Suicide and Self-harm in Prison (England)

Part of PRAYERS - [Mr Christopher Chope in the Chair] – in Westminster Hall at 11:15 am on 1 March 2017.

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Photo of Sam Gyimah Sam Gyimah The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice 11:15, 1 March 2017

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I congratulate Luciana Berger on securing today’s debate, and I thank my hon. Friend Dr Poulter for his insightful interventions.

I extend my particular thanks and welcome to Mark Saunders, the father of Dean Saunders who tragically died by his own hand in Chelmsford prison, for joining us for the debate. I reiterate the point that the Secretary of State and I made to him when we met: I very much look forward to working with him to bring in some real solutions to the challenge of suicides in our prisons.

Like the hon. Lady, I am concerned that the rates of suicide and self-harm in our prisons are too high. It is an issue that transcends political parties, despite our obviously different perspectives on the reforms needed in our prisons. My priority as prisons Minister is to provide leadership and to drive improvement across the system to bring those rates down.

As hon. Members will recognise, some of the problems in our prisons have long roots. It will take time to refocus the system on rehabilitation and reform but, as the last set of statistics for levels of suicide and self-harm reaffirm, we must also take urgent and decisive action to make prisons places of safety for those prisoners who are at risk.

The challenge of record levels of suicide and self-harm in prisons is a complex one and there is no simple solution. We know that prisoners are a high-risk population and that many of them come into the prison system with drug or alcohol problems, isolation, social disadvantage, experience of sexual or physical abuse, or mental health problems. All those factors increase the risk of self-harm or suicide among prisoners. We acknowledge that the nature of a custodial experience can further increase those risks, but that should not serve as an excuse.