PoliticsUK

Madam Speaker,

I rise in the house today to announce to this House that the Home Office will, beginning immediately, cancel existing contracts with private persons or entities for the operations of Her Majesty’s prisons. Further, the Government will begin to bring the privately-owned prisons into the public sector through negotiations with the existing owners.

The argument for the continued use of privately owned and/or managed and operated prisons is that there is a direct savings cost to the public- particularly when it comes to new construction which is spread out over the life of a contract rather than paid for up-front in the case of a public construction project. However, the experience that we’ve seen from these private prisons and the all-too-obvious course for the future would show us that the long-term costs to the public and to society are not worth the savings that we’re getting in the near term.

The primary argument for the privately owned and/or managed and operated prisons, which I fully expect to hear repeated here, is the per-year cost to the public of housing those who are incarcerated. As part of the Conservative zeal for privatisation, we were told that the private sector would do things better and more efficiently. Perhaps at first this was even true. However, we’ve already seen a reversal of that trend. Just two years ago, two privately-managed prisons: HMP Buckley Hall and HMP Blakenhurst, were effectively returned to the public sector when Her Majesty’s Prison Service submitted bids that were judged to be better on quality and lower on price than the private sector organisations that had ran HMP Buckley Hall and HMP Blakenhurst before. An attempt to effectively privatise the operation of HMP Manchester saw Her Majesty’s Prison Service winning the contract again with terms similar to that as would be made with a private company, with the price and service quality rating higher than private bidders. If it were true, the Conservative adage that everything can be done better by private business, then these three facilities- out of a total of 12 that are currently open and operating as so-called private prisons- would not have seen Her Majesty’s Prison Service submit anything close to a winning bid.

We also know that not all is as rosy as we would be led to believe in these privately-managed prisons either. An evaluation prepared in 1997 of HMP Wolds- the first privately-operated prison in Europe- and comparing its performance to the publicly-managed HMP Woodhill demonstrated that the cost savings from running the prison did not come from some new innovative management style but rather through cutting the costs of labour. 95% of the staff that had been hired to work at HMP Wolds when it opened had no experience in working in a prison environment or providing security, and they were hired at rates far below that you would find in public prisons. Health care services were further privatised and run by a subcontractor- the first year of which caused problems with the availability of needed drugs and saw reports of theft as the two companies tried to work together.

These efforts to cut costs came at a price: while prisoners interviewed in this 1997 study felt slightly safer at HMP Wolds relative to HMP Woodhill, report assaults were significantly higher. 61% of prisoners at HMP Wolds said they felt safe, compared to 54% at Woodhill. Yet there were 8.1 reported assaults per 100 prisoners at HMP Wolds and 2.1 per 100 at HMP Woodhill in 1993. In the study, one-fifth of prisoners interviewed at HMP Wolds said they were assaulted by other prisoners compared to one-twelfth at HMP Woodhill- and this study was well after the reported statistics of 1993.

Staff satisfaction was lower as well- again a price of cutting spending on labour so as to secure a profit. Only 5% of staff at HMP Wolds would report that morale was good. 91% reported work-related anxiety or stress, compared to 48% at HMP Woodhill. Confidence in management was low at HMP Wolds- with 52% of staff having no confidence in their management, compared to just a third of staff at HMP Woodhill. These figures are incredibly concerning in that a poorly-motivated staff, without any significant confidence in management, is the surest way to lose control in a prison.

Another privately-run prison, HMP Doncaster, has the distinction of having the highest suicide rate among prisoners in England and Wales. One suicide came from the management of the prison showing a film about how terrible prison is in America. I’m sure that it is in fact horrid in what they call “death row,” and the rationale for showing such a film is something I don’t understand, but what is saddening is that it still resulted in death.

To sum up so far, the argument in favor of privately managed prisons is their lower cost when it comes to providing services on overseeing prisoners. The arguments and evidence against the benefits of that lower cost are plenty and will continue to grow. That is the price of those lower costs- and there is always a price. It might look good on a balance sheet to have private prisons, but the price to staff and prisoner health, the price to the safety and security of our communities is too high.

I would be remiss, Madam Speaker, if I did not cover the course for the future as I mentioned earlier.

Companies that operate these private prisons do so by a motivation of profit. That’s not something I entirely blame them for- that’s the nature of our capitalist system. But that means that they need to cut costs as much as possible and maximise revenue. Cutting costs they do quite well- inexperienced staff, underpaid staff, less staff than in publicly-run prisons. My concern with continuing down the path of privatisation is how these prisons will start to maximise revenue. There is every incentive for privately-run prisons to tend to overcrowding, as more bodies in cells equals a larger bottom line. These companies have every incentive to push for harsher punishments and greater deprivations of liberty to the people of the United Kingdom in order to cram as many more bodies into these cells as they can- as it maximises revenue for them. Again, they can hardly be solely blamed for this; this is the system in which they operate. To a company like Group 4, a human being is a commodity to be collected and then billing Her Majesty for at the end of the financial quarter.

