1. What recent progress he has made on his plans for modernisation of the prison estate. (900363)

If I might trespass on the House’s time for a moment, I would like to welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) to his new position and express gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) for her work as a Justice Minister.

We have made significant progress on our plans to modernise the prison estate and reduce operating costs. In September we announced a new 2,000-plus place prison, to be built on the former Firestone site in Wrexham. We have launched a feasibility study on possible changes at the site of the Feltham young offender institution, with a potential enlarged new adult prison and a new youth facility on adjoining sites. We will consult on that as progress develops. We have also announced the closure of 1,400 uneconomic places, which will contribute to our overall plans to reduce prison costs by more than £500 million in this spending review period. However, we remain on track to go into the next election with more adult male prison places than we inherited in 2010.

I thank the Lord Chancellor for that answer, but may I make a plea to him to remember local prisons? He knows that genuine local prisons, such as Her Majesty’s prison—and now the young offender institution—in Winchester, play a central role in the secure estate, but they need investment too, especially in Winchester. The recent closure of prisons in Kingston, Reading and Dorchester is already having an impact on the secure estate in Winchester.

I pay tribute to the team that works in Winchester. They do a first-rate job for all of us, and Winchester will, of course, continue to play an important part in our work in the Prison Service. We are in the process of finalising plans to change the nature of our prison estate, with the local focus described by my hon. Friend, so that we will have a network of resettlement prisons from where most prisoners will be released into the areas in which they will then live.

This morning Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons issued a report expressing concern about Oakwood prison in Staffordshire, which is the most recent prison to be built. What assurances can the Secretary of State give that the Wrexham prison to which he has referred will not have similar difficulties when the Government undertake its building?

Prison professionals all say that the early days of a new prison are difficult. Clearly there is still work to be done at Oakwood and that is a priority for us. The hon. Gentleman will be aware, however, that some of the criticisms of Oakwood refer to the fact that it is a privately run prison. I have taken no decision about the status of the prison in Wrexham, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was the Labour party that took the decision to privatise Oakwood.

15. The prison facility in Northallerton, in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which also serves Thirsk, Malton and Filey, is closing. Will those who work there be offered places elsewhere in the Prison Service, and has the Secretary of State given any thought to a new, replacement institution coming to Northallerton or York? (900378)

Closure decisions are never easy for the staff and communities involved. I regret the need to take such decisions, but we have to continue the process of new for old in the prison estate. I can give my hon. Friend an assurance that we will ensure that voluntary redundancy or transfers will be available for the staff affected. We aim to transfer as many staff as possible to other prisons and we will, of course, make sure there is appropriate and adequate coverage in my hon. Friend’s part of the country. That is the least we can do to protect her constituents.

Does the Secretary of State not agree that, in the light of the recent inspection report of Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons, the prison estate is actually getting worse, not better?

I am afraid that I do not agree. We are moving as fast as we can to modernise the prison estate, to bring in new, quality accommodation. Next year we will open four new house blocks, which will provide modern, updated accommodation. If the hon. Gentleman visits some of the older, Victorian prisons, he will see for himself that they are poor places to deliver proper rehabilitation services: there is not enough space for workshops or training facilities. I think that a modern prison estate is much better for all of us.

21. Recently, a number of individuals who are being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure at Lincoln have caused excessive damage to the fixtures in their solitary cells. Those incidents highlight the need for custodial sentences to be lengthened as a deterrent and not imposed concurrently. However, I trust that the Secretary of State, like me, is pleased that organisations such as the Gelder Group in Lincoln are willing to help rehabilitate offenders back into our communities by offering construction-related training courses. Does he agree that any modernisation of our prisons must encourage the development of such schemes? (900384)

We are keen to see as many work and training opportunities in our prisons as possible and we continue to look for more such opportunities. I pay tribute to the team in Lincoln for achieving that. Causing damage to a prison is wholly unacceptable. We have taken steps that will lead to inmates being charged for the damage that they cause from their prison pay. That has not happened in the past, but it must happen in the future.

If I may correct the Secretary of State, it was the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) who decided that Oakwood should be run by G4S. He may be socially liberal, but he is not Labour. I echo the comments that have been made about the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) and welcome him to the Front Bench. It really is nice to see him there.

“We have a very good model for prison development in Oakwood… That site has multiple blocks and first-class training facilities. To my mind, it is an excellent model for the future of the Prison Service.”—[Official Report, 5 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 114.]

That is what the Secretary of State for Justice told us earlier this year. Oakwood was his blueprint for the future. In the light of today’s damning report, which states that the prison has failed at every level, does he stand by those words?

I invite the right hon. Gentleman to go to Oakwood to see the facilities, which were praised in today’s report. I am afraid that he is just not right. I have checked this information today. The contracting process, including the invitations to tender to the private sector to run Oakwood, started under the last Labour Government.