Prison Sanitation (Hansard, 20 February 1989)

§ Mr. Hurd

The report of a review of prison sanitation, conducted by Judge Stephen Tumim and his staff, is published today. I am grateful to 'Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons for this valuable contribution to our work on improving conditions for prisoners and welcome the detailed research which has gone into his recommendations. I am placing copies of the report in the Library and making further copies available for the Vote Office.

Judge Tumim's principal recommendation is that access to sanitation should be provided at all times for all inmates in prisons in England and Wales within a period of seven years. This should be done either by providing in-cell sanitation, or by using electronic means to allow individual prisoners to leave their cells, or by providing additional staff to allow for manual unlocking at the request of the prisoner. Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons stresses that, apart from improving hygiene and increasing self-respect, the abolition of slopping out would help both inmates and staff by allowing a better use of time.

I entirely share Her Majesty's chief inspector's view that the ending of slopping out would make a substantial difference to the lives of prisoners and of staff. It should be a high priority. All prisons built or designed since this Government came to office in 1979 have either integral sanitation within the living accommodation or free access to sanitation. About half of the existing accommodation now has access to night sanitation. There is, therefore, already considerable experience of the regimes which can be provided where slopping out can be avoided. Prison service management is well aware of the advantages to be gained. They are committed to ensuring that better regimes are achieved as the programme for improving facilities progresses.

At the beginning of this decade, it was thought that the most effective way of providing integral sanitation in existing establishments was to convert one cell in three to provide separate sanitary annexes with toilets and hand-basins for each of the other two. This system involves major structural alterations and requires whole wings to be vacated simultaneously. It thus reduces the 503W number of prison places and can be undertaken only in conjunction with major refurbishment. This inevitably makes progress slow.

Recognising that the best may be the enemy of the good, prison service staff during the past few years have looked for alternative methods of achieving the same ends more quickly and at less cost. Among these alternative methods were electronic unlocking and the installation of toilets and wash-basins in existing cells without major building works or net loss of places. Tests carried out by the prison service directorate of works of these new methods have proved successful. As Her Majesty's chief inspector acknowledges, this work has provided the cornerstone for the recommendations in his report.

I am accordingly glad to be able to accept without reservation Her Majesty's chief inspector's recommendation that integral sanitation should be installed in many existing cells during the next seven years. A provisional programme for adding more than 6,500 cells to those already scheduled for conversion has been identified as practicable in the light of the tests already mentioned. Work has already begun or will be beginning in each of the 27 establishments listed as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made. In addition electronic unlocking is to be installed at Bullwood hall and New hall. This new programme will reduce the current 50 per cent. of places without access to sanitation to about 13 per cent. by the end of the century, that is about 8,000 places. This is a considerable improvement on the figures of 25 per cent. or 14,500 places which had been anticipated.

Each establishment not listed, and in which there is not already access to night sanitation, will be examined during the next year to determine the best way of providing such access, taking account of its individual circumstances, including the present state of its fabric and future plans for its use. In some instances it may not be practicable either to install integral sanitation or to introduce electronic unlocking. A decision whether to provide the high level of staffing required to allow for manual unlocking will have to depend on other staffing priorities. I cannot, therefore, give an absolute undertaking as to when slopping out will end totally. But the number of places without access to night sanitation will be very substantially reduced within seven years.

The other main recommendation in the report relates to the position of works staff and the need to enable them to fulfil their role effectively within establishments. The prisons board, as one of its key priorities for 1989–90, has required governors to produce and achieve a planned works maintenance programme making maximum use of the professional skills of works officers and of inmate labour. The conclusions of the review of the regional and headquarters organisation of the prison service which was announced recently on 3 February 1989 at column 420, will also be relevant to this recommendation, which will be implemented in the light of these two associated initiatives.

I endorse what is said in the report about the importance and useful part played by works staff in maintaining our establishments.Their commitment and expertise will be a significant factor in our ability to put Her Majesty's chief inspector's proposals into effect.

Establishments where integral sanitation is being or will be installed

Bedford
Birmingham
Bristol
Brixton
Camp Hill
Canterbury
Cardiff
Durham (H wing only)
Everthorpe
Leicester
Lincoln
Low Newton
Maidstone
Northallerton
Norwich
Nottingham
Onley
Oxford
Pentonville
Portland
Pucklechurch
Reading
Shepton Mallet
Shrewsbury
Swansea
Usk
Wandsworth