Welcome to this oral evidence session of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, looking at HMP Parc. My name is Ruth Jones; I am the Chair of the Committee. Before we begin properly, I would like to make a statement in regard to the 17 deaths at HMP Parc this year and the House’s sub judice resolution. A coroner’s inquest has been opened into the deaths and those proceedings are now sub judice, but with the permission of the Speaker I am waiving the sub judice resolution for today’s evidence session, given the interest in and importance of these issues. Members are not intending to inquire into the specific circumstances of any individual’s death; all members and witnesses will exercise caution, I am sure, in their questions and answers, given the possibility of any future criminal or civil proceedings in relation to these deaths. I should also say that I and several members of the Committee visited HMP Parc last month. We want to thank everyone for their hospitality and involvement there. We have a lot to get through today—we will have two panels—so I make a plea for short answers from the panel. It is really good to have you in the room with us today; thank you very much for that. We have a special guest with us: Alex Barros-Curtis from the Justice Committee, who will be bringing his expertise from that area and hopefully taking some interesting information back. May I welcome Will Styles, Gordon Brockington, Ian Barrow and Sian Hibbs? Could you please introduce yourselves?

Good morning, Chair. I am Will Styles, director of HMP Parc.

Good morning, Chair. I am Gordon Brockington, the managing director for care and justice, G4S.

Good morning. I am Ian Barrow, executive director of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service in Wales.

Good morning. I am Sian Hibbs, a deputy director within HMPPS in Wales.

Thank you very much. There have been 17 deaths in a single year, and we have had a look at the previous stats for Parc. There will be families of men who have been affected directly as a result of these deaths. Let me start with a broad question to Will and Gordon. Can you guarantee that the men who are there now are safe?

Yes. We have done an awful lot of work this year to improve safety and security for the men. We have made really significant progress in improving safety outcomes. Certainly, when we look at measures including self-harm and violence, the metrics have improved very significantly—the trends since April. We know, in terms of measurable outcomes, that things have improved. Since June, we have not had any apparent non-natural causes deaths. In terms of the work that has been going on that is measurable, we have evidence of it here. An awful lot of work has gone on. From talking to the men, which I know you have done, the feedback is also that things are improving in terms of conditions for them, in terms of the regime and in terms of safety.

I would like to start by saying that this was an incredibly sad time for Parc. Our thoughts are with the family and friends and remain with the family and friends, with the ongoing inquests. All those who have lost loved ones at Parc—our thoughts really are with them. It is important to note that in 2024 we did indeed have 17 deaths. That was made up of eight natural causes deaths, predominantly of elderly gentlemen—as you saw on the wings, we have palliative care at Parc—three self-inflicted deaths, and five that we believe to have been drugs-related. I will talk about those very briefly, if I may. We have an ageing population at Parc. In 2022, 13% of the population were over the age of 50; that increased to 14% in 2023, and today 16% are over the age of 50. We have an ageing population, and we are one of the two palliative care centres in Wales. The other significant cohort, and the significant issue that occurred in the first half of this year, was the ingress of nitazenes into the prison—five deaths. Sadly, that replicates what has been happening in the community and in society. Data from March 2022 to 2024 shows that 40 deaths occurred from nitazenes, with 390 across England and Wales. Sadly, nitazenes got into our prisons. If I can just remind the Committee, these are drugs that are up to 1,000 times more powerful than morphine.

We are going to come on to drugs later.

We are going to go into that, but I just wanted to put in context, Chair, why the deaths have occurred.

That is helpful. Thank you very much. Many of us have had constituents writing to us with concerns about people who are currently in HMP Parc, and they are very anxious about things. My question, first to Mr Styles and then to Mr Brockington, is what measures you are taking to make sure that these men are kept in a safe environment.

The work that we have done this year is primarily looking at six key workstreams to do with improving our staffing situation in terms of training capability and staffing numbers, because that is the key issue: you have to have the right numbers of staff there to look after men properly. We have pushed a large volume of work in terms of safety processes, particularly in how we support men who are at risk of harm and self-harm. We have been doing a lot of work in terms of security to increase our capability and to increase the equipment that we have available, our staffing levels and our searching processes. For example, on a monthly basis we are now carrying out five times more staff searches than we were seven or eight months ago. There is an awful lot of work going on there. We are doing a lot of security work to prevent drugs getting into the prison, which is a real challenge, as you know—you have seen that for yourself—and a lot of work on supporting men to desist from drug use. All of this threads together. None of this sits on its own; it is all about the whole regime. We are doing a lot of work to improve the regime, because where we get regime consistency, and men understand what is going to happen every day and what their experience will be that day, it takes away a lot of the frustration that can result in self-harm and violence. We are working very hard to give that regime consistency and improve communication. That has gone down really well for the men and has really reduced anxiety. On the basics, in terms of respect, we are pushing hard on cleanliness, making sure every cell has all the things in it that it should. We have spent a lot of money on equipment for the units to make sure that people have the right access to catering and leisure equipment. We are pushing across a number of work streams to try to improve conditions in the prison, improve safety and improve security, because all those things weave together to improve wellbeing for men, reduce anxiety and reduce security risks and risks of harm.

Thank you. Mr Barrow, you have now heard some of the measures that have been taken this year to improve and update. How will HMPPS be actually monitoring this progress?

There are a number of things that we have in terms of monitoring. First, we obviously have a contract with HMPPS. There are monthly contract management meetings overseen by Sian and her team. We have a controller team of public sector staff that are based in the prison. They monitor performance on a day-to-day basis and report back any concerns they have. I meet regularly with Will, Gordon and other members of the senior team, but we are also supporting what is going on in Parc. It is important to point out that we have done a lot of joint work with Parc over the last six months. HMPPS has supported Parc with our national substance misuse team and our national safety team. We have used regional search teams to help out with Parc. We are very much looking at it as a partnership approach in terms of improvement.

Thank you. I am going to hand over to Alex Barros-Curtis.

Thank you, Chair. I have a couple of questions on the drugs issue that you were talking about, to Mr Styles and Mr Brockington in particular. Obviously, this Committee and the Justice Committee are well aware that drugs are an issue for all prisons, but what would be helpful to understand is whether Parc itself was insufficiently prepared for these new and particularly dangerous, harmful substances.

