevention panel by Councillor John Lamb and Councillor Gwen Horrigan. That was when I learned first hand about the seriousness of the situation.
The Minister will be armed with facts and figures to knock me down after my speech. I am under no illusion about that, because that is the way it works here—the Minister has the last word. However, regardless of how often she says that there is more money, there are more police, and so on, the people whom I represent feel that the situation is serious and needs addressing. Leaving aside the facts and figures with which her brilliant civil servants will have armed her, I hope that she will reflect on the issues that I raise.
Members of the general public are overwhelmingly against crime, as are all Members of Parliament. There is nothing remarkable about that. If there were a magic solution for stopping crime, we can imagine how much money would be available for the health service, for education, and for fighting the terrible new threat of terrorism. Before he became Prime Minister in 1997, the leader of the Labour party made great play of his slogan,"Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." Yet there has been a huge increase of 800,000 in instances of recorded crime, violent crime has soared, robberies and muggings have increased, and fewer than one in four crimes is detected. No doubt the Minister will have reasons for all those increases. It is interesting, however, that we were told in the 1997 Labour party manifesto—its so-called contract with the people—that more police would be on the beat, not pushing paper, and that there would be a crackdown on petty crimes and neighbourhood disorder. In the 2001 manifesto, the rhetoric changed. We were told that the Labour party would ensure that all families were safe in their communities by tackling crime and its causes, but tackling crime was no longer described as a priority, but as an ambition.
Like many others, I am absolutely fed up with gesture politics. Never a day goes by without the Home Secretary waking up with a new idea. What on earth is the point of making more and more laws if there is no one to enforce them? I was shocked and alarmed when, in response to my parliamentary questions about drug-related offences, the Home Office said that the number of defendants proceeded against for drug offences has dropped significantly since 1998, although we all know that drug abuse is rising rapidly. Furthermore, violence and robberies have more than doubled in four years.
When the only independent councillor in Southend, Councillor Martin Terry, decided to go out on a night patrol with the chief superintendent, he came back with some shocking facts and figures. The class A drug culture in Southend is not being dealt with owing to the lack of police officers. I have many friends who work for police forces in various parts of the country. All hon. Members would agree that the police do a wonderful job and that they are overworked and underpaid. The
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Government should be concerned about the fact that a great age gap has developed, because, for all sorts of reasons, too many older and more experienced policewomen and men take early retirement. Nice though it is to see young officers on the streets, there is a great need for more experience.
I make no complaint about the way in which motorists are treated. No one can complain about lack of enforcement of motoring laws—there are many speed cameras and traps and armies of officers detecting whether people have paid their car tax. However, the Minister will understand why the general public think it unfair that if they do something wrong as a motorist, they will be caught, but if they are burgled, attacked or have noisy neighbours, the situation will be somewhat different.
I recently spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, who established the south Westcliff community group. They identified a number of problems in the constituency . Elsmere hotel has had to install closed circuit television cameras because youths are walking in from the street and helping themselves to property. Many residents are concerned about their safety around Westcliff station in the evening, but they sometimes have great difficulty in getting through to Southend police station unless they dial 999. Some people have waited more than 15 minutes to report a crime and given up on trying to get through. The Minister will have heard such complaints before. That must have something to do with the financial settlement for Southend—perhaps the amount of money that is allocated to our call centres. One of our local retail proprietors has had to put up with antisocial behaviour by youths. Recently, he reported that a group of five young people were drunk outside his shop; the police eventually came to see him three days later. That, too, must be something to do with funding. A common theme is emerging.
A local entrepreneur called Con Donovan runs the Choice discount store, which sells what are euphemistically called rejects of the Next retail outlet. Every customer needs a plastic carrier bag in which to take away their goods, and he decided to print on the bottom of his bags, "We support Crimestoppers" and a telephone number. That is a simple thing to do, and I am sure that the Minister would like to encourage similar activities.
All the community organisations with which I am in contact tell me that when they raise funding concerns, the police say that a lot of money is spent on CCTV. The feeling locally is that although CCTV is essential, it is not a sole deterrent. Funding a more visible police presence is the only way to deter the most hardened criminals.
