Offender Management Bill

I am sure it will come as no surprise when I give the assurance that there is little between us in terms of wishing to ensure that there is proper treatment of young people and vulnerable adults. I know that there is much support in the Committee for that view. The debates last year partly stimulated by the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, were valuable. We are not seeking to do anything in this clause that would be allowed to undermine such outcomes. I want to make it clear that we have already put in place significant safeguards both in this Bill and in existing legislation. Notwithstanding the safeguards that we already provide within the clause, this probing amendment is unwarranted for a number of reasons, which I will seek to set out. The clause’s purpose is to deal with issues related to the activities of non-certificated operational staff in private prisons. The amendment, however, seeksto apply the regulatory framework established bythe Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 to everyone who works in a private prison, including those such as administrative staff who do not have any contact with prisoners, including those in adult prisons. Schedule 4 to the 2006 Act deals specifically with the regulation of children’s establishments. That schedule was debated only last year. Consequently all issues related to the safeguarding of vulnerable groups were fully considered recently and it was not felt necessary to include all private prisons including adult prisons in this manner in that legislation then. Crucially, the importance of providing protectionfor children detained in custody was not overlooked in the 2006 Act in the way that the amendment inadvertently suggests. The regulatory regime relating to children under the Act applies to those private prisons primarily concerned with the detention of children—that is, YOIs and STCs—and they are covered by paragraph 3(1)(d) of Schedule 4 as being institutions that are exclusively or mainly for the detention of children. That wording reflects a clear decision not to apply the Act’s requirements to institutions that do not deal mainly or habitually with the detention of children. The decision provides a sensible balance between the desire to ensure child safety and the need not to hamper the effective operation of prisons by imposing unnecessary regulatory burdens. In our view that was the right approach when the 2006 Act was passed and we do not think that anything that has happened since would warrant extending the reach of Schedule 4 so that it includes adult prisons now. Even if the 2006 Act did not already achieve what we believe the amendment’s purpose to be, we consider that the amendment is unnecessary and unhelpful for other reasons. First, the amendment extends significantly beyond the scope of the clause as it stands. It would cover all staff at all grades in private prisons, whereas the clause deals only with the roles and responsibilities of non-PCO grades. The amendment is therefore inconsistent with the clause’s purpose. Secondly, the existing safeguards that apply in privately-run prisons are sufficient to ensure the level of protection required in those exceptionally rare cases—if there are any—in which children may be detained in an adult prison. PCOs are those officers who have direct day-to-day contact with prisoners. PCO grades must, under Section 85 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, be authorised to perform their duties by the PCO certification unit. As part of this process PCO staff are already subject to rigorous pre-employment checks that include a requirement to disclose all previous convictions. Although non-PCO staff who do not have the same level of contact with prisoners as PCOs are not subject to the same certification requirements as PCOs, they are still cleared through the same unit as part of their pre-employment check. Any person seeking to work at a private prison receives a basic enhanced police check. In addition, any person who will be working in a juvenile prison, or who will come into contact with children or vulnerable adults, also undergoes a CRB check. Such pre-employment checks are consistent with those done on equivalent grades in the public sector, to which the amendment would not apply. We therefore contend that this additional bureaucratic check is not necessary or justified, as existing safeguards on staff suitability are adequate. In addition, the clause already limits the range of custodial duties that a non-PCO grade will be able to perform, and submits those tasks to parliamentary scrutiny. The Secretary of State will have to specify in an order subject to the negative procedure the activities that a worker may be authorised to carry out. We have also explicitly excluded from the Bill the use of force from this list. A non-PCO must be separately authorised at establishment level to carry out any task that is listed in such an order. Only a director can give such an authorisation, where appropriate, which can be subject to limitations or conditions. In determining whether an individual should be authorised or an authorisation limited or made subject to conditions, a director will need to satisfy himself or herself that an individual has an appropriate level of experience and expertise to be able to carry out the listed tasks in question. That is an inherent requirement of any power such as this. When a director decides on the appropriateness of an individual for a particular task, he or she will have in mind the contractual penalties—including financial penalties, as has been said several times from the Dispatch Box—and any damage to reputation incurred by operational failures in private prisons. In summary, the protection provided by Schedule 4 to the 2006 Act applies to young offender institutions and STCs. In the rare cases in which children are held in adult prisons, extensive alternative safeguards will apply. We firmly believe that this will be sufficient to ensure the safety of children in detention—a matter that I am sure all noble Lords consider to be of the utmost importance. I think that I have answered all the points that were made in the debate. We hope that the probing nature of the amendment means that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw it.