Clause 11
Offender Management Bill
Public Bill Committees, 18 January 2007, 3:00 pm
Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Bradford South, Labour)
No; there are differences in relation to their duties—we will come on to that point in clauses relating to the role of a constable—but there will be parity in relation to strip searches. It is important to set out the nature of those responsibilities, which must be used in the right way in what we hope will be very limited circumstances. However, we need to close that gap.
The searching techniques employed will be exercised in line with procedures currently used in public sector prisons and in accordance with relevant prison rules and young offender rules. It will ensure that staff exercise their powers appropriately by having them certificated as competent by the controller. Furthermore, a controller will be able to observe staff conducting such searches and report to the Secretary of State if allegations are made that the power has been improperly exercised. They will also be able to impose penalties under the contract. In addition, the independent monitoring board in each establishment and the prison and probation ombudsman will provide impartial avenues for complaint.
Given that the restrictions imposed by the 1991 Act apply to young offender institutions in the same way in which they apply to prisons, I should point out that the expanded powers this clause provides would apply equally in a privately operated young offender institution, although at the moment there are no privately run YOIs. A similar amendment to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 will create parity in secure training centres by giving custody officers the same expanded power of search. Once again, it is important to emphasize that the power relates to searching visitors to those centres and not to searching the residents themselves.
Finally, the changes proposed by the clause do not provide custody officers or prisoner custody officers with constabulary powers. It is not necessary to provide them with such powers in order to achieve the aims of the clause. I hope that, with those assurances, the Committee will accept the clause.