I recently spoke to a local cab driver who told me that when a sum of money became available, the police issued cab drivers with a pager so that they could act as the eyes and ears of the local police. That appeared to be a good initiative—it had the support of the town's Cab Drivers Association—but drivers discovered that when they reported incidents, police assistance sometimes took up to 45 minutes to arrive. The initiative has now been abandoned.
When Councillor Martin Terry went out on his night patrol with the local chief superintendent to see what was going on, the funding situation was confirmed.

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There is a long-held view that the police are mainly concentrated in Southend town centre. It is good to have police in town centres, but that is not necessarily the case in my constituency. The residents of Leigh-on-Sea and Eastwood say that they suffer huge neglect, particularly on Friday and Saturday evenings. The councillor wrote to me to say:
"When the Police are telephoned residents are often told that there is not anyone available and the Police have to prioritise resources."
Having experienced that on several occasions—which is worrying, given the increase in violent crime and class A drugs—he believes that some police stations have been downgraded. Leigh police station is now closed in the evening, Westcliff police station has been shut completely, and Eastwood police station is open only very infrequently. On Fridays and Saturdays, the police have to deal with 10,000 to 15,000 revellers coming into Southend from London and other parts of the area.
The Leigh Times has highlighted our local traders' concerns about funding—for example, Sue Jeffs, who runs Vanilla hairdressers, is particularly worried about crime levels in Leigh—and the Yellow Advertiser is doing all that it can to enter into the spirit of the Government's efforts to combat crime. The community wants to unite against what is unfortunately happening in the town, but people feel that we need more money.
The 2001 census data have been used as evidence that funding is satisfactory, but that model is flawed. It uses specific socio-demographic figures as the basis for estimating likely criminal activity, but the people concerned did not fill in the census forms. The Minister may not be aware of that matter, but we are pursuing it with various Government Departments.
I end with a plea. The Select Committee on Health, of which I am a member, is studying obesity. We recently visited Odense, where we were given a presentation in which we were told that the city has a successful car-free policy because nearly everyone rides bikes, especially the police. My hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) and I were surprised about that, but Labour members of the Committee told us that it is happening in some parts of this country. It is certainly not happening in Essex. Last month, I wrote to the chief constable in the hope that he might consider adopting that policy in future.
The trouble is that cash is tight because of the terrible threat that we face from terrorism. I wish that we had an answer to that, but it is difficult for this or any Government to tackle the problem of terrorists who are prepared to take their own lives. If the general public saw more policewomen and men on bikes, as well as in cars, their support might help us in our fight against crime.
The Minister and I are united in our wish to defeat the criminals. Please, please, please can we have a little bit more financial help in Southend, West?
3.45 pm
The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety: I am delighted to congratulate the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) on securing this debate, which has given us a good chance to air some issues of local concern that also
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have a national impact. I am more than happy to give him the undertaking that he seeks. I will reflect on some of the matters that he raised. I will do so if he will get things in perspective.
I should like to lay out the funding situation nationally and, more relevantly, for Essex, in order to highlight some of the good practice in the county not just in the police but in crime reduction and prevention. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the role of his local councillors in that partnership, which is key to building safer communities. I should also like to highlight the work that we are doing on antisocial behaviour—those low-level issues that make people's lives a misery—which has not always been fully reflected in some of the national priorities, but is beginning to be so. I should like to give him some hope and optimism.
I am inevitably going to say to the hon. Gentleman that this Government are delivering on the various manifesto pledges that they made in 1997 and 2001. Since 1997, crime generally has fallen by about 25 per cent., burglary is down by 39 per cent., vehicle crime is down by 30 per cent., and robbery is down by 17 per cent. in the last year. Those are fully validated statistics. The hon. Gentleman has a point that, despite the fact that crime has decreased dramatically over the past six years, any polling reveals that two thirds of the public feel that crime is still increasing in their area. That is a serious issue, which I call the perception gap—the gap between reality and how people feel, either at home or in their working and social lives. One main reason for that gap is the antisocial behaviour in many of our communities. If people do not feel safe when they open their front door and walk down the street—when they see graffiti, fly-tipping and fly posting, broken bus shelters and groups of youths hanging about—and things are not addressed by the authorities, they do not have any sense that their community is safer.
