We fully recognise the importance of family contact for those in custody in line with the recommendations of Lord Farmer’s Reviews. This is why following the necessary suspension of prison visits in March, to keep prisoners, their families and staff safe during the pandemic, we introduced a range of measures. We rolled-out more than 1,200 secure mobile PIN phone handsets which are being used to contact family and friends, bolstered support for the Prisoner’s Families Helpline and introduced secure video calls which are currently operating in over 100 prisons across England and Wales, including all female and youth establishments.

We published arrangements for the recommencement of face-to-face social visits in the National Framework for Prison Regimes and Services, and visits recommenced in early July, in an adapted, Covid-secure manner. Currently most prisons have now commenced physical visits.

Currently, up to two adults and two children are permitted to visit for a minimum of 45 minutes in prisons where it is safe to do so. Guidance on visits protocols for each prison, including steps we are taking to keep visitors safe, is published on GOV.UK at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/visit-someone-in-prison-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic

This sets out differences in the adult and youth estates but otherwise this applies for visits to all categories of prisoner. We aim to continue to expand visit arrangements as part of further relaxations to prison regimes, as it is safe to do so, and in line with public health advice.

A testing programme is being conducted to help understand the spread of Coronavirus in prisons and how it is transmitted within individual establishments and across the wider estate began on Monday 20 July.

The testing study is taking place across 28 prisons in England and is being carried out in collaboration with the University of Southampton, Public Health England, Department of Health and Social Care and National Audit Office.

Every one of the 20,000 prisoners and 10,000 staff at the 28 sites will be invited to carry out an antigen test, consisting of mouth and nose swabs, to see if they currently have the virus. Participation is completely voluntary but we encourage as many as possible to carry out the test. The test will be repeated two more times with a gap of three weeks between each test.

This testing study follows a pilot of voluntary testing of both staff and prisoners at HMP Littlehey. This consisted of over 1,000 tests being undertaken and pleasingly no positive results were found.

This testing study runs for 9 to 12 weeks to allow all three testing rounds to be completed.

Currently, the establishments which have started undertaking this COVID-19 prevalence Testing Programme are: Bure, Coldingley, Drake Hall, Frankland, Gartree, High Down, Leeds, Lewes, New Hall, Norwich, Send, The Mount, Wandsworth and Wealstun.

As of 5pm 30th July 2020, there have been 2542 prisoner tests with four positive results. There have been 1571 staff tests with three positive results.

With HMPPS staff being able to self-refer for testing the complete number of staff who have been tested for COVID-19 is unknown by HMPPS. While the total number of tests carried out on prisoners since testing began is also unknown, the Ministry of Justice has started publishing a weekly release of Covid-19 related statistics, which includes confirmed COVID-19 cases in prisoners and children in custody. These statistics provide total numbers across England and Wales.

The statistics release can be found here each Friday:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hm-prison-and-probation-service-covid-19-statistics

The table below provides the information requested on the current number of outstanding cases awaiting trial in (1) the Crown Court, and (2) the Magistrates’ Courts.

These data are taken from the national statistics on the level of outstanding work in the criminal courts for the first quarter of 2020 which were published on 26 June 2020 and are available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics. The data for the second quarter will be published in September 2020.

Notes:

¹The magistrates’ court figure represents all those cases outstanding that are categorised as for trial (Indictable-only and Triable-either-way) and not just those awaiting a trial hearing. For example, it will include cases where defendants plead guilty and not guilty, and those where a warrant has been issued

² Though the figures for both Magistrates’ and Crown Court includes for trial cases (Triable-either-way and Indictable Only) which are outstanding for trial we are unable to say at what stage of the court process these are, for example, this may include cases where a trial has started but has not concluded.

In recognition of the importance of maintaining family ties, since 24 March the Government has rolled out 1297 secure mobile phones across the prison estate in England and Wales. This is in addition to existing wing phones and in-cell telephones. As of the 21 July 2020, 153,918 minutes of calls have taken place from secure mobile PIN phones since 2nd April when this service was deployed.

