PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Drones: High-security Prisons - 14 January 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

(Urgent question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if she will make a statement on the national security risk of drones being used to deliver weapons to high-security prisons.

This is not a new issue. Effective prison security is fundamental to the rehabilitative nature of prisons and ensuring public confidence in the criminal justice system. The availability of illicit items in our jails, including drugs and mobile phones, undermines prison officers’ ability to do their jobs. Drone sightings around prisons in England and Wales are a matter of great concern and pose a major threat to prison security.

The Government inherited a prison system in crisis, with violence and drug use on the rise. We are working hard to deter, detect and disrupt the use of drones. It is not possible to talk in detail of the tactics we use to disrupt drones, given the obvious security implications. What I can say is that His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service invests in targeted countermeasures such as improvements to windows, netting and grilles to stop drones from successfully delivering cargo such as drugs and weapons. In January 2024, restricted fly zones were introduced around all closed prisons and young offender institutions, supporting police and prison staff to disrupt illegal drone use.

Ultimately, it is crucial that we tackle demand. Almost half of people entering prisons have a drug problem, so we must get them into the right treatment to tackle the drug misuse that is so often a driver of their reoffending. Contraband supply and the illicit economy drive violence, self-harm and instability, and prevent offenders from engaging in rehabilitative activity. We are working to crack down on the levels of violence and drugs in our prisons.

The illicit economy is unfortunately highly profitable, with prices for drugs and other commodities between 10 and 100 times their street values—an A4 sheet of paper laced with drugs can be worth £1,000—so we must tackle the organised crime gangs behind it. That is why we have invested in a dedicated serious and organised crime unit who will work with law enforcement agencies to disrupt these sophisticated criminal networks. We will continue to take a multifaceted approach to drones and the disruption that they cause to our prison system.

Given that this is a question of national security, I find it astonishing that the Lord Chancellor cannot be bothered to turn up to the House today. Yesterday—[Interruption.]

Order. We do not need any more of that.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Yesterday, the chief inspector of prisons warned that the police and prisons service have “ceded the airspace” above two high-security prisons to organised crime groups. The result is that organised crime gangs can deliver drugs, phones and weapons such as zombie knives to inmates with impunity due to the absence of basic security measures such as functional CCTV, protective netting and window repairs. Across two visits in September and October, he described a damning picture of thriving illicit economies that jeopardise the safety of dedicated prison staff.

In HMP Manchester, almost four in 10 prisoners have tested positive in mandatory drug tests, and in HMP Long Lartin the figure was nearly three in 10. Those two prisons hold some of the most dangerous men in our country, including murderers and terrorists. If organised crime gangs can deliver phones and drugs to inmates’ cells, they could be delivering serious weapons and explosives as well.

The chief inspector said that the potential for escapes or hostage taking is of enormous concern. This could not be more serious. The situation has become, in his words,

“a threat to national security.”

I do not pretend that these problems are entirely new, but they have deteriorated and they need urgent action. Will the Minister provide the timeframes for fixing the most basic security measures? What visits has the Lord Chancellor made to HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin? If she has not visited, when does she intend to go? Little else could be more pressing. What discussions has she held with the prison governors? Will the Minister assure the House that the Government have confidence in the senior management to restore order? Does he agree with the chief inspector that the failure to grip the situation is a serious indictment of the Department?

Who had 14 years to grip this situation? At least this Government are taking action—[Interruption.]

Order.

This Government are taking action in the first six months. The right hon. Member will know that drone sightings around prisons increased by over 770% between 2019 and 2023—on his Government’s watch. Much like everything in our prisons, his Government have left it to us to fix the broken system and clean up their mess. It is a bit rich for him to come here and lecture us when he had 14 years to put this right.

We are installing new CCTV systems, netting and other countermeasures to combat drones. We have clamped down on the contraband that fuels violence behind bars. We are tackling drones through a cross-Government approach, as well as learning from our international counterparts to support our efforts. We are working with our Five Eyes partners—they face the same issues across their prison estates, because this is not a UK problem but a global problem—along with the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. We have 99 X-ray body scanners in 96 prisons, providing full coverage of the closed adult male estate, to prevent the internal smuggling of illicit contraband. We are taking action while the Opposition just spout.

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

The Minister will no doubt be pleased that the Justice Committee has just announced an inquiry into drugs in prisons, with an emphasis on the use of drones by organised crime gangs to supply inmates. What makes it easy for drones to access prisons is the appalling state of prison maintenance. There is a £1.8 billion backlog, which did not accrue in the past six months. The shadow Secretary of State’s surprise is, in itself, surprising. What is the timetable for repairing the problems in prisons and getting to grips with that maintenance backlog?

My hon. Friend is completely right that the prison maintenance programme that we inherited was in a state. That is why the Chancellor announced in the Budget a £500 million boost to the prison maintenance budget over the next couple of years. That is important. He is right also to say that we need to grip this, which is why the Prisons Minister in the other place has visited Manchester and is regularly updated on the situation there.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

The word that was missing from the shadow Justice Secretary’s question just now was “sorry”. A National Audit Office report said of the then Conservative Treasury’s investment in prison maintenance and security that

“capital budget allocations for prisons have been well below the level needed.”