I have a vested interest in trying to ensure that we tackle what have been called low-level incidents, but which I think are important to people. That is why we passed the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003; why the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and I launched the antisocial behaviour action plan in November; and why we have taken a different approach to the legislation—instead of as normal passing an Act, issuing a circular and a bit of guidance and perhaps leaving it at that. We knew that if we introduced a new range of powers, we would need to follow them up.
As well as the action plan, we have launched the "Together" campaign, which is trying to unite the police, local authorities and local businesses. I am delighted by the hon. Gentleman's example of the local entrepreneur and the Crimestoppers carrier bag. That is an excellent idea. Businesses have often been the empty seat at the table of partnerships. We must work harder to engage them. Local residents must also take action in the "Together" campaign.
We now have what we call the Together academy, which is a big training programme for all those involved on how to use the powers available. It is pointless the Government putting such powers on the statute book unless everybody is confident about how to use antisocial behaviour orders, acceptable behaviour contracts, the new housing powers, parenting orders, and powers for schools to get involved in combating truancy. The academy has been launched throughout

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the country. There will be an event near the hon. Gentleman, which his local workers can attend. It will provide free training by expert practitioners. Instead of there being a top-down approach, the academy has people who work on such issues day to day.
We have just launched an action line so that people can get help at the end of a telephone if they have a crack house nearby. I know that there is an increasing problem of crack cocaine in Southend. I understand that there has been a big tactical operation and that some 30 arrests of crack dealers have been made in recent weeks. We now have new powers to close crack houses. They were first used in Eastbourne—down on the south coast. I was delighted about that; I expected the first place to be Hackney, but Eastbourne was ahead of the game. I hope that the new powers will be useful.
The hon. Gentleman will know that details of the police funding settlement were finalised on 5 February. We had a full debate on it in the House. I met various people from police authorities. I received written representations from Essex Members, which were taken into account when determining the settlement. Overall, we are providing grant that supports police spending of £10.1 billion for the coming year—an increase of £400 million, or 4.2 per cent. That builds on a £2.3 billion increase since 2000.
Resources provided for the police have gone up by about 30 per cent.—17 per cent. in real terms. That is a significant real-terms investment in the police. We now have record numbers of police officers—138,386 at the last count, as far as I can remember. Moreover, some 3,243 community support officers now patrol the streets full time, giving a high-visibility uniform presence, which, as the hon. Gentleman says, is what local people increasingly want to see in their communities.
Essex has also benefited from those extra police officers. There are 149 more police officers than in March 1997, and 483 extra staff doing some of the administrative tasks, freeing up the police to do much more work on the front line. There are 91 community support officers. I am delighted that Southend council has volunteered to part-fund some of the community support officers because it sees the value of their patrolling shopping areas and estates, and assuring people. We are encouraging other areas to take a similar attitude. So, well done Southend council for coming up with some of the match funding.
Essex also has 371 special constables. I am keen to encourage more people to volunteer to become members of the special constabulary. Local people do a fantastic job on neighbourhood watch, on home watch and increasingly on pub watch, farm watch and all kinds of volunteer activity. If we can get them to take that extra step and give us four hours a week of their time, we will give them excellent training. They will have full police powers and will make a real contribution to the community.
Essex has done extremely well this year in the funding that it has received compared with other forces. We had a pretty tight settlement and so we decided, exceptionally, to provide a 3.25 per cent. increase across the board. So, we did not apply the formula this year. The hon. Gentleman said that he takes issue with the
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way in which the formula is calculated. He is in a minority because the formula has been subject to agreement by the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Association of Police Authorities and the Home Office. So, all the parties have been brought into the process.
The formula is pretty complex. It seeks to recognise not just socio-economic factors, but the number of temporary visitors to a place. It therefore takes tourists and temporary residents into account. It is supposed to direct funds to the areas of greatest need. We did not apply it this year because we did not have a huge amount to spend and we wanted to ensure that everyone got a settlement above inflation to meet the pay claims and other pressures in the system. If we had applied the formula to the Essex police force, it would have received £15 million less than it did. In comparison with some of the large metropolitan forces, the hon. Gentleman might feel that his force has been generously treated.
