The new prisons minister, Rory Stewart, has been adroit in rebutting the obvious suggestion that the troubles in prisons in England and Wales are confined to out-sourced establishments. In the House of Commons last Tuesday, he said as part of his statement on HMP Birmingham:
I anticipate that this could rapidly become a debate over the merits or otherwise of privatisation, and I am expecting that the shadow Secretary of State will almost certainly go in that direction. For what it is worth, we on this side of the House do not believe that this is primarily an ideological battle. The situation in Birmingham has been serious for some time. It was a Labour Secretary of State for Justice who initially decided to proceed with the privatisation of Birmingham in 2010, although it was a Conservative Secretary of State who finally let the contract. The company concerned, G4S, has clearly significantly failed in Birmingham, but at the same time, as hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) can confirm, it is running an impressive prison in Parc and at Altcourse in Liverpool, which is performing well particularly in education and work, while Parc is doing well on family services. The BBC has just produced a very positive report on its performance at Oakwood as well.
So this is not primarily about the difference between the public and the private sector. Sadly, there have been significant challenges also within the public sector, at Nottingham prison, at Liverpool and at Exeter most recently. Indeed the chief inspector of prisons himself underlined that this is not primarily about public against private, but is about basic issues primarily around drugs, violence and management. We will be focusing on those three things above all through this step-in, and, as I have said, at no cost to the taxpayer.
The situation in Birmingham is dire:
shocking in terms of the levels of violence, in terms of the response to those levels of violence, in terms of the drugs, and in terms of basic decency
emphasised by this contribution from local MP Liam Byrne:
A month ago my constituent was beaten within an inch of his life at HMP Birmingham not once but twice, and not in a dark corner but in the full glare of a video that was then posted on social media. The chaos over which G4S presided at HMP Birmingham was dark, dangerous and violent.
It was strange that no Member remarked on the similarity of the difficulties Birmingham with those of HMP Berwyn, the second-largest gaol in Europe, and another G4S establishment. These were aired on BBC Radio Wales last Sunday morning.
At bottom, whether prisons are private or not, the cause of their troubles is lack of resources. There are not enough prison officers, clearly not enough talent at governor level and the physical facilities for rehabilitation have been run down - or in the case of Berwyn, according to the POA, not provided in the first place. If prisoners are not usefully occupied, it is not surprising that they turn to drugs or violence. If warders are under strength, it is not surprising that they turn a blind eye to narcotics being introduced (or, even worse, collaborate in their introduction) if they keep their charges quiet.
The calls from Philip Hollobone and Sir Desmond Swayne for hard labour for prisoners caught ingesting illegal substances caused a wry smile. They had apparently not considered how that hard labour was to be supervised. If there were sufficient manpower to do so, there would surely be enough to prevent the resort to drugs in the first place.
One wishes Rory Stewart well in his endeavours. On previous form, it is clear that he is sincere in pledging an improvement in prisons after a year, but I fear that unless he can extract more money from the Treasury and not just for gimmicks like sniffer dogs, he may have to tender that resignation.
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