Clause 20
Offender Management Bill
11:00 am
Gerry Sutcliffe (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Bradford South, Labour)
Very much so. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out the role of the not-for-profit sector and I would hope to see that work not only continue but develop in the way that he outlined. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough said that prison officers were not trained in mental health awareness. He is wrong. We have invested close to £500,000 in training 9,000 prison officers in mental health awareness, so there are prison officers with the skills. Clause 20 does not affect the current ability of prison officers to develop health and safety training and to look at how they deal with a situation. It does not affect the chain of command if there is an attempted suicide and the medical officer needs to be called. The procedures are all in place.
The hon. and learned Gentleman concentrated on the role of the Prison Service in relation to mental health problems. He will know, because he deals with some of the issues in his other role, that the disposal of people with mental health problems who have committed an offence is a matter for the courts. So the courts have a major role to play when they receive the reports on individual cases.