The Metropolitan police in London made a net contribution of £56 million, because we did not apply the formula; it has put £56 million back into the pot to support forces such as the hon. Gentleman's. The West Midlands police put nearly £27 million back into the pot, and so it feels very hard done by. My police force up in Greater Manchester put £6 million back into the pot to ensure that forces such as the hon. Gentleman's did not fall below the floor in the police formula settlement.
The hon. Gentleman should recognise that Essex has had a fairly generous settlement this year. As well as its general grant, it has received a range of specific grants: £6 million from the crime fighting fund, £500,000 from the rural policing fund, nearly £500,000 for the Airwave radio system and £1 million of basic command unit funding—£125,000 of that specifically for Southend. It also benefits from £2.5 million of south-east allowance payments, which recognise that police officers in the south-east have problems meeting high housing charges and that there are retention issues. We have tried to address that. It also receives a fair amount of capital provision; this year there has been a premises improvement programme to provide better facilities for vulnerable witnesses in the area, making sure that they can be interviewed in private and with dignity.
I am also aware that this year the police precept increase in Essex was 6.7 per cent.—the second lowest percentage increase in police precept across England and Wales, and equal to an extra 12p per week. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, as the local MP, and his constituents feel that paying for extra police officers and the community support officers and crime prevention measures is worth an extra 12p per week.
The distribution of those funds in the force area is a matter for the force. It has a resource allocation model. I am told that under that model, Southend gets the absolute maximum to which it is entitled. However, if the hon. Gentleman has issues about Leigh-on-Sea and other areas not being policed, particularly at the weekend, it is for him to take them up with the local chief constable and his borough commanders.
I am well seized of the problems in the night-time economy at the moment. On Monday, I launched the alcohol harm reduction strategy, which is designed to ensure that the police use their powers to prosecute

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licensees who sell to under-age drinkers and people who are already drunk. We are encouraging the police to use antisocial behaviour orders, exclusion orders and the powers that they now have to close down disorderly night clubs and pubs. So, there is a big drive on enforcement.
However, the industry should also play its part. Many people make a significant amount of money from pubs and clubs. In the best partnerships—in Manchester, Cardiff, York, Leicester—the police, the local authority, licensing officers and the industry work together to try to make our night-time economy much safer. The best pubs and clubs are happy to do that; if they offer a safe night out, young people will go back week after week, enjoy themselves and contribute towards profits. So, it is a win-win for everyone.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of drugs, which are a huge driver for the acquisitive crime—the burglary, the robbery—that goes on in our society. We are massively increasing the money that we are spending on that: from £1 billion a couple of years ago to nearly £1.5 billion from next April. That has gone not just on prosecuting drug dealers, but on prevention work with young people and on getting many more of our serious drug users into drug treatment. If we can get them into treatment and break the link between drugs and crime, we should see a massive impact on the acquisitive crimes that make people's lives such a misery.

Through our criminal justice intervention programme we are using every bit of the criminal justice system to get people into treatment—from the point at which they are arrested, whether or not they are on a drug treatment order. We are also ensuring that we get them into education, training and housing afterwards. After they have given up the drugs, the big challenge is to change their lives for the long term and the future.
The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of pensions. He is right; they can be a drain on police authority funds. Some years there is a large spike in the number of people retiring, which puts the budget under pressure. I have just issued a consultation document that considers pensions for the future in order to establish whether there is a way to encourage people with skills to stay in the force and not simply retire after 30 years. We want to keep their skills. The document should also establish whether we can take some of the pension responsibilities to the centre, and even out the pressures on police authorities.
I hope that I have addressed many of the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised. As I said, I will reflect on what he said, provided that he acknowledges this year's extremely good comparative funding position for Essex. I am sure that he will work with his communities to make his neighbourhoods much safer and better places.

Rail Services (Weaver Vale)
3.59 pm
Mr. Mike Hall: I ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to convey my thanks to Mr. Speaker for granting me this Adjournment debate. I have been pressing for it on and off since the summer recess, when I raised with the Deputy Leader of the House some of the points that I am going to raise now.