We do not routinely record the number of calls that take place over long periods of time, however our most recent data shows that on 21 July, 2803 calls took place across all mobile phones. This equates to 14,783 minutes across the estate. For comparison, 222,889 minutes of calls took place across the non-mobile based PIN network. There has been a 52% increase in calls across pin phone calls from the average call number in February, we do not currently have the equivalent data for just mobile phones.

We do not record figures for minutes that prisoners have spent on calls by prison across the time period mentioned.. We have access to daily call figures across the entire secure mobile network and also individual prison figures on a given day. We are working with our supplier to identify whether we can report on cumulative figures for individual prisons.

Payment Plus is funded through Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service’s staff pay budget from savings arising from any staff vacancies, which are then re-invested by each prison to fund the Payment Plus (PP) needed to cover operational staff vacancies.

Prison governors have always had the authority to use PP to allow for additional staff time to cover vacancies. They are given an annual budget for staff costs based on agreed staffing levels and are expected to manage PP within this.

In the first quarter of this financial year, the total spend on PP was £20.4m, which includes additional overtime cover in response to the impact of COVID-19.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a high risk of increased staff absence and to mitigate this, staff were asked to volunteer for additional PP hours in advance of need. Since the start of the scheme in mid-March, to end June, about 60% of the total extra PP hours volunteers had committed to work were used and the remainder are being used as prisons move into recovery.

Payment Plus is funded through Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service’s staff pay budget from savings arising from any staff vacancies, which are then re-invested by each prison to fund the Payment Plus (PP) needed to cover operational staff vacancies.

Prison governors have always had the authority to use PP to allow for additional staff time to cover vacancies. They are given an annual budget for staff costs based on agreed staffing levels and are expected to manage PP within this.

In the first quarter of this financial year, the total spend on PP was £20.4m, which includes additional overtime cover in response to the impact of COVID-19.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a high risk of increased staff absence and to mitigate this, staff were asked to volunteer for additional PP hours in advance of need. Since the start of the scheme in mid-March, to end June, about 60% of the total extra PP hours volunteers had committed to work were used and the remainder are being used as prisons move into recovery.

The internal review of the HMPPS Covid-19 Special Payment Scheme is ongoing. When concluded, any changes will be implemented and communicated to staff in the usual way.

HM Treasury have approved the scheme and we anticipate a budget allocation to be agreed in Autumn 2020 which will cover payments made to date.

The internal review of the HMPPS Covid-19 Special Payment Scheme is ongoing. When concluded, any changes will be implemented and communicated to staff in the usual way.

HM Treasury have approved the scheme and we anticipate a budget allocation to be agreed in Autumn 2020 which will cover payments made to date.

As a result of the strong but necessary measures we introduced in prisons, including suspending social visits, lives have been saved and the NHS is being protected from the impact of widespread local outbreaks.

Some prisons have already started to ease restrictions, including re-starting social visits with appropriate social distancing and hygiene arrangements, and enabling more time out of cell. More prisons will do so over the coming weeks, guided by public health advice and with safety remaining the absolute priority.

Individual prisons and the youth estate will progress at their own speed, taking full account of their specific local circumstances.

A temporary video call service to support prisoners maintaining contact with family and friends has also been introduced. This is intended for use whilst contact is limited and we are considering the benefits of maintaining these digital solutions in the longer term, in line with the recommendations of Lord Farmer’s reviews.

A budget has not been yet allocated to HM Prisons and Probation Service for the COVID-19 Special Payment Scheme.

HMT have approved the scheme and the current costs for the COVID-19 Special Payment Scheme as needed to ensure a safe regime. We anticipate budget cover to be finalised in Autumn 2020, and will cover the full financial year.

A budget has not been yet allocated to HM Prisons and Probation Service for the COVID-19 Special Payment Scheme.

HMT have approved the scheme and the current costs for the COVID-19 Special Payment Scheme as needed to ensure a safe regime. We anticipate budget cover to be finalised in Autumn 2020, and will cover the full financial year.

Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service has agreed a set of business priorities with the judiciary for the family courts and are clear that all urgent family proceedings must be dealt with during the COVID-19 outbreak.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/881017/Ops_update_-_family_court_business_priorities_24_April_2020_FINAL.pdf

The Family Court Statistics Quarterly report on average timeliness for care and supervision proceedings however there is no separate data for proceedings in which the care plan is adoption. The latest available data is for the quarter to March 2020.

As of the 14th July 132,266 connections through secure mobile PIN phones have been made. This number includes phone calls to approved telephone numbers, account check balances, failed calls and calls where they were connected to an engaged number and therefore disconnected. This number also excludes those calls made through existing in-cell telephones and secure PIN phones on prison landings.

Secure mobile phones were allocated on a region by region basis with operational decisions made as to where deployment of these phones was most effective. These decisions were made considering:

- whether in-cell telephones were already in place and so secure mobiles were not needed

- if the potential site had suitable mobile phone signal. Some sites, due to location and build of prison did not enable effective coverage to support mobile calls.

The following numbers of phones were initially deployed to each region across 65 sites:

Although all phone calls are monitored, we do not create reports on the number of calls on a person-by-person basis. Similarly, we do not routinely record how many times an individual makes a phone call. We have since increased the number of secure mobiles to nearly 1300.

We do not hold the comparative data requested. However, on 24 April, we published Public Health England modelling which assessed the impact of the population management measures prisons have implemented in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and provided updated reasonable worst-case scenario estimates. This modelling suggested that the measures we have implemented have had a positive impact on limiting the transmission of the virus in prisons and minimising the number of deaths. The modelling can be found on gov.uk.

The Ministry of Justice releases a weekly publication of Covid-19 statistics, including prisoner Covid-19 cases and deaths. The publication can be found on gov.uk and is updated every Friday.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. The IAP report said that early release was important to protect life. We were told that 4,000 prisoners would be released; indeed, the MoJ bought 2,000 tagging kits for those released. But, so far, only 209 prisoners have been released early. What went wrong? So far, 23 prisoners have died from Covid-19 in a prison population of 80,000. Each death is a tragedy; those prisoners were under the care of the state, and the state had a duty to keep them safe. However, to keep the numbers to such levels, many prisoners are confined, essentially in solitary confinement, in their cells for 23 hours a day, with limited access to exercise or basic rehabilitative activities, exacerbating mental health problems. There have been 36 self-inflicted deaths so far this year. Can the Minister tell us what proportion of prisoners are currently restricted in this way and when he expects that figure to improve?

My Lords, noting my interests in the register, this report reminds us of the need for robust and effective alternatives to custody. This is especially so for people with mental health problems, whose experience of prison can worsen pre-existing conditions, including the risk of self-harm. Will the Minister therefore assure me that the planned investment in community sentence treatment requirement programmes will continue in the current 12 test areas, and that national rollout will be prioritised to ensure universal sentencing options for the courts and necessary treatment for offenders?

My Lords, in his follow-up report just a few weeks ago, the Chief Inspector of Prisons said that “large and increasing” numbers of new prisoners are arriving and that

“the End of Custody Temporary Release Scheme … had failed to reduce the population meaningfully.”

With overcrowding and capacity still major problems, and with prisoners locked in cells for 22.5 hours a day, what is the point of having a release scheme which, according to Her Majesty’s chief inspector, has failed?

I refer to my interests in the register. While recognising the point that my noble and learned friend has just made about security, can he tell us what progress has been made in implementing the

report’s second recommendation—namely to streamline and expedite the early release scheme to create the headroom needed to take active steps to protect life? Does he agree with the report’s suggestion that:

“Given numbers of medically vulnerable people who need to be shielded”,

we should

“overhaul the process of release on compassionate grounds and review and halt the misuse of prison custody as a place of safety”?

In view of the Government’s general acceptance of the very sensible recommendations of the independent advisory panel, will they make a further report on the progress of their implementation when the House resumes at the beginning of September?