I do not think that Parc is unique, by any stretch of the imagination. The synthetic opioid issue is significant across the whole of Wales and the UK. A prison is a microcosm of the community. Sadly, these horrendous synthetic opioids, especially nitazenes, are present in the community and have got into prison—and they got into Parc. You are looking for a needle in a haystack, as you know. You have seen the size of what the staff are looking for. As Will said, we have bolstered security. We have used external resource from G4S’s other prisons to deploy down and to conduct extensive searching. We are working with the authority on enhanced gate security, which is positive. One of the keys—I know that this is something that the Justice Select Committee has been looking at—is naloxone. We were the first to roll out naloxone. Across the whole of the prison we now have over 713 members of staff trained on naloxone, and that is available to all members of staff across Parc. We have also been working on a couple of other things. We are working with Bath University on detection. We now have a mobile detection piece of equipment for nitazenes. We were the first to deploy that; that is now being deployed across the broader public sector. We have presented at the synthetic opioid conference to share our learning. I think sharing the learning is absolutely key on this, because we were the first and we are in unprecedented times. We are also piloting new technology that can actually see through clothes, because we are looking for pieces of paper that are very, very small indeed. This new technology looks very positive. I saw it at first hand when I was down in Parc last week.

Mr Styles, do you want to add anything on that point? That was very helpful, but I don’t know whether there is anything you want to add.

If you are content with that, that is great.

Mr Barrow, can you reflect on that in the light of your experience with other prisons across Wales? Are nitazenes and other serious drugs a problem contained to Parc, or a problem that we are seeing across the entire prison estate?

We have had issues with opioids and synthetic cannabinoids across the estate. Thankfully, we have not had the issue that Parc had with nitazenes to the extent that Parc had. Within HMPPS in Wales and nationally, we are doing a lot of work on preparing staff in what is unfortunately a very fast-moving area with developments in synthetic drugs. We are looking at enhancing our monitoring. That has included changes to mandatory drug tests in custody. Nationally, we are trialling waste-water testing to allow us to understand more where the drugs are in the system. Gordon has mentioned the treatment process; we are rolling out naloxone across all of the prisons in Wales, because that is key in fighting the dangers. The final point I would make is that there is a lot of work going on in terms of enforcement. There is lots of engagement with local police forces and nationally, in terms of understanding how drugs are ingressing into the prisons. Resolving that is very important to us.

That segues nicely into my final question I have for the three of you about the partnerships that Parc can have with other stakeholders, such as South Wales police, all police forces in Wales, local health boards and the Welsh Government. Is there enough co-operation? Is there more that needs to happen? Is there anything that is lacking that would buttress that? I would be grateful for your thoughts.

Our co-operation with the police has been really positive. They are engaged in every security workstream that we have. Just to give you a really good example of the level of support we get, with a recent drone incursion the support we got from the police was a helicopter, so the response there is really good. We are working very closely with partners. In answer to your original question, I should have mentioned that having worked in a number of prisons, I would say that in terms of the number of staff deployed to counter-drug work and in terms of the equipment, I have never seen a prison with better capabilities and resources than Parc.

Mr Brockington, taking into account everything we have just heard now, which is positive, we know that safety in prisons is paramount. However, large increases in assaults on prison staff and self-harm incidents requiring hospital treatment were all recorded at Parc in 2023. Given everything that we have heard this morning, do you feel HMP Parc is a safe prison?

To follow on from what Will said, I do. I have been there on many occasions, and I am confident in the six-strand strategy that Will has deployed, covering all the key areas of safety and security. That includes a very robust review of act management and a mental health review as part of a health needs assessment. We are embedding all the key strategies we need to continue to look forward. One thing I want to get across today is that the first half of the year was difficult for Parc and incredibly sad for the families—again, our hearts and thoughts are with them—but we have to look forward and we are seeing really good progress. I have witnessed it at first hand, and some of you have also seen that progress. We have to put the foundations in place to continue to move forward in 2025, so yes, I am very confident in both what Will is delivering, but also the senior leadership team at the site and our over 700 professional caring staff from the south Wales community that come to work. The vast majority of people are utterly brilliant and they do a fantastic job day in day out, so I am very confident.

Mr Styles, you have talked about your six-step approach and about the changes to your regime, but I want to ask particularly about supporting men who are in mental health crisis. Could you outline a little more about what you are doing specifically in that area?

Health services are not commissioned or managed by G4S. What I would say on mental health is that there is a lot of work that has gone on. However, we have had a health needs analysis that has recently arrived, which I think reinforces a conclusion that we have all come to: that in a range of services related to mental health and substance misuse, more needs to be done in terms of resourcing. The frequency and number of psychiatric sessions that we are providing for the men and the number of mental health caseworkers that we have at Parc is significantly short of where we think it should be, so there is more work to do in terms of mental health. But I do need to add that we do not commission it and we are not the providers, so I probably should not say too much about health.

Is there any additional support that you require in order to improve both prisoner and staff safety at HMP Parc?

We have a really good plan that we have been working to, and it has been delivering outcomes. I would say that there is a resource question around our health provision, certainly in terms of mental health and prisoners, which I have talked about. In terms of staffing safety, staff assaults this year—or certainly since April—have reduced very significantly. We are working very smartly in how we deliver our staff training now to make sure that when our new officers hit the streets and are operational, they are really equipped with the skills they need to de-escalate incidents and manage incidents to a resolution that does not result in violence. We just need to stay on the trajectory we are on now, in terms of building staff confidence, building visible leadership from managers and getting to a place where our culture moves away from punishing our way out of a problem, and into a model that we have seen at another G4S prison, Oakwood, which is much more about relying on or working with prisoners in peer roles so that we have a much more rewarding culture that everyone has a stake in.

Mr Brockington, is there anything you want to add to that?

The only thing I would say, which I should have commented earlier, is about the support that we have had from HMPPS. We have not done this in isolation. With the support we have had from HMPPS colleagues and South Wales police and the health board, we have done this as a collaborative working. We were in unprecedented times and we were learning a lot. That support has been very helpful.

Again, I would say that I need to be a little bit considered in answering, because it is a service that is not commissioned or delivered by G4S or managed by me. What I would say is that with the care of elderly men and those who have reached or are reaching the end of their life, generally speaking our provision is good, our social care provision is good and our healthcare provision is good. The shortcoming that I would say we have, which we will want to address, is the number of rooms we have available for end of life. I think it has also been identified in the health needs assessment that we need more. We need more space, but in terms of the staffing we have, the support from Bridgend council and our healthcare staff, I think our provision is good.

To follow on from Will’s point, we do not commission the health services, so I think it would be a point for HMPPS colleagues to comment on. That is not to pass it over.

I will hand on to Sian in a minute, but I would point to the health needs assessment that we have just done with Cwm Taf Morgannwg, which we are still analysing. I am confident that Cwm Taf Morgannwg will work closely with us in responding to that and those individual needs. Do you want to add to that, Sian?

Yes. We transferred healthcare to a local health board in December 2022. We went through a negotiation with them. We are actually uplifting staffing numbers by approximately 20% as part of that. To be clear, they have not reached that staffing level yet; they have struggled to recruit into certain posts. When we see some of those posts coming to fruition, I think we will see some improvements as well. We will take the health needs analysis, but also push them to recruit to the staffing levels that we committed to.

