Orders of the Day — Prisons

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 December 1976.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of John Prescott John Prescott , Kingston upon Hull East 12:00, 20 December 1976

I congratulate the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) on raising this important subject. Anyone who takes the least interest in our prisons policy knows that with the ever-increasing number of incidents taking place, there is a major cause for concern.

Hull Prison had the most serious riot in this country this century, with the exception of the Dartmoor riot. I want to express my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who gave me every co-operation in that serious situation, giving me all the information available to him, and also making available the governor and others involved in containing the situation. I want to express the appreciation of all my constituents for the way the matter was handled.

The situation was made worse by events which followed the riot. It was decided, rightly, to contain the riot and allow it to follow its own course and not tackle it head-on. That approach led to an agreement between the prisoners and the authorities, whereby the prisoners came down off the roof. What has the Hull incident to teach us? To me it says that there is something seriously wrong in our prisons policy.

At the time, complaints were made by prisoners to me that they had no confidence in the system of expressing their grievances through the Home Office administration. The complaints may or may not be justified. I promised that if they had any evidence I would make my own investigation and interview any prisoner who wished to talk to me, and that I would make my own analysis and report and submit it to the Fowler inquiry set up by the Home Office to look into the causes of the riot.

After much hard work, I have produced a 20,000-word report which I am giving the Home Secretary today. It contains my observations on the incident and follows interviews with a number of people involved in it, including prisoners who took part in the riot, people associated with the prison who are not Home Office employees, and others with genuine views arising from their experiences of prison and prison life.

The hon. Member for the Isle of Wight made an important point when he said that insufficient information was given about prison policy. The Official Secrets Act plays a large part in determining people's co-operation in giving information to someone who is trying to make an appraisal of what happens in prisons.

I recommend in my report that, as the Act is being reviewed, the Home Office should also allow people associated with prisons to take part in the public debate which is necessary in order to bring changes to the prison system.

The excellent articles in The Times by Mr. Evans are a step in the public debate which is necessary. I hope that my report, which I shall release in three or four weeks, will be another step, and I appeal to the Home Secretary to consider making public the findings of the Fowler inquiry into the Hull riots. That would be an important step towards a proper analysis of what happened at Hull and how to bring about the changes which I am sure will be recommended.

The Gale inquiry into the Parkhurst riots of 1969 was not made available to the public or to hon. Members. Indeed, I understand that it was not sent to governors of other dispersal prisons. That surprised me, and seems to indicate that there is even an "in" crowd in policy making in the Home Office.

Since the decision to establish maximum security prisons, of which Hull is one, we have spent considerable sums to ensure that no one escapes from them. The record shows that we have been successful. High walls, television cameras, and lights have been built and installed to show category A and B prisoners, who are to spend a major part of their lives in prison, that they will not get out.

The committees of inquiry which recommended the establishment of these prisons also recommended that they should have liberal regimes. I am bound to say that from the conclusions in my report it seemed that the opposite was happening. We had a more reactionary approach. We say an increase in the number of incidents in our prisons, culminating in the riots in Hull Prison.

I do not intend to say any more on the subject of my report. I hope that the report on the policy inquiry will be made public, so that this House can begin to take part in the essential debate about a change in prison policy, which is desperately needed, because if people believe that at a stage when more and more people are going to prison we shall reduce the problem by cutting back on the provision of places, they are living in cloud-cuckoo-land.

There will be problems. The problems are increasing. Do we get tougher? Do we put people in gaol, put them in cells, lock them up, feed food through the door and then forget about them? I presume that we have not reached that stage. The Prison Rules talk about the rehabilitation of prisoners. That is right. Our policy is based not on retribution but on rehabilitation.

I suggest that we have to consider two different policies for prisons—one for dispersal prisons and one for local prisons. The fact is that the essence of the problem lies in the chemistry of the prison—all the things that go to make up the character of a prison, such as the attitudes, the rôle of discipline, the type of prisoner, whether people who need psychiatric care are being kept in prisons instead of hospitals, and the cutting back in equipment, which lead to reduced free social time. All these things affect the situation in our prisons.

I hope that we shall review the whole of our prison policy at this stage. If we do not, we can only look forward to further incidents, with men—as at Hull—creating riots which cost us more money in terms of repairing the damage done than we save in overtime. I hope that the situation will bring about a change in policy.