PRISON SANITATION REPORT (Hansard, 20 February 1989)

Earl Ferrers

The report of a review of prison sanitation, conducted by Judge Stephen Tumim and his staff, is published today. We are grateful to HM 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. Copies of the report have been placed in the Library and further copies are being made available for the Printed Paper 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. HM 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.

My right honourable friend entirely shares HM 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 498WA 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. It is committed to ensuring that better regimes are achieved as the programme for improving existing 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 sarntary 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 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 stab 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 washbasins 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 HM Chief Inspector acknowledges, this work has provided the cornerstone for the recommendations in his report.

We are accordingly glad to be able to accept without reservation HM 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 mentioned above. Work has already begun or will be beginning in each of the 27 establishments listed below as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made. In addition, electronic unlocking is to he 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 below, 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. My right honourable friend 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 499WA 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, will also be relevant to this recommendation, which will be implemented in the light of these two associated initiatives. My right honourable friend endorses 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 HM Chief Inspector's proposals into effect.

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Establishments where integral sanitation is being or will be installed
Bedford	Norwich
Birmingham	Nottingham
Bristol	Onley
Brixton	Oxford
Camp Hill	Pentonville
Canterbury	Portland
Cardiff	Pucklechurch Durham (H Wing only) Reading
Everthorpe	Shepton Mallet
Leicester	Shrewsbury
Lincoln	Swansea
Low Newton	Usk
Maidstone	Wandsworth
Northallerton