We have a partnership agreement with the Welsh Government, and we are driving for a standard service specification for healthcare services. That is one of our key tasks, and part of what will come out of that is key performance indicators. In 2017, when Berwyn opened, we had a service specification for Berwyn. We have a service specification for Parc. What we do ourselves, working with the Welsh Government, is try to look at assuring ourselves that the service specification itself is being delivered in the first instance. It is something that we are striving for, but we have to work closely with the Welsh Government around that.

As a supplementary to that, is there a timescale for that? I think the key performance indicators can give us the evidence that the service is a good service.

Part of the reason why it is not a quick fix is that people record things really differently on SystmOne, which is the healthcare system where they record things, and therefore you will not get consistency of data. It is something we are pushing the Welsh Government for around a refreshed partnership agreement at the moment.

May I explore the health issue a little bit more, recognising the caveats that you have mentioned? My first question is to Mr Styles and Mr Brockington. Obviously prisoners are not sentenced to poorer health outcomes. Have there been instances in which men at HMP Parc have not been able to access the healthcare services they need? Have you had reports of that?

Whenever there is an unfortunate death in custody, there is also a Prisons and Probation Ombudsman investigation. What we get from that is a report into each one that tells us whether or not there has been equivalence with what they could have received in the community. We have not received that many in relation to outcomes from the deaths this year. We have had one recently for one two years ago, which I anticipate will be published soon. What it basically tells us is how equivalent the service was to the community. There are some for which the equivalence is not there; there are some where the equivalence is there, and actually the service is to a higher standard than in the community. It is on an individual case basis that we look at those. There is then an action plan that comes from any recommendations that come from those PPO reports. That is a jointly owned action plan, or rather a partnership action plan. There will be some actions for healthcare, some actions for the provider, some actions for HMPPS and some actions for the Welsh Government.

Thank you for that. I must say thank you for the visit as well: it was really informative and it was great to visit. We had reports from prisoners that there were delays in getting healthcare or in getting seen to, if that is the right way to word it. If someone does need healthcare, what would be the process? Would they raise it with a prison officer? How do they access the healthcare in the prison, and how might there be delays in that process?

They make an application through staff or through our CMS, and then they will go on to a waiting list, but in many cases we would hope that they would see the GP on the same day, if there is a GP clinic on that day. Just going back to your original question, which I was not sure specifically related to deaths. There are examples of people waiting longer to access services than they should. For example, the health needs analysis—I do not know whether you have seen it—identified very long waits for men to access secure mental health beds in the community from Parc, much longer than the national average. So I would say yes, there are examples of delays.

You mentioned the CMS, which we got some feedback about. There were sometimes issues with that for prisoners. Is that something you recognise?

There are some frustrations around it, but I have to say that it is a better system than exists in most prisons. We hope to update it in the coming year by moving to a tablet-based system, where every prisoner has a tablet to access those application systems, so that should improve quite quickly.

Excellent. Mr Barrow, and possibly Ms Hibbs: how comparable is the healthcare provision at HMP Parc to that which is available in the community and across prisons of comparable size? You have touched on that already, but I would be interested if you could expand on it.

I am in danger of repeating what Sian has said, but one of the parameters we have for that is the ombudsman reports, which say that sometimes it is equivalent, but sometimes it is not when it should have been. I think it is fair to say that that happens across each of the prisons in Wales. Each of the prisons in Wales are with different health boards, so there are different arrangements, but I think it is why the engagement we have with the Welsh Government and the work we are doing on the agreement for prison health are so important. That is one of the things that we are prioritising at the moment.

Can I ask about the wellbeing of prisoners? I have to say I was quite impressed by some of the things you were doing on education and workplace training, with people getting qualifications to get into jobs or college on release, hopefully, as well as education in a wider context and the family unit. What I am interested in—we talked about this when we were on site—is how the success of that is measured. Once people are released, does the measurement stop? How do you know what you are doing in HMP Parc has a long-lasting effect and is successful in the long run, as opposed to just measuring up to when people leave?

There are a variety of measures. Every single prison has an employment advisory board. You will have somebody there who is an employer in the community, who is a champion for prisoners in that community, and in bringing employers into the prison to work with us. Some of our measures are around employment on release, employment six weeks post release and employment six months post release. We will track that as a whole-system approach. It leaves G4S’s hands, obviously, when the prisoner leaves the prison, but it transfers into probation monitoring them. That is how we monitor them.

We do focus on that quite a lot. I am very pleased to say that across HMPPS in Wales our figures for employment post six weeks post release and employment six months post release are above the national average. It is something we do focus on in Wales.

Is there anything that others on the panel want to add?

Post release, key issues for us are employment and accommodation. A key thing is men having somewhere to live when they leave: relatively speaking, for prison leavers our data is good. We have 90%-plus accommodation on release on first night. Our employment figures compare very well with the national average after six weeks and six months: over 19% at six weeks and 35% at the six-month point.

The only thing I would add is that when you were there you saw C block, the neurodiversity centre, which has autism accreditation. Having a tailored solution to individuals’ needs is key to success as they go through the justice system. That has been a resounding success at Parc and we continue to focus on that at all levels of neurodiversity.

Alex Barros-Curtis has a brief supplementary.

This follows on from what a couple of the panel have said about palliative care and an ageing prison population. As I understand it, Parc is one of the few prisons that offer a palliative care system, and there is evidence suggesting that this is unduly pushing up deaths. I wonder what the thinking is on that and what needs to change, because obviously it is a retrograde outcome, given that we are talking about health outcomes.

In Wales we have two centres: we have HMP Berwyn and HMP Parc. At the moment, that is probably sufficient for the population that we have, although there is definitely a need to consider future options. We have an ageing population generally. There is an ageing prison population, particularly in certain categories of prisoners, and it is definitely something we should keep an active eye on.

A question for Will and Gordon: how does most contraband get into HMP Parc?

There are a number of ingress routes for contraband into prisons. It can be thrown over the wall. It can be brought in by visitors secreted in their bodily orifices or in children’s nappies and so on when they come for social visits with their loved ones. Staff corruption is an issue in many prisons. One of the key ingress routes, certainly at Parc, is industrial-specification drone drops being organised by organised crime gangs—in our case, organised crime gangs that we think are centred around Wales and the midlands.

One thing I would like to add to that is that we talk about corrupt staff a lot, but the vast majority of staff who work at Parc are not corrupt. It is an ingress route, as Will said, just as visits are an ingress route, as are drones and as is over the wall. It takes 20 seconds to get a drone over the wall, get drugs into the prison, and get it back out again. You are looking for very, very small amounts of drugs, which can create an enormous problem in a prison. A very small amount of drugs, once it is applied to paper, can create a big problem. We saw the security brief when we were on site. It remains a challenge, but I want to stress that the vast, vast majority of staff are hard-working, professional and totally committed to Parc.