The first part of my contribution will be about Hartford railway station, which is on the west coast main line in the southern part of my constituency. There is often a misunderstanding: Hartford might be a village, but the station in fact serves a large catchment area of about 120,000 in Vale Royal as well as the Kelsall district of Chester and the Knutsford area of Macclesfield. It prospered until 2001. It had been an integral part of British Rail's 'west coast main line services, and in the late 1980s services were expanded from Hartford. There seemed to be a great opportunity for the railway station to do well and serve my constituents.
In the aftermath of the Hatfield crash, Virgin Rail had to consider the services that it provided, and in October 2000 it suspended services on the west coast main line from Hartford station. In May 2001, those services were stopped altogether. The reasons and mitigating circumstances cited by Virgin Rail were extraordinary. It said that it had to speed up train services from Liverpool and Preston to London and to increase track capacity to allow extra trains to run. The company also cited poor passenger figures for the west coast main line from Hartford—only 60 passengers a day. For me, that is a reasonable number of passengers using such a service, and it is a poor excuse for removing the services altogether.
There was a considerable campaign to get Virgin Rail to change its mind, but it steadfastly refused. The company has now said that it is investing £2 billion in the upgrading of services on the west coast main line and introducing Pendolino trains, which can run at 140 mph although they may run at 125 mph on that line. Virgin Rail has also said that when services improve and journey times from the north-west to London are reduced, it would be wrong to reinstate the services from Hartford because that would increase running times. When the line is upgraded, the company will miss a real opportunity to increase the number of passengers travelling on its services, and it is a shame that it is being so pig-headed about the decision, which it took it in the face of strong local opposition.
Another mitigating circumstance cited by Virgin Rail was the fact that people could use Hartford station to travel to Crewe, where they could board the west coast main line services to London, and that because there was a good local connection, that would be a good service. Virgin Rail also made the fair point that people travelling from Hartford to Crewe do so at no extra cost to those on the west coast main line services from Crewe to London.
That argument would have had more power if Virgin Rail had not stopped its local services from Hartford to Crewe in 2002. If commuters want to travel from Hartford via Crewe and arrive in London before 9 o'clock, they have to drive to Crewe station because

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there is not a connecting service that allows them to board a train early enough. As such, my constituents and other commuters using the service now have either to pay the cost of leaving their car at Crewe, which is £5 an hour, or to take the alternative route of going to Manchester airport and flying. We need to look again at that service.
When the services changed, I wondered why passenger service requirements had not insisted that Hartford station was kept on the west coast main line route to London. The service had existed under British Rail and at the point of privatisation, and the passenger service requirements demand that services are maintained at the pre-privatisation levels. For some reason, the previous Administration—I do not blame my hon. Friend the Minister for this—decided not to include Hartford station in those requirements. If they had, I might not have been here this afternoon complaining about the activities of Virgin West Coast since privatisation.
One of the other improvements to which I draw my hon. Friend the Minister's attention is the service from Crewe to Hartford in the evening. The service from Hartford to Crewe in the morning is poor. As I said, there is no way to connect to the west coast main line service in order to arrive in London before 9 o'clock. We have a similar problem in the evening. If commuters coming back from London to Crewe arrive after 19.47, they have to wait two hours for a connecting service to Hartford. I have been pressing the Strategic Rail Authority and the rail service providers in the area to stop the Crewe to Winsford service at Hartford at half-past 8. I am pleased to say that that has now been agreed. That is a welcome improvement to the service, but we still need to look more closely at the services provided at Hartford station.
I pressed the SRA on its involvement in the matter, because I was under the impression that its job is to ensure that our railway systems serve the public, and that it follows the Government's view that we should try to get more people out of their cars and on to public transport. Its reason for the reduction of services at Hartford is a logistical one: it claims that there is a pinch point on the line between Crewe and Weaver junction, as there is only a double track along that section of the line. That is not accurate. It is, however, accurate to say that the 5-mile track around Hartford is double track. I have asked the SRA to insist that, as part of the west coast main line improvement, that section of track is improved, so that the pinch point is removed, allowing more and faster services on the line. Sadly, it has been unable to do that on what it calls "economic grounds".
The irony of all that—I draw my hon. Friend's attention to this particular problem—is that we are currently upgrading the west coast main line and introducing a new electricity supply at 400 kV. A network of substations and trackside feeder stations is being introduced along the whole west coast main line. The substation and feeder station in our area should be near Crewe. The national grid and Network Rail have been unable to find a site in the Crewe area, and have
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come up with a site in Weaverham in my constituency, adjacent to the west coast main line. It will be a massive development. What the national grid did not tell people during consultations was that the development will be the size of three rugby pitches. It will be slap-bang in the middle of green belt, and will be a blot on the landscape.
