My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pidding, for bringing the Bill before the House. I concur with many of her remarks, as I do with those of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who, with his years of experience in this matter, should be listened to.
The Bill meets a tight and limited objective: it intends to make our prisons safer and more secure by disrupting and halting communication by illicitly held mobile phones in prisons. This is to combat the activities derived from the smuggled devices increasingly found in our prisons, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, pointed out. In 2015 there were 17,000 mobile phones and SIM cards discovered in our prisons. The Bill permits the identification and blocking of activities using smuggled mobile phones and devices illicitly brought into prisons, as well as allowing the Secretary of State a degree of control over private communication providers when they are exercising their powers.
The Bill itself is limited in scope. It tackles the preventive aspect of prison policy but, as such, it has to sit alongside rehabilitation measures which prevent reoffending and the overcrowding crisis which is a
feature of our justice system at present. As described in the House of Commons debate, and by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, the Bill is not a silver bullet for the problem of smuggling and contraband in prisons. I respect the intention of the Bill to ensure that mobile devices do not work within the confines of the prison. However, I have two concerns I would like to explore. The more important one is associated with technology and the potential for unintended consequences. The other has to do with the related rehabilitation activities recently laid out in the Prison and Probation Service business plan.
I say at the outset that I am not seeking to wreck the Bill, but the Government wish the Bill to move swiftly and for that to happen I must seek guarantees from the Minister at this stage if there are to be no amendments tabled at a future stage. My first area of concern is over the technologies used to block illicit mobile phones. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, there is a third alternative to those currently being discussed. The Government are considering two technologies. I understand that one is jamming by equipment inside the prison and the other is IMSI, international mobile subscriber identity, whereby mobile phones are identified and that information is passed to the governors of prisons. The third methodology, of an electronic fence, suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is also worth exploring, but we have to consider what happens when you block activity in a given area. The issue relates to both telephone and data activity and I shall refer briefly to the difference between the two parts of the technology.
If I refer to the mobile devices that every Member of your Lordships’ House has been provided I can describe this very easily. There are two very simple symbols at the top left hand corner of noble Lords’ phones. The first identifies the provider—in the case of your Lordships’ House it is O2 UK. To the right of that is a series of symbols which range from an e, GPRS, 3G and 4G to a fan-like symbol. All those symbols relate to wireless facilities. The left-hand one, the one with the name of the provider, is sometimes missing and it says “no service”, and sometimes the one on the right is also missing when no service is available. The left-hand one provides Members of this House, and everybody else, the ability to make telephone calls and to text. The right-hand one also provides telephone calls, and noble Lords will have received a letter this week indicating that their phones are going to be altered. In fact, some of us have already received the new phones.
All the phone technology in your Lordships’ House will now be provided by the right-hand end, in other words, by wireless technology using voice over internet protocol. The right-hand side also allows access to the internet and provides the ability to converse using programs such as Twitter and Facebook. It is important that we have a guarantee from the Minister that whatever technology is chosen deals with both the telephonic end and the data end of the telephone spectrum of which we are all in possession. The right-hand end is far more important: it allows you to do absolutely anything. Will both technologies that the Government are considering block both uses, telephone and data?
I turn to the services available on the right-hand side of the phone from wireless systems outside the prison walls. I do not know whether the Minister walks down streets where he is not known and knocks on every door to talk to people in the houses. My party encourages us to do so, as I am sure the Conservative Party does. I have a provider which allows me to share my wireless facility at home with those who have that provider elsewhere in the country so, as I walk down these streets, my phone pings and tells me that I am connected to the wireless of those houses. I do not know which ones because it is quite a large area, especially if you have a wireless extender in your home—a facility which you can purchase at any electrical store and plug into your electrical socket, which extends the reach of your wireless and therefore the fan-like symbol on the right-hand side of your phone. That wireless signal is available to me in streets that I know nothing about. It is available in properties outside prison walls.
I ask the Minister for two guarantees: first, that the technology used inside the prison will have no effect on the legally available commercial services purchased by those living close to prison walls; and, secondly, whether the technology used to jam or stop mobile services within the prison will be able to deal effectively with these external wireless signals from consumers that I have described.
The Bill allows for the collection of data. It would most likely be collected by using the IMSI catchers that I talked about earlier, which could indiscriminately intercept and hack phones within a given radius, allowing them to intercept mobile signals meant for the network provider. There is a danger of unintentional consequences where innocent third parties may accidently have their mobile data captured within the radius of a defined geographical area. I ask the Minister for a guarantee that this will not happen.
The Government state:
“Blocking works by preventing phones from connecting to mobile networks, allowing us to stop the mobile phones that we have not been able to find from working”.
I accept that and think it an appropriate aim. I seek a guarantee that technology that allows for a blanket block on mobile communications will not unintentionally cause disruption or hacking to innocent third parties; for example, the person living across the road from the prison suddenly finding that their mobile does not work in their home or that their calls and data are observed. For example, a new block of student accommodation has been built right alongside the walls of HMP Cardiff. Students are nine or 10 floors up—all of whom, I guess, will have some form of wireless communication, which of course is vital to undertake their studies. I recognise that these are significant guarantees that I am seeking but I am sure the Minister would not want to face a charge of the Government snooping on personal information.
Finally, I turn to the legitimate uses of telephone and data services by those in prison. I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. Currently offenders have to deal with a high-cost, low-availability prison phone that makes the possession of an illegal mobile phone attractive despite the costs of punishment.
If prisoners have to make a choice between a 10-minute call to a mobile that costs nearly half their average weekly income—after waiting for a long time to use the phone, during which there is a real risk of violence; I cite the government advice on this matter—and a mobile phone that can be used at any point, it is hardly surprising that offenders choose to illicitly obtain a smuggled mobile phone.
The Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prison Reform Trust make a powerful case for greater access to prison-controlled phones. There are important rehabilitation needs for prisoners which require the use of telephones and data access. One of the most important factors in avoiding reoffending is the retention of family links and family support so that when a person leaves prison there are powerful reasons to not return there and, I hope, that most essential of needs—a roof over their head and somewhere safe to live.
Access to a telephone is essential to achieve this goal. The Minister’s colleague, in her letter dated 24 July this year, told us that the Government are spending £7 million on in-cell telephones. I applaud and welcome this objective but it raises other questions about the timescale for the rollout of that programme, especially if this Bill is enacted and immediate action is taken. Can the Minister outline the progress of the rollout of in-cell phones and whether that will be alongside the enactment of this Bill and the activity relating to it? There is a genuine rehabilitation need to improve offender access to phones, as well as to reduce the cost of calling.
Equally, access to data services is essential to many learning and training schemes provided in prison. Crucially, the Government have made it a requirement that applications for benefits, including universal credit, are made online. If this is not possible to do in prison, there will be a long wait before a released offender gets access to the vital financial means on which to live, and perhaps they will turn back to offending. The ability to interfere with wireless telegraphy requires protections, and these must be reflected in the guarantees that I seek from the Government. I wish the Bill speedy progress but it is essential that the public are protected in this matter.
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