Does Parc need additional investment to target this? If so, where exactly is that investment best targeted?

As I think I said previously, we are working really closely with HMPPS. There are two areas of investment. The first is enhanced gate security, which we are looking to deploy. The other is the windows programme. When you were walking around, many of you will have clearly seen the windows open. We have already started a windows replacement programme, and we are in dialogue to accelerate that. I think it is key to a lot of the movement of drugs into and around Parc. That is a very encouraging step forward, and something that we are in advanced discussions around accelerating.

We will move on to Llinos Medi.

Diolch. Thank you for the visit and for the nature of the conversations we had across the whole community at Parc. You have mentioned that corruption is a small percentage, but unfortunately that small percentage has a negative impact on the staffing. Can you explain to me how a vetting system is in place on the prison staff compared with other public services, perhaps to give confidence to the local community as well?

I will start, and no doubt Will can add more. There are three components to the vetting we conduct. We comply fully with HMPPS vetting, with exactly the same that every other prison officer would have in all public sector prisons. On top of that, at G4S we conduct DBS, which many of you will recognise, and also our own G4S vetting. This covers three-year verbal references, written references for 10 years, written feedback, credit identity checks and so on. To become a prison officer in G4S, you have enhanced vetting over and above what you would see just for HMPPS, but we also comply fully with HMPPS’s process. Will, I don’t know if you want to add to that.

No, I think that sums it up. A prison custody officer at HMP Parc goes through the exact same vetting checks through the SSCL process as a prison officer at Cardiff or Swansea and, in addition to that, goes through an added layer of G4S vetting.

Thank you. When you have instances of staff corruption, how do you identify them?

Many are found—I say “many”—

Sorry, how do we find them or how do we then flag them in terms of their future vetting?

Both.

If somebody has been found to have committed significant misconduct, particularly if it led to dismissal, we inform the DBS system and the HMPPS SSCL system and they are then flagged, so if they were then to apply for a job in public service in the future, or any job requiring vetting, that information has been shared with the vetting service. In terms of identifying staff who may be engaged in corrupt activity, we have a multi-agency counter-corruption team; every prison does. That involves our own security team and colleagues from regional counter-corruption units. As you may be aware, HMPPS over the last year has significantly increased the counter-corruption unit team from, I think, 25 to 150. The police are also part of our counter-corruption team. Primarily, we develop intelligence. We have a dedicated counter-corruption intelligence reporting system for staff, which is really well used. If you are a member of staff and you have concerns about somebody else, even if they are minor, you are absolutely encouraged to submit a counter-corruption intelligence report. We develop that intelligence. We use that intelligence with police colleagues who use resources and capabilities that they have, and that is primarily how we get results. We get intelligence from prisoners as well, of course, but we pull all of that together and that gives us a really solid intel picture.

I would also add that I and my chief operating officer get a monthly brief from Will and the head of security. We look at all counter-corruption activity. I do that across all my prisons, which allows me to understand what the themes are and see if there are any outliers, so we have a full picture. That is key: it allows us to understand any themes that might be happening, not just in Parc but across the whole of the UK, which we can then feed back into the system.

Most staff who come into the prison system and engage at some point in corrupt activities have not joined with that intention. We do not have people joining Parc with significant criminal records or as part of organised crime gangs; they are corrupted while they are in prison by some fairly experienced and sophisticated prisoners who have skills in corrupting. We have a register, and we focus particularly on those who we know are known corrupters from a security standpoint as well.

Gordon, you mentioned that you compare data with other prisons. How does the corruption level among staff in Parc compare with other prisons?

It is broadly similar. I cannot talk about specifics, for obvious reasons, but there are certainly no outliers in Parc. I think I will leave it at that.

If the legislation were to be changed to allow for prison officers to be X-rayed by the body scanners, would G4S support their staff being searched in this way?

We would comply fully with the law and with HMPPS’s direction on this. We have a huge amount of technology in Parc. I have a list, but I am not going to go through it, for time reasons. Last week I was in Parc and I saw at first hand a brand-new bit of kit that we are piloting at the moment, which can basically see through your clothes and see very small pieces of paper—the sort of things that we are looking for—or any other contraband that might be being smuggled in or around the prison. This is mobile and can be used in a number of different areas. While we would fully comply with scanners, I think it is incumbent to use a portfolio of tools that are available to us, including new technology, to make sure that we stay one step ahead. That is exactly what we are doing at Parc.

I would like to ask some questions about staffing, initially to Mr Styles. Retention of prison officers is a challenge across the prison estate as a whole. Should G4S prison staff be paid more?

Can I just talk a little bit about retention and recruitment? Over the last 18 months, Parc has had a challenge in terms of recruitment and retention, particularly with PCOs. Since June, we have had a net increase of 45 PCOs, which is good, and that is a good indicator that our retention rates are improving and our recruitment rates are improving. Staff feel more valued, are enjoying the job more, are feeling better supported and are feeling the impact of visible leadership. There is more to a reward package than just salary, and people working for an organisation where they feel valued, respected and engaged is really important. Should they earn more? That is a really difficult question because, frankly, I think that anyone who works in a prison deserves a gold medal the size of a dinner plate. We are a commercial organisation in G4S. We have to apply the rate that finds the right balance for us in terms of recruitment and retention and being comfortable that we are respecting and rewarding our staff.

One thing I would add is that while HMPPS’s staffing opening salary rate is a guide, we do not just compete against other prisons; we compete against the labour market in south Wales, so we have to make sure that we are aligned with the logistics organisations and the retail organisations. People join to be prison officer for very unique reasons because, as Will said, they need a gold medal the size of a dinner plate. We measure ourselves against the local community, as opposed to HMPPS prison service pay rates.

We have touched on this already in relation to self-harm and substance misuse, but are staff shortages at HMP Parc making an unsafe prison?

We are not in a critical staffing position. We are within weeks now of being fully staffed. In an organisation that has a lot of flexibility in terms of overtime, that is a really good position to be in. We are not short-staffed. We have been—if I look back six months, there were points in time where we were short-staffed—but we had the capacity and capability to cover that with overtime.

Mr Brockington, would you like to come in on that?

I would say that staffing levels and shortage of staff are not unique to Parc; we see it across the whole of the UK. As with corruption, I have a view across the whole of the G4S estate, and it remains a challenge. I think Parc is doing really well in its retention and its recruitment. We have used various different organisations to support us with recruitment, but when you look at the whole resource package, you have to look at sickness and all the components as well, all of which are going in the right direction. I think it is a positive view looking forward for Parc.

Could I add something about indicators of staff being engaged and feeling valued and supported? My experience of Parc is based on June to today, because that is how long I have been there, but in that time our daily average sickness figures have reduced from over 60 down to the mid-20s, which from our point of view is a really good indicator that people are feeling increasingly valued.

