Bedford Prison

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 10:53 am on 13 September 2018.

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Photo of Rory Stewart Rory Stewart The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice 10:53, 13 September 2018

Essentially, the hon. Gentleman posed three questions. The first is whether we recognised the problems in Bedford following the 2016 riot. We certainly did. The riot in 2016 was very disturbing, and since then we put the prison into special measures. So we absolutely agree with the criticisms made by Mohammad Yasin, and by the shadow Secretary of State, and indeed by the inspector. That is why we put Bedford prison into special measures; that is why we anticipated this inspection report.

The second question was, how many of these urgent notifications are coming? Fundamentally, as I laid out at the beginning of my speech, this is a problem that exists in many of our local prisons. It is not an issue that specifically exists in cat D prisons, or in the high security estate, or particularly in the female estate. This is an issue in prisons such as Bedford, Exeter, Nottingham and Liverpool, and, as we discovered, Birmingham.

What is the solution? The shadow Secretary of State asks whether the question is a private/public question. It is not an ideological question. Two of the best local prisons currently in the country, Forest Bank and Thameside, are private prisons. Bedford is, of course, a public prison. He asked whether we would look at the ratio between prison officers and prisoners, and rightly pointed out that in Birmingham, as in other prisons, when we face these kinds of problems, often we temporarily reduce prisoner numbers and bring in additional prison officers. I can undertake that that is something we will be examining during the 28 days we have; we will prepare a plan and come forward with an answer for the chief inspector. It is a very reasonable proposal, and it is one we will consider very carefully.