At the same time, a company like Group 4 is wholly unaccountable to the public. Our system of justice is based on maintaining liberty and fairness. That is not a Labour only position; I know the Opposition would concede this point. We have justice to ensure that everyone has their rights and that everyone can live free from being targeted by crime. We have justice to ensure that those who would minimise the rights of another are duly punished. And the public prisons are wholly accountable to the people through this body. Group 4 is not. Securicor is not. Premier is not. Yet they are granted the same ability to curtail an individual’s liberty and to even use state-sanctioned violence to maintain order. With the current emphasis placed on accountability by this Parliament- on both the Government side and the Opposition side- we cannot accept a system wherein powers that belong to the state and powers for which we should rightly be held accountable are transferred to private companies for the sake of profit.

This order does not preclude the Government from turning to the private sector for some services that can rightly be provided by them. Catering services in Her Majesty’s Prisons are certainly capable of being provided for by the private sector without the associated concerns of accountability or with the associated impacts of potential loss of control of a prison with inexperienced staff.

But because the costs- financial and otherwise- far outweigh the short term benefits, this Government will, as stated, cease the use of private management for prisons throughout the United Kingdom. This will include purchasing outright the private finance initiative (PFI) prisons where management of the prison is part of the compensation.

This Government will be providing compensation, and will be using debt to finance the one-time cost of £775 million in order to outright take ownership of the current prisons that have been financed through the PFI scheme. There will be at this time no additional costs as Her Majesty’s Prison Service takes over the operation of these prisons.

I look forward to announcing further measures relevant to and progress on the implementation of this order in due course.

I commend this statement to the House.

Madam Speaker,

I would like to thank the Secretary of State for this statement, which I feel is evidence-based, and will eagerly support. However, I do feel it raises questions surrounding the record of this Government going back over these nearly five years. Whilst I was not a parliamentarian at the time, I was involved in the national party, and distinctly remember a meeting at the National Liberal Club where my party discussed our objections to the notion of private prisons and prepared opposition to the matter. The Labour Party, I believe, also voted those proposals down at the time, with some eloquent speeches in opposition. This foresight is admirable.

Now, I am all in favour of assessing evidence, but we knew, and the Labour Party knew, that this was a bad idea from day one. And the very concept of a privately-operated prison to me goes against the notion of justice, which by nature must be conducted in the public sphere, with public accountability.

So I ask the Secretary of State; why has it taken the Government nearly five years in office to get around to changing what is now denounced as an impingement on the very liberty and fairness of our justice system? And does the Secretary of State accept that if the costs so outweigh the short-term benefits, it would have been better if the Government he was a part of as a Home Office Minister had done this years ago?

Madam Speaker,

I thank the honourable Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth for his support for this important measure and for his question.

As Home Secretary, the Right Honourable Member for Blackburn made the decision to honour the contract process that had already started at the time of his appointment. The decision was made to not disrupt a process that private companies had already started to participate in. Additionally, the decision to continue to engage with the private sector on prison management was made in order to help identify ways that Her Majesty's Prison Service could continue to innovate on service delivery and cost reduction not through draconian cuts but through increased efficiencies.

One could argue in one way that the decisions by the Right Honourable Member for Blackburn have shown that there are changes that can be made to how the Prison Service operates to ensure the best value for money for the ratepayer.

To the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth's second question, we have learned from the experiences up to now and we have built on them. My position on the efficacy of private prisons has not changed, as I see the Member's have not as well. But I do think it's worth noting that we have more we can fall back on when it comes to looking at what works and what does not than we did when I joined Parliament nearly a decade ago.

Madam Speaker,

I rise today in opposition to the government’s short-sighted and ill-advised decision to end private provision in our nation’s prisons.

The Home Secretary has laid out his case, Madam Speaker, and has done so eloquently. It is clear that issues of crime and justice are of great importance to him, as they are to me and I am sure are to the whole nation. But I am afraid that he has engaged in something of an alternate history lesson when it comes to the introduction of private prisons, Madam Speaker. Let us not forget that throughout the 1960s and 70s, issues in our prisons were spiraling out of control, leading to a decisive moment of change in the late 1980s. Far from a “Conservative zeal,” Madam Speaker, the cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee was one of the first to suggest the idea in 1987, after a research trip to examine the American model. And in 1991, with Lord Woolf predicting that the prison population will reach almost 100,000 people by the end of 2008, a solution had to be found Madam Speaker. Lord Baker’s introduction of private provision in prisons was a common sense solution to a growing problem: and it was a solution that was supported by many across the political sphere, including this government up until this U-turn, Madam Speaker.