Thank you for that up-to-date data from June onwards. Right now, what is the ratio of prison officers to prisoners at HMP Parc?

There are all sorts of ways of working that out, but what I can tell you is we have about 1,780 prisoners today and we have 353 PCOs. That is one way of working out the ratio; another is the ratio of staff to prisoners in any given area at any given time, but the ratios that we have profiled to and we operate with are in accordance with the HMPPS specifications.

My final question is to Mr Barrow. Going on what we have just heard, how does this ratio compare to public sector prisons of a comparable size and categorisation to HMP Parc?

It would be very similar. Across the estate in Wales, we have a variety of types of prison, so there is not a direct comparison from prison to prison, but as Mr Styles said, the ratio they use in HMP Parc is set by us in terms of the service specification. That will be worked out in comparison with some activity in the public estate as well.

When we run the competition for Parc, one of the things we test as part of that is a number of heat maps at different times during the day to make sure that the proposal from the providers is actually a safe and decent environment. If it had not been safe and decent, they would have been excluded from the competition.

Thank you. I thank the panel for your engagement with us today and the honest, open and transparent way in which you have answered the questions. It is much appreciated, and seeing you in person is really helpful. We will follow up in writing, if that is okay with you, on any questions that we may have outstanding, so thank you in advance for any correspondence after this. Witnesses: Lord Timpson and Ian Barrow.

I now reconvene this sitting of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. Good morning to our second panel: Lord Timpson—it is very good to see you in front of us—and our returner, Ian Barrow. Thank you for your time today. As I said when I started the first panel, I am waiving the sub judice resolution for today’s evidence session. There have been 17 deaths at HMP Parc this year. A coroner’s inquest has been opened into the deaths of men at HMP Parc and those proceedings are now sub judice. Members are not intending to inquire into the specific circumstances of any individual’s death. I am sure all members and witnesses will exercise caution in their questions and answers, given the possibility of future criminal or civil proceedings in relation to these deaths. I would also like to express my concern and frustration around the Ministry of Justice’s recent decision to refuse the freedom-of-information request regarding Wales-only prison data submitted by Dr Rob Jones of the Wales Governance Centre. This data has been incredibly valuable in informing the past work of this Committee as well as its previous iterations, as the data in question is not publicly available and can only be ascertained by certain FOI requests. Given that a previous iteration of this Committee explicitly called on the Ministry of Justice in 2019 to work with Dr Rob Jones to produce a schedule for the publication of Wales-specific justice data, I am very, very disappointed at the Department’s recent decision not to follow this up. I will write to the Department to understand why this decision has been taken and to ascertain why the Department appears so reluctant to publish Wales-specific justice data. We also note that there is a statement expected later on today from the Secretary of State for Justice regarding the 10-year plan on prisons and capacity, so it is good to see our Committee is certainly leading the way in discussions on prisons. I reiterate my plea for short answers, please. We have a lot to get through before we break at 11 am. I welcome Lord Timpson. Perhaps you could introduce yourself, Sir.

Good morning. Thank you very much for having me here today, Chair; my name is James Timpson and I am the Minister for prisons, probation and reducing reoffending.

Thank you very much. Ian Barrow, would you like to reintroduce yourself?

Good morning. I am Ian Barrow, executive director of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service in Wales.

Lord Timpson, your predecessor attended this Committee earlier this year. I appreciate that there is a different political colour, but he considered Parc to be “a well-run and effective prison.” To what extent do you share that assessment?

I had not been to Parc until last week, but I have been to many, many prisons over 25 years, so all I can tell you is what I see today. I have obviously looked at all the inspectors’ reports from the past. What I sense is that it is going in the right direction. There is still more work to be done. The standards were good; the culture was good. I spent a lot of time on the wings talking to men sitting in cells and getting a feel of how they are progressing with their sentences and how well the prison is run. From my experience, there was a lot of stuff that I saw there that I was really impressed with and a lot of engagement. I know that the team have been doing a really big piece of change since Will and the team have been really focused on it. I think they are making progress. There is still more to do, but from what I saw I was impressed.

We have convened this session today because of the 17 deaths in HMP Parc in this year alone. How satisfied are you with the response from HMP Parc to those deaths? Families of the gentlemen concerned will be listening and watching today. Should they be concerned for the wellbeing of the men who are currently being held in the prison?

It is absolutely devastating that 17 people have died in our care in Parc prison this year, and the impact on their families and friends, their fellow prisoners and the staff in HMP Parc is unbearable for them. If you would not mind, I would like to read out the names of the 17 men who died: it will take me a minute. Jason Hussey, John Rose, Christopher Stokes, Justin Lewis, Shay Andrews, Cameron Anthony, Wayne Hay, David Maggs, Michael Horton, Warren Manners, Robert Royan, Robert Rixon, John Hyde, Terry Hulme, Malcolm James, David Ridgeway and Victor Rochester: these are all people who went in to serve their sentence and sadly passed away in the prison. It is absolutely devastating. As we heard in the previous hearing, it is a very complex prison. It is a big prison. The age profile, not just at Parc but generally, is increasing in our prisons across Wales, but from what I saw, the care, the healthcare and the work of the team to address some of the issues that they had was admirable. But one of my concerns with this prison and all prisons is around drugs and the type of drugs that can get in.

Your predecessor specified that he had no plans to remove the contract from G4S. Can you confirm or deny whether you are of the same mind?

I am of the same mind. As I mentioned, I have seen a number of prisons over the years, both in private ownership and in public ownership, and it comes down to leadership, focus and the way the prison is run over a long period of time. Despite their challenges, I think they are doing a lot of good things at HMP Parc. The reasons you would close on a contract are not what I saw on my visit. But we are always keeping a close eye on what is happening in all our private prisons, and we will hold the teams to account where there are areas we are concerned about.

What sort of reasons would you conclude would need you to take it back into public ownership?

I have not read the details of this contract, but essentially it is around discharging of statutory duty, health and safety concerns, insufficient staffing and general contractor default. For me, obviously that is important, but it is also about the relationship colleagues like Ian have with the team at the prison. While it may be run by a private organisation, if you are a prisoner you do not get to choose whether you go to a public or a private prison. They all need to be excellent.

You have touched a bit on this: the Government have spent a lot of money on improving the security in prisons, but unfortunately it seems that the organised crime groups have developed a sophisticated means of bringing contraband into prisons in spite of this investment. What plans, if any, do you have to further bolster security at Parc and the rest of the prison population?