The supreme irony of that is not lost on my constituents. Although we can no longer use the west coast main line services from Hartford, the improvements to the electricity supply, which will speed up the trains going from the north-west to London and vice versa, will be bang in the middle of our green belt. I am not opposed to the upgrading of the electricity supply to the west coast main line, but I am absolutely opposed to this location for the so-called substation and trackside feeder station. I believe that there are alternatives in the area, which the national grid has so far failed to explore.
Another service that Hartford might benefit from is that from Liverpool to Birmingham. I am delighted with the news that from September there will be a fast service travelling every hour. I have heard various accounts of whether that will stop at Hartford. I understand that the fast Liverpool to Birmingham train will stop there at peak times, but may not stop there off peak. If it can stop at peak times, there is absolutely no reason why it cannot stop there off peak. If my hon. Friend cannot give me an answer to that question this afternoon, we will have to see whether we can persuade the people providing the service that, if it is feasible to stop at peak times, it should be feasible to stop off peak.
There will also be a twice-hourly Liverpool to Crewe service. The passenger service requirement means that, in the gap between 17.00 and 18.00, there should be two services from Liverpool, Lime Street to Hartford. Currently, there is only one service. The SRA has allowed the railway operator to breach the passenger service requirement, and revised it in January. That again was a retrograde step. If the new trains are to travel from Liverpool to Crewe and can stop at Hartford, we may be bringing services closer to what they were before privatisation. The other good news is that, in 2005, there will be a Birmingham to Preston train. Will the Minister confirm that that will stop at Hartford, too? If so, gradual improvements will be made to the station that was once probably the jewel in the crown of rail services in the north-west.
I wish to raise with my hon. Friend the 7.09 service from Hartford to Stansted airport. It is run by Central Trains and is an absolute disgrace. It is often late and it is frequently cancelled. I am told that the rolling stock is old and dirty and that the travelling public are not receiving good value for their money. Several constituents have raised the matter with me. The operating record of Central Trains is not good. As a regional operator, its performance is the worst in the league table and it is third worst in overall performance. That is epitomised by the 7.09 service from Hartford station. It needs to be improved.
Perhaps we can take a leaf out of the book of the Midland Mainline service, which I understand from today's Ceefax has a novel way to improve train punctuality. It has issued its guards with ACME thunderer whistles. The guards blow the whistles and

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that chivvies up the passengers to get on the trains more quickly, as a result of which the trains run on time. If that is all it takes to improve train services, I recommend it to my hon. Friend as an economic way to deal with problems of Central Trains, especially the 7.09 service.
My hon. Friend is aware of the Halton Curve. It is a stretch of railway line that connects the north Cheshire railway lines with the west coast main line, linking it to north Wales, Chester, Frodsham, Helsby and directly from Runcorn to Liverpool. It is called the parliamentary line in my neck of the woods because to close a railway line there must be an Act of Parliament. That is a statutory requirement. For that line not to be closed, a light service is run. During the summer on a Saturday morning, I am told that 18 passenger services run from Chester to Runcorn and do not return. The railway line is the missing piece of the jigsaw in the north-west. It would link the west coast main line with the new Liverpool-Allerton interchange; it would provide a direct link to Liverpool John Lennon airport; and it would allow freight coming in from Liverpool city docks and the Mersey docks to connect at Birmingham and Felixstowe without having to go on to the west coast main line. It would open up passenger possibilities at the gateway of Chester into north Wales and it would link up the gateway of Warrington into Blackpool and into the north-west.
Several of us are pressing my hon. Friend the Minister for such a measure to be included either in the west coast main line upgrade or for it to have discrete funds of its own to make improvements. Furthermore, a consortium could come forward involving the North West Development Agency, which supports the plan; Cheshire county council, which supports the plan; Halton borough council, which supports the plan; the chambers of trade and commerce in Liverpool, and a range of other organisations that believe that such action should be taken. We must not miss such an opportunity. It would be beneficial for the local economy and for the economy in the north-west. It would have an impact. We must remember that Liverpool will celebrate being the European capital of culture in 2008, and that all such matters will be important.