Private provision in prison is not just a means to an end though, Madam Speaker: it has many tangible benefits which the Home Secretary has clearly decided to overlook as part of this blatantly ideological decision. In a report from the Home Secretary’s own civil servants, published last year and covering the period of 1998 - 1999, a comparison of four prisons run by the private sector versus four run by the public produced as clear a result as any: privately operated prisons produce an average cost saving of 13% per prisoner. Money that would otherwise have been spent on caring for the perpetrators of violent crime can now be freed up to be spent in other areas, particularly on helping those who have been victims of these criminals. The Home Secretary cited the purchasing exercise at HMP Manchester last year, in which Her Majesty’s Prison Service beat competition from the private sector to win the contract to operate the prison. The Home Secretary cited this as an example of why this policy is redundant, which I think shows a lack of comprehension of why this policy works, Madam Speaker. This is a clear example of why this policy is working: the public sector is forced to adapt and excel in order to beat off the private sector, encouraging better value for money and a better deal for the taxpayer, for staff and for prisoners. We cannot go back to the conditions seen in prisons before the Conservatives came to power in 1979: which I fear the lack of any challenger to HMPS will do.

We all know the Home Secretary is a hardline socialist, Madam Speaker, but he is part of a government that has committed to evidence-based decisions and consulting with all stakeholders. But time and time again, when it comes to the issues of home affairs, policing and security, the Prime Minister seems to let the Home Secretary run riot on his ideological crusade. £750 million is going to be spent on overturning this successful policy, Madam Speaker. £750 million that could be spent on a pay rise for our brave police, who the Home Secretary and his colleagues smear as racists. £750 million that could be spent on modernising our police force and national security capabilities as we face new and emerging threats in the 21st Century. £750 million that could be spent on aiding our police in the hunt and capture of vile sex offenders who prey on our children. How much extra funding has the Home Secretary set aside for the latter, Madam Speaker. By his own admission: “zero.” It is time for the Home Secretary to put down the hammer and sickle, and pick up a checkbook: and fund our police rather than scrapping a successful, evidence based policy.

Madam Speaker,

In the timely response from the Right Honourable Member for Eastwood, she lays out one point in favor of continuing to allow prisons to be run by unaccountable stakeholders who do not answer to the public, who do not answer to Parliament; a single statistic relating to the per-place cost of running a prison. I have addressed, in my statement, the result of that perceived savings: untrained staff. Underpaid staff. Staff that suffer from incredible levels of stress and anxiety in their workplace. Prisons that are more violent than that of those run by the public sector. When we add all that up, we very much see the makings of losing more prisons- the very sort of thing that Lord Woolf was working to study in 1991.

This is not pre-1979, inasmuch as the Conservative Party of today seems to wish so desperately that it could be so. I have stated that Her Majesty's Prison Service has worked to become more competitive, and to that the Right Honourable Member for Eastwood has said she agrees.

But I have also stated that there are serious concerns about an entity that is unaccountable to the public and to Parliament having the authority to restrict and limits the rights of people. The Right Honourable Member for Eastwood comes from a Party that at least initially cared very much about accountability when it comes to the political appointments of certain individuals... then stopped caring when it came to the appointment of other individuals... and now cares not at all when it's a private company that is given far more rights and power, backed by the State, than they do about the Millennium Dome.

Additionally, I have also stated that my Office has looked into the additional costs of absorbing existing private prisons back into the public space- and that additional cost is zero. Now, were private companies so innovative and so perfect at the work they do as the Right Honourable Member for Eastwood so seems to think they are, that would also not be the case. But that too is a fact.

This Government's position is that the benefit to the ratepayer, to the public, of private prisons- the increased pressures on limited and underpaid staff for one, the precedent of granting the ability to restrict rights of people to a private company for two- is not worth the cost savings that we think we get from private prisons. The timely response from the Opposition can't seem to touch on that without attempting to make broad smears against this Office and against the prison staff that keep us safe from criminals and that have valiantly done so without a word of thanks from the Right Honourable Member for Eastwood.

As I stated before, I state again. I look forward so very much to announcing further measures to be taken along these lines.

MS-04 - Private Operation of Prisons

Let me start by saying that this should have been closed much sooner than it was. That said, the fact that we didn't close it on time likely saved the Tories - so make a note of that: time matters.

Andrew Edwards starts off with a detail filled speech outlining the policy that the government will pursue, to take prisons back into public ownership. The speech is methodical and evidence-based. This statement could have been improved by focusing more on the impact on staff, rather than prisoners. But overall, it was a strong statement that fit in with Mr Edwards SCG credentials. The response by Alex Cardigan was noted, but mostly noted for agreeing with the government (and pointing out that they agreed all along - remember politicians can be selective about which facts to include), which unfortunately nets the Liberal Democrats no points. Clarice Ashbridge chimes in and it's pretty much what you would expect an Conservative response to be (and, importantly, what a response should be). Valid points are made about the history of the private prisons and then she makes some noise about what the money could best be spent on. Andrew Edwards responds well, noting that there is actually no net cost associated with this (ahh to debate one-off versus structural spending...oh wait, the budget is coming up).

Right now, Labour is winning the argument on prison privatisation, but the Conservatives have a chance to maximise some spin.

Labour: +2
Conservative: +1

+1 XP to Edwards