The one thing that keeps me awake at night doing this job is the impact of serious organised crime on what happens in a prison. That involves drugs; it involves debt; it involves violence. None of that helps what I am interested in, which is rehabilitation and helping people get out and stay out so that we have fewer victims. There are a number of areas that we are working on, which I would prefer not to talk about here, on drones and other aspects of security. But one of the issues we have had over the 25 years I have been involved in prisons is that when you close one door, another can open, so it is important that we focus not just on drones, for example, but on all the other areas where drugs can come in. As far as any specific investment goes at Parc, if there is anything I will write to you, but I am not aware of anything above and beyond what they are doing at the moment. When I was on a visit last week, we had a long conversation with the security team on the action that they are taking. If I compare that to what is happening in other, similar prisons, I am satisfied.

As an add-on to my question to the previous panel around the X-rays and staffing, do you have any intention of changing the legislation so that prisons can demand that staff be X-rayed before they enter the prison?

I am not aware of any impending changes to the rules on that. What I would say is that 99.9% of prison staff turn up to work every morning trying to help people to turn their lives around. That is my real focus on inspiring them to do an amazing job.

I agree, but unfortunately it is the small percentage that has a negative impact on staffing capacity and a negative image for prison staff. Hopefully over the years to come the prison unions will work with you on ways to improve staff corruption as well. When we were at Parc, we saw the way and the manner in which the security team were trying to protect prisoners at the site. Obviously there are many technologies that are evolving; tiny mobile phones were one that we saw. In the UK they are advertised explicitly for this. Is there anything in legislation that you can do to stop these companies from advertising this technology as a way of getting into the prisons?

I am not aware of any impending legislation on this, but what I am aware of is that that is how phones can get in. We need to consider what our options are, but we also need to consider why people are getting phones in. People are getting phones in because they want to organise their business activities out of prison, and they want to organise drugs and contraband coming in. A real focus for me—not just in Parc but in all the other prisons that we are working with—is to ensure that people who may be addicted when they come in leave free of drugs. What we do not want is people arriving in prison and leaving as better criminals; we want them to come out as better citizens.

Another thing we saw while we were there was the use of the vape pen. Are there any plans to change the vape pen in any way, to safeguard prisoners against the modern drugs that they are using?

The reason why this is an issue is that people use the vapes as they are now to smoke spice and other drugs, using the heat coil. The good news is that we have a trial starting in January in two prisons with a new design of vape. Having never been a vaper, I am not really au fait with the logistics of how it actually works, but we think that this new model will prevent the current problem. We want to roll that out in the latter half of next year. As I mentioned before, when you close one door, another opens, so we just need to make sure we are on top of that.

I am going to introduce Alex Barros-Curtis, who is guesting from the Justice Committee today.

I have a very quick question for Lord Timpson. It follows on from what you have said about what keeps you up at night. You mentioned something very similar when you gave very helpful evidence to the Justice Committee a couple of weeks ago. The “From Harm To Hope” drug strategy is about tackling the drug problem in prisons. What assessment have you and the MOJ made of its effectiveness to date?

We have a long way to go on drugs—a long, long way. We need to see it as a public health problem; we need to ensure that when people come in with significant drug problems, there are opportunities for them to turn their life around. Substance-free wings are a good way of supporting people, but it is also about getting them into purposeful activity, educating them, getting them in the library and helping them to build meaningful relationships with officers and all the other experts who are there to help them. It is a really big issue, but I also think it is a big opportunity for us. If we can help people leave prison when they are not addicted to drugs or alcohol or all the other issues that they have, it will make a massive difference to the amount of reoffending and the number of victims. I very much see it as a public health issue.

Lord Timpson, the National Audit Office’s latest report estimates that the programme to construct 20,000 additional prison places by the mid-2020s will now complete in 2031, costing at least £4.2 billion more than planned, and will still leave a shortage of 12,400 prison places by the end of 2027. Why is the programme so behind? Why has it cost so much more than anticipated?

The simple answer is that the previous Government did not get planning permission and did not build prisons fast enough. That is why we are in this position now, and that is why we were in the position this summer when we got dangerously close to running out of prison places. We had less than 100 spaces. These prisons should have been built, and we will build those prisons.

What will you do to ensure that the expected prison place shortage is mitigated and the Government are not forced to release prisoners early and put the public in potential danger?

We have no plans for any more emergency releases. We think we can operationally manage that. We have also set up the independent sentencing review, which David Gauke, a former Lord Chancellor, is chairing. It is in an asking-for-information phase until 9 January. One thing I would encourage everybody to do is feed any ideas and suggestions that they have into that review. What is clear is that the prison population is increasing by 4,500 people a year, and what we need to do is to build new prisons. When people are punished they are sent to prison, but we also need to make sure that we have enough prison places for them. We cannot have more prisoners than we have prisons.

Ian, how will you ensure that the upcoming 10-year prison capacity strategy takes the unique delivery landscape of the criminal justice system in Wales into account?

As part of my role, I work closely with colleagues in London on the prison capacity strategy and the work that they are doing. We have looked at the particular issues in Wales. We are anticipating 350 additional places as part of the strategy; 320 of those will come via a potential expansion at Parc and another 30 in the form of rapid deployment cells to HMP Prescoed. Both of those are national resources; they are not simply a Wales resource. It is important that we continue the work that we are already doing with capacity teams across HMPPS in England and Wales to ensure that it maintains its fitness for purpose as we move forward.

What does HMPPS see as the future for privately run prisons?

That is probably a question for the Minister, if you do not mind.

I think I have slightly touched on this before. I just want to see well-run prisons. I can show you some excellent prisons that are run by private organisations, including G4S. HMP Oakwood is one where I have been many times to learn lots of ideas. For me, this comes down a lot to leadership, culture development and a credible focus on staffing and standards. We want people to turn up to work to try to turn people’s lives around, and it is important that we have the consistency across the estate where all the prisons are performing exceptionally well.

We are considering next steps following the formation of the Women’s Justice Board. We will have our first meeting in January, and on the Women’s Justice Board we will have Welsh expertise. One of the things that I hear loud and clear from colleagues in Wales is that you do not want a women’s prison in Wales, but we need better support for women. Most go to HMP Eastwood or HMP Styal. HMP Styal is just down the road from where I live, and I have been going there since I was seven years old. My mum used to take the foster children to see their mums. I am well aware of the implications for Welsh women, and even sometimes Welsh women and their children, of being in prisons in England. The Women’s Justice Board is an important step. I know that we have had a number of conversations around the women’s centre potentially in Swansea. I am really interested in that; I am also interested in non-residential women’s centres. There is an example down in Southampton called Hope Street, which I have already spoken to Jane Hutt and others about as a good example of something to have a look at. I am also very interested in the intensive supervision court model. I went and spent a day with a special intensive supervision court for women in Birmingham. I thought it was exceptional how the judge works alongside housing experts, mental health experts and addiction experts to offer an alternative to custody for women so they could stay at home, keep looking after their children and not break all the other ties that they have. It is a very exciting area, but we need to get the Women’s Justice Board up and running. We need to get going and delivering.