I want to end on a positive note. Two issues are acutely important in my constituency; one concerns a major boost to transport investment in Cheshire. It will cover a large part of my constituency with the exception of Halton borough council, which is a unitary council in the north of the constituency. The Department for Transport has awarded Cheshire county council an extra £26 million of funds for its local transport planning strategy for 2004–05. The county council welcomes that as a major boost to transport investment in the county. Slightly more than £12 million will go into maintenance activities, more than £10 million will be used take forward the county council's integrated transport programmes, and other money will be available for allocation to supplementary bids throughout the year. That is exceptionally good news for my constituents and is good news for council tax payers in the Cheshire county council area.
However, I contrast that with the absurd decision taken by the county council to cut its subsidised bus services after 7 o'clock in the evening. The cuts have
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taken place across the board, and the council is also considering cutting school transport services. Those are retrograde steps, which will mean that more people will use their cars, congesting our roads and making our environment more unsafe and polluted. Cheshire county council, with the extra cash that it was given by the Government, could have been a little more adventurous in the way it approached its transport policy.
Finally, I want to raise the question of Helsby station, which is on the Ellesmere Port to Helsby route into Manchester, and has recently received the best-kept station award. It is a magnificent listed building, and the local community has done a fabulous amount of work to make it a credit to and a jewel in the crown of our area. I want to place on record my thanks to the people involved in that project and to say what a wonderful job they have done. It is an example of what could be done with stations throughout the UK. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller) used that rail service on Saturday to go to Manchester; the service ran on time and the trains were clean. He said that it was a joy to travel on it. I give that example to show that I am not just being critical of our rail services; some things in my constituency work well.
During the time that I have represented Weaver Vale, I have been ably assisted by the North Cheshire rail users group and the Mid-Cheshire rail users group. Both groups have been a fantastic source of information and encouragement. I give particular thanks to Andrew MacFarlane from the Mid-Cheshire rail users group and to Ian Watson, who is no longer with the North Cheshire rail users group, but who put a fabulous amount of work into that activity. I also thank Mr. Frank Thomas, who has been one of the leading lights with respect to the best-kept station at Helsby, which is in my constituency.
I hope that I have left enough time for the Minister to respond to the points that I have made, but I shall sum up those points briefly. I am concerned about the diminution of west coast main line services at Hartford. I am also concerned about the diminution of cross-country services and local services, and emphasise the need to recognise that Hartford has a part to play in providing decent rail services, together with Acton Bridge and the other station in Northwich, as well as Runcorn East and the Runcorn mainline services in my constituency. I hope that the Minister can respond positively to the points that I have made.
4.18 pm
The Minister of State, Department for Transport: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) on securing the debate and providing an opportunity to discuss rail services to Weaver Vale. He made a fine speech, and represented his constituents well. He is well qualified to do so. I have been looking at various maps—I have become a bit of a rail anorak since I took on this job—and found that his constituency must have as many railway stations as any other hon. Member's. It has eight stations, served by at least four train companies, of which he mentioned two: Central and Virgin.

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My hon. Friend takes a great interest in communications across his constituency, because it requires good communications. His constituency is not a centre of big, urban populations, but it serves big, urban populations. His constituents are an integral part of several separate city work forces in the north-west of England. I shall try to deal with the points that he raised. I fully understand the importance of Hartford railway station. Hartford may not have a massive population, but it serves a large area and it is a popular station. We are encouraging companies to do what they can to improve railway stations and the rail services to and from those stations.
It might be helpful to give an update on the upgrading of the west coast main line, which is one of Europe's busiest mixed traffic railway lines. Decades of under-investment have affected the ability of current train operators—notably Virgin—to run punctual services on that route. In many respects, it was a second-rate railway, plagued with infrastructure failures and hampered by the poor reliability of the rolling stock. The situation was exacerbated by the speed restrictions imposed on the network following the terrible Hatfield derailment in October 2000.
We have made a huge investment in the west coast main line to turn around the decades of neglect. New rolling stock is being introduced on the line and the multi-billion-pound project to renew and upgrade the infrastructure is well under way. The Strategic Rail Authority's strategy, published last June, sets out how that will be achieved.
