Prisons

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:04 pm on 6 May 1986.

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Photo of Gerald Kaufman Gerald Kaufman Shadow Secretary of State (Home Office) 5:04, 6 May 1986

Six nights ago the Home Secretary came to the House to announce that arson and anarchy had broken out in 18 prisons and other penal establishments. In making that announcement he was admitting the breakdown of the Government's prisons policy, the absence of a Government penal policy, the consequences of the Government's obdurate and incompetent industrial relations policy and the failure of the Government's much-trumpeted law and order policy. For all of those the Home Secretary himself stands responsible to the House of Commons.

It cannot be doubted that the prison system is inadequate to cope with the burdens placed upon it. The most recent report, issued six months ago, of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons stated: Overcrowding remained a major problem and The position in local prisons was grim. It also stated that overcrowding seemed, at least in the short term, more likely to get worse than better. On 11 April of this year, there were 46,687 people held in prison in England and Wales in a system normally capable of accommodating 40,832. That was 2,000 more than at the end of 1985. Because of the overcrowding, over 13,000 prisoners are being held two to a cell and over 4,000 three to a cell, most of them with no access to night sanitation. One fifth of the prison population consists of remand prisoners, some 8,000 persons innocent in law and being held for trial. Nearly 1,500 have been held in that way for six months or more.

Of course, the problems of overcrowded prisons have been with us for many years, under Governments of both parties, but it is clear that the overcrowding is getting worse. Last year, the prison population exceeded that forecast in Home Office projections for 1991. Those projections are being revised upwards all the time.

The present dispute has woken the Government up to the difficulties that loom. They have responded by making absurd mis-statements, of which we heard more this afternoon, about the position which they inherited. Last Thursday, the Prime Minister spoke wildly about what she called the Labour Government's neglect of prison buildings". That same day, against the background of the previous night's debris and disturbances, the Home Secretary flailed about him even more nonsensically, talking about the time when no money was being spent either on staff or on prisoners."—[Official Report, 1 May 1986; Vol. 96, c. 1097, 1114.] I should like to know when that was. We all know that the right hon. Gentleman's grasp of fact is tenuous, but that was extraordinary even by his standards.

When Labour left office, building schemes were in progress to provide 4,100 prison places over a four-year period, with three new prisons to be started. I readily acknowledge that Lord Whitelaw boosted that programme considerably. The problem is that, although, because of him and him alone, the Government launched a major prison building programme, they did not accompany that with implementing a policy for prisons, let alone a penal policy.

Lord Whitelaw outlined the contents of a prisons policy in a debate in the House in 1980 when he said: First, we shall increase the capacity and efficiency of the prison service through new building, through improvements in organisation, management and industrial relations"— yes, improvements in industrial relations— and through better use of manpower. Secondly,"— this is a response to the Home Secretary's implication that this was never meant by his Government— we shall take measures designed to reduce the size of the prison population." [Official Report, 1 August 1980; Vol. 989, 1900–1.] That was what a thoughtful Home Secretary said on these matters. Apart from new building, little if any of what Lord Whitelaw spoke about six years ago has come about. Far from being improved, as he wished, industrial relations are as bad as they could be.

Insofar as the Government now have a policy, it is the policy stated in the 1983 Conservative party manifesto, which said that there must be enough prison places to cope with sentences imposed by the courts.