The Women’s Justice Board will have its first meeting in January. We will come up with our plans and then we will consider all the options. The great news about Swansea is that we already have planning permission, which as we know for a number of other prisons has taken an awful long time. But we need to look in the round at how we support the unique complexities that a lot of women in the justice system have and how we divert them away from the justice system.

My concern is that they will be focused more in south Wales around the population. We are keen for that conversation to be up in north Wales, keeping women close to parents. I was a portfolio holder for social services and safeguarding for children, making sure that that relationship is never broken, is extremely important. The capacity issue around north Wales is there. Will you look across Wales with the services that women will have, keeping that link to their community and their families?

That is a really important point. Although I live in England, when I look out of my bedroom window I can see HMP Berwyn on a clear day, so I do look across Wales, but in a different way. I have spent many years pioneering with social enterprise in Anglesey, recruiting young people and training them in a career in hospitality. I am well aware of the issues around not just Anglesey but north Wales, and how it links in with HMP Styal and the support that women get there. It takes a long time to drive from Holyhead down to Swansea, so it is another one of the things we need to consider.

I will just point out that we work very closely with Welsh Government and lots of third sector organisations in Wales. We have a blueprint for women offenders in Wales that has served us well over the last few years in responding to the unique needs that come with not having a Welsh women’s prison. I am confident that that will serve us well going forward.

I am interested in looking at intergovernmental relations. Can you talk us through what challenges or opportunities you have found in delivering the justice system in a devolved context?

There are some great examples in Wales. I think the way that youth services work alongside the justice system is excellent. The probation work that happens and the joined-up working there are excellent. However, I am very aware that it is around working successfully together. We are supporting the most complex people in the country, and the way we will reduce crime and have fewer victims is by making sure that all the work we do on healthcare, education and housing works well. At HMP Parc 90% of people who leave the prison have accommodation on release; obviously there is more to be done. The amount of people leaving prison and getting into work is good; there is still more to be done. If you compare that to others, that proves that the joint working is admirable. We need to keep working on giving clear direction for what we mean by, “How can we get good results on addiction in prison? How can we make sure that when people leave prison they have somewhere to live, they have a joined-up link with their probation team, and the probation team is there to support them?” One of the clear visions in my mind is that this is a long-term fix. We need to focus on not trying to solve things tomorrow, but understanding the complexity of these relationships and building on the relationships that we have. Ian may like to mention something on that.

I would say that we have strong relationships at official level with the Welsh Government. I regularly meet with Welsh Government Ministers and officials to ensure that we are as joined up as we can be. The Minister, and indeed other Ministers from the Ministry of Justice, have already met with Jane Hutt, who is the Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, as you know. I think there is a good level of engagement. HMPPS in Wales was established back in 2014. It was the first time across England and Wales that we brought together prison and probation services, and we did that specifically to ensure that the engagement with Welsh Government could be as comprehensive as possible.

Has engagement with the inter-ministerial group for justice happened? Is that happening regularly? How often does it happen? Is it working effectively?

The plan is that we are looking at having the first meeting that I will be at early next year. It is something that I think is really important, because there are good things happening in lots of different places. For example, I have been to Hydebank Wood prison in Northern Ireland a number of times. I am a bit of a prison geek. They do exceptional work on women and how they school the young people in their care. In Scotland, they are doing some interesting things on the number of children in prison. I think they are down to five children who are in prison in Scotland. It is an important forum for us all. I have spoken to officials already, and they are trying to sort out a date as early as possible in the new year.

The UK Government have a manifesto commitment about devolving youth justice and probation to Wales. What conversations have you had around that with the Welsh Government?

Where we are is that it is our manifesto commitment that we are going to consider it. I think we really should consider it. When we came into government, we inherited a prison system and justice system in crisis. We have stabilised things. We still have an awful lot more to do. When the independent sentencing review concludes and we understand where that lands, that is when we will look again at this point.

I declare an interest: I was a member of the Gwynedd and Môn youth justice board for five years. If there are going to be delays in devolving youth justice, can I please just ask that you look at the funding model for youth justice in Wales? The Barnett formula does not quite work for youth justice in the way the funding happens in England. Wales is deprived of funding in youth justice, and that means that our young people are not receiving the best service possible. I urge you to look at that on our behalf.

A plea rather than a question.

I hear you.

To link into that point, how will the reviews such as the independent commission on the constitutional future of Wales and the Brown commission inform those considerations on the devolution of youth justice and probation?

As I have said before, it is a case of timing. We want to get the independent sentencing review concluded, because we do not know where they are going to end up. There are lots of implications around community sentencing and technology, so we will have to wait and see what they say. One thing we need to make sure we focus on is how we reduce reoffending, reduce the number of victims and make sure our prisons are safe places.

Do you have anything to add to that, Ian?

No, nothing to add, thank you.

The Ministry of Justice is currently undertaking an independent sentencing review due to report in spring 2025. How will you ensure that the unique delivery environment of Wales, in which many criminal justice-adjacent services are devolved to the Welsh Government, is taken into account when implementing any recommendations? Are there any plans in place to appoint a Welsh representative to the independent panel?

The call for evidence is until 9 January, and the review recognises the potential impact of the recommendations on areas such as community-based sentencing and Wales as a devolved Administration. The review team is very keen to hear your views, and if I can do anything to support that conversation, please let me know.

Something that has been touched on briefly already is that distance from home can be a key to ensuring a prisoner’s successful rehabilitation and is especially relevant to Welsh women offenders, given the lack of women’s prisons in Wales. Will the sentencing review be assessing HMPPS prisoner placement procedures? If not, do you have any other plans to ensure that offenders can serve their sentences closer to their home and their support networks?

You are exactly right. One of the key pillars of reducing reoffending is family ties. When someone is far away from home and does not have that contact, that makes it harder. Although this is not an example from Wales, I was in Winchester prison last week and I was saddened to hear from the governor that only 50% of the prisoners receive any contact from family at all—that is phone calls or visits. What we need to do is ensure that our allocation processes are correct. We need to consider a number of other things as well—time left to serve, categorisation, sentence requirements—but closeness to family and home is an important part of that allocation. The capacity issues that we inherited have not been helpful, because we have just been trying to find places for people to go, but we are already seeing the benefits of some extra capacity we have in the system now. It is not just about being closer to home; it is about the other ways we can support prisoners and their families on communication. I do not know whether you saw it on your visit, but there is a charity called Invisible Walls doing some fantastic work. I am a big fan of Storybook Dads. We need to give every opportunity to keep those communication lines open, especially for prisoners who have children, so they can maintain those family connections. When they are out, they need to hit the ground running and be able to take on the parental role that they had before they went into prison.

I have one final question for Mr Barrow: why does Wales have such a high imprisonment rate?

