Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, many years ago, a man called Blake escaped from prison, and the Mountbatten report was produced afterwards. At the end of that report, I was approached, along with some rather special people with whom I was living at the time, and asked to go round prisons, to look at them and to produce some suggestions about making them harder to escape from. I had the full support of every prison governor and many of the senior warders. I visited, with a little team, and lived in prison. I hope we did our job well. I got very close to the then inspector of prisons whom I thought was a remarkable man. Even then he was worried. I shall not say which political party was in power and speaking from these Benches it does not really matter. He told me that because there had been a disaster, the heavy hand of government was on him every day—harder and harder—and he was frightened of losing his independence as the Chief Inspector of Prisons. We did what we could to help him—I am not saying that that was very successful—but the government of the day did not treat him particularly well. The lesson I learnt over several months in the prisons business was that such a man or woman must be entirely independent, reporting only to the very highest in the land at top Secretary of State level. I am rather horrified by what is being proposed tonight. I think it is completely wrong.