My hon. Friend asked an important question about the part of the upgrade that will improve the power supply to the west coast main line and he mentioned the proposed construction of a substation. I appreciate what he said; he is trying to represent the interests of his constituents who live in that lovely part of the world, and who face the prospect of a substation suddenly being dumped in their back yard. However, the site is at the point where the 400 kV electricity supply line crosses the railway line, which is the most convenient spot for a substation to feed the west coast main line, enabling the new trains plying that line, which need much more electricity than existing trains, to receive the upgrade.
I take my hon. Friend's point, but the substation is an essential part of the project to provide greater capacity on the line and to improve performance, and the prerequisite is to increase the power supply. The proposal is well into its planning stage and various procedures are being followed, so I can give my hon. Friend little comfort in that respect. He knows as well as I do the difficulties of trying to interfere with planning law if it has been followed reasonably accurately.
Mr. Hall: I am not asking my hon. Friend to comment on the merits of the planning application or to endorse it. I merely wanted to draw his attention to the fact that there is huge opposition to the proposal and that there is a viable alternative to the intended site.
Dr. Howells: I very much take my hon. Friend's point; he has become an expert on the issue, which I am not. However, I am afraid that he will have to take it up with the powers that be. There is little that we can do because we no longer have the levers to pull on these issues.
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As time is short, I will now deal with the specific matters that my hon. Friend raised. I am fully aware from the debate and from previous correspondence to me and to the SRA of his concern about passenger services to and from Hartford. Services to be introduced from autumn 2004 are still being refined, but the current proposal is that Hartford should have an hourly service provided by the Birmingham to Liverpool route. The SRA has concluded consultation on the proposed timetables for September 2004 and is examining the results. I have a draft of the timetable, which I will be only too glad to give to my hon. Friend. It looks pretty reasonable. He also asked about the additional service from Birmingham to Preston. That service is important because Preston station is, in many ways, a gateway to services north of that point. We hope that Hartford will be part of that service, and I will try to discover more detail about it as soon as I can.
The improvements that my hon. Friend wants for Hartford cannot be introduced earlier because of limited track capacity on the west coast main line while renewal and modernisation work takes place. He has played his part, along with his constituents, in putting up with a good deal of suffering and misery on that line while the work has been undertaken. I want to reassure him that, at the end of the process, it will be one of the very best railway lines anywhere in Europe. The line will see an enormous increase in capacity, a half-hour reduction in the travelling time between Manchester and London, and commensurate reductions in travelling times between Liverpool and London, Crewe and London and so on. That will benefit many of his constituents, as well as allowing greater capacity for more local services within and around his constituency. That is a very good news story—and a very expensive story, as he knows.
Delivery of the new fleet of high-quality 100 mph electric multiple units from mid-2005, facilitating a far better regional inter-city service, should permit an improvement in services to Hartford station. My hon. Friend will welcome that good news. If he does not want the new 100 mph trains, I will have them down in Pontypridd. I am sure that we would be very glad to receive them. They will give a big boost to train services in his area.
In the few moments that I have left, I will deal with the question of the Halton Curve. My hon. Friend has raised that matter with colleagues in the past and I know that he feels strongly about it. Currently, the lightest-possible service runs around it. I understand that it is mainly for rail enthusiasts in the summer, who go, as he put it, one way around the Halton Curve. I can see his point. Interestingly, the SRA has issued a consultation paper on what it calls community railways. My hon. Friend's suggestion on the possibility of a partnership approach in the north-west was also very interesting. I am sure that people in the region will consider carefully the idea involving John Lennon airport, which could certainly benefit from a connection to the market in north Wales for flights out of that airport.
My hon. Friend is right to identify the fact that there are parcels of money that could be put together

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positively so that the Government and the SRA could be asked to consider doing something at some future time with stretches of railway line such as the Halton Curve, so that they can provide new services that benefit everyone. I cannot give him an undertaking that we have the money in place to do something with the Halton Curve right now, because we have not, but I can
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guarantee that the Halton Curve track will be protected to ensure that people do not develop on it and render it incapable—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
It being half-past Four o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question put.