I think there are a number of factors in that, including how that was calculated. You are probably referring to some of the work that Dr Rob Jones did earlier. One of the things that we do not currently have in HMPPS is an ability to actually define somebody as Welsh. We often use home address or sometimes court addresses. I think that that imprisonment rate was slightly impacted by the number of English prisoners in HMP Berwyn; I think that has affected it. I have met Dr Jones a number of times this year. I am working with him on some of the data issues that you mentioned earlier, Chair, but also on ensuring we have a proper ongoing dialogue in terms of understanding some of the information that he is presenting. If nothing else, for me in my role it is incredibly important to get that level of insight and to work with him on that. There are definitely a couple of ways of interpreting that data and, if I am being honest, the way that we have provided some of the freedom-of-information requests perhaps does not always give the full picture as to whether somebody is Welsh and what that means in terms of imprisonment rates.

The Committee was surprised to see that previously FOIs had been granted. The question is: on what grounds were they not granted this time? We have had comparable data over the last few years that has been very helpful, and we know from that data that Welsh citizens are more likely to be locked up than English citizens, for instance. It is good to get into the details and understand why, so that is why we were so surprised at that. If you have anything further to add, that is great, but if not, we will write to you before the close of play today.

As I said, I am working with Dr Jones in trying to resolve that situation. I think this particular request was denied on the basis of the volume of requests that had come through. From my point of view, I am keen to see that data as well. I would also point out, though, that one of the things we are working with Dr Jones and the Welsh Government on is that we do already publish a lot of disaggregated Welsh data. Sometimes that gets lost in the wider publication. For example, we have lots of information on prisoners, the regime types, issues about education and so on. It is already published, but we are keen to work on it and come to a satisfactory conclusion.

I am sure that written follow-ups will be helpful.

On the topic of reoffending, which has already been talked about in today’s session—it is in your job title, Minister, and is obviously a passion of yours—I want to invite any comments that either of you gentlemen have. The Justice Committee’s first announced inquiry is into the cycle of reoffending. We have a focus particularly on England and Wales; the numbers are extraordinarily high, as we know. I think that in 2023, of those convicted of an indictable offence, 78% or 80% already had a prior conviction. It is something that we need to look at, and I know that it is in the independent sentencing review’s terms of reference. First, I make a plea for your respective organisations, MOJ and HMPPS and Wales more broadly, of course, to contribute to that inquiry. I think it is very important that they do. I also have a question as to whether or not you feel at the moment you have enough data, evidence and information to understand the situation in order to implement policies and procedures that challenge it—or do we still have quite a long way to go? What do we in Parliament and wider communities need to be thinking about in order to tackle what is obviously a very serious problem?

I was very pleased when I was allowed to get “reducing reoffending” into my job title, because it is something that I have been involved in for 25 years. I am really passionate about it. When 80% of offending is reoffending, we are clearly doing something wrong. We also know what the main building blocks are to help someone live a crime-free life so that we have fewer victims and we can protect the public. They are: mental health under control, addiction under control, somewhere to live and a job. To take the job example, when I first set up the employment advisory boards we had 14% of prisoners leaving prison and getting a job after six months; we now have it up to 37%. We still have a long way to go, but that makes a difference. It is important to me that we focus on the main areas specifically. So far as the data goes, there is a lot of data everywhere, but one thing you cannot beat is walking around a prison, speaking to staff, speaking to prisoners and talking to them about what their plans are for when they are released and what their concerns and issues are. A lot of the issues come down to housing and employment. We need to make sure that when people leave prison, they leave as good citizens and are not going to be criminals again. With the cycle of reoffending—I am sure you have spoken to prison staff, and I am sure you and other colleagues have seen this over the years—when someone is released, you know they will be back in four weeks’ time. That is not an acceptable way for us to help people to overcome their criminality, because that just creates more victims and does not protect the public. We know a lot of it, but what we need to do is to focus and use the data. One of the things that I find interesting in doing this job, as someone who has run a multiple retail business where a lot of the shops are the same, is that a lot of our prisons are there to do a similar thing. Cat Cs are there to do a similar thing. I think that we can do a lot more comparing similar prisons as to how they perform on all those different metrics. Most prisons do a number of things exceptionally well, but it is how we can raise the bar across the whole estate that I am really interested in. While I will not be thinking too much as a retailer, I do think that consistency is something we need to push on.

Before you jump in, Mr Barrow, and please do, I think you are absolutely right, Minister. It has to be a holistic approach. It is not just siloed to the MOJ; it has to be across Government, across local authorities and across the devolved Administrations. That is something we really need to get under the hood of. We did a Select Committee visit to HMP Brixton and saw the success of a substance abuse-free ward. This was a common refrain and it is a real challenge. I do not know, Mr Barrow, whether you want to add any more.

That was the exact point I was about to make. It is one of the reasons why in Wales we are very keen on the partnership approach with Welsh Government, local authorities and third sector organisations. Ensuring that holistic approach and ensuring that people are linked into services when their time with the prison operation comes to an end is so important.

I call Andrew Ranger to ask the final question.

It is just a very quick one. You have probably covered a similar subject. In both panels today, we have heard about lots of challenges, but there is a lot of good stuff happening as well in different places. I am just interested in the mechanism for how best practice is shared. Is there a formal mechanism or is it informal? How is it managed?

I do not think that we have been as good as we could have been over the years in sharing good news stories. We now have seven people in my position throughout England and Wales, so we are doing a lot more in terms of sharing of good practice and sharing good stories. We have individual comms teams in HMPPS where we are keen to get as many news stories as we can out there. We are keen, as I think you acknowledged, to ensure that people have access to our sites where appropriate. We are hosting visits from a range of elected officials, from local authorities up to the House of Commons. I am keen to talk about the good work we are doing all the time, so I would welcome any approaches that anybody has.

I will just add that when prisons are 99.9% full, it is difficult to innovate. All you can do is get people three meals a day, a shower and a bit of time in the exercise yard. What we need to do is to get capacity under control and to support the incredibly hard-working officers and staff we have in prisons to be able to do what they signed up to do, which is to help people turn their lives around. There is an awful lot of work we need to do around technology so we can improve. This is certainly the case with probation, because I am pretty sure that people join the Probation Service because they want to spend their time with offenders, not doing admin. There is an awful lot of work that we need to do on simple innovation and on making sure that our amazing staff have time face-to-face with offenders. It is often that time that is the formative experience helping people open up and turn their lives around. I do not think the Ministry of Justice is short of ideas. What we need to do is make sure that we pick the ones that will make a significant difference, and technology is going to be a big part of that.

I thank this morning’s second panel, Ian Barrow and Lord Timpson. The way you have engaged with us this morning has been helpful and constructive to our discussions on HMP Parc. Thank you for your time.