Who was a Treasury Minister at that time? None other than the shadow Justice Secretary. Today’s report is the latest chapter in a catalogue of Tory prison failures that scuppered their mission to reduce reoffending, and therefore let down victims of crime. Will the Minister tell us about a new approach to better empower governors with the investment and the autonomy needed to properly invest in prison maintenance and security? What investment will he make in prison officer recruitment through programmes such as Unlocked Graduates, which are critical to help drive security in our prisons?

The hon. Member is right about the failures missing in the shadow Minister’s question. He is also right to ask what the Government are doing to support prison officers and prison governors. We are investing in that, and we will announce a new programme for training and developing new governors very shortly.

I thank the Minister for his statement. The Conservatives are doing another faux outrage, as they were the ones who ceded the airspace after 14 years of colossal failure in our justice system. What lessons can we learn from that failure so that we tackle the problem of drugs in prisons, which are a big driver of drone drops?

The lesson is that we need to work with prison governors and the police and invest in actions to deal with the problem. That is exactly what we are doing. We are working with everybody in the system to sort this mess out.

Apart from the serious security concerns that this activity raises, it shows that prisons bring resource pressures for local police forces. In West Suffolk, where Highpoint prison is due to grow significantly in the years ahead, the police have asked me to ask the Minister to ensure they receive additional funding to reflect that pressure. Will he do so?

The hon. Member is right that it is important that local police forces work strongly with HM Prison and Probation Service on this issue. That is what is happening. He will know that funding, both locally and nationally, is dealt with in an appropriate way.

The Prison Officers’ Association has been saying for the past five years that the threat of drones destabilises our prisons and poses a massive security risk. Let me draw the Minister’s attention to the anti-drone system at HMP Guernsey, which very effectively prevents that threat. Can we expect this new system to be implemented in all prisons in England and Wales?

Anything that works will be built upon—that is part of it. Drone technology has been accelerated through the Ukraine war. We know that we need to work very hard to keep ahead of the felons on this.

We all appreciate the destructive impact of drugs in our prisons. In Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge, we have the largest cluster of prisons in the United Kingdom, with HMP Featherstone, HMP Oakwood and Brinsford young offender institution. Prison officers do an amazing job trying to tackle this issue, but what specific measures can the Minister bring forward to support their work, to try to ensure that prisoners ultimately get on to the path of rehabilitation and kick the habit of drugs?

The right hon. Member is right that prison officers do an outstanding job. I want to take the opportunity to commend the work of prison officers up and down this country. Eighty prisons now have incentivised substance-free living units, providing a supportive environment for prisoners who commit to living drug-free, with regular drug tests and incentives. That project appears to be working.

There has been a long-standing issue at Wandsworth prison in my constituency, which has multiple drone drops every single week. Given the lack of CCTV, no netting and high staff vacancies, little can be done to combat them. Following the announcement of a £100 million investment into the prison, will the Minister please ensure that all these issues are addressed and ameliorated?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to work hard to address these issues, but if there were a simple solution, the previous Administration would have waved that magic wand and we would not be sitting here today. It is important that the ongoing work of prison governors, supported by HMPPS across the country and by Ministers, gets to the bottom of this and sorts things out, which is what we are trying to do.

LiveLink Aerospace in my constituency is a surveillance company that has created a technology that is being used on Royal Navy ships, in airports and on private yachts. This technology could be crucial to maintaining the no-fly zones above prisons, which were introduced in January last year. Will the Minister explore this technology? Will he come to my constituency to visit LiveLink Aerospace and see what the technology can do?

It is important that we take advantage of what intelligence is out there. If the hon. Lady writes to me, I will be happy to follow that up appropriately with her and the business involved.

Does the Minister agree that the Conservative party left our prisons in crisis, with drug and drone use rife? Will he outline the urgent steps that his Government are taking to ensure that such colossal failure can never happen again?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We inherited a prison estate that was 99.7% full. The police and the courts were in danger of not being able to lock people up. That was an abrogation of duty by the Conservative party. We have rolled up our sleeves and tackled that, and we will tackle this problem as well.

I thank the Minister for a very positive recent meeting on an unrelated subject. Is the main problem here the detection of the incoming drones, or the ability to impede the deliveries once they have been detected?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the positive meeting I had recently with him, officials and the local business. The answer to his question is that both those things are issues.

On visiting the three prisons in the Sheppey prison cluster in my constituency, it is clear to see how the prison estate has been degraded over the past 14 years. I have talked to prison officers, who are my constituents, as well as working in the constituency, about the problems they face day in, day out. It takes more than a few signs saying “no drones” to stop those drones. What is the Minister doing to listen to prison officers and the Prison Officers Association, and to support them in tackling this? Those officers face threats and pressure from organised crime. Will he meet me to discuss this further?

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend; if he could drop me a note to remind me, I will do that. This week, the Prisons Minister is meeting officials from the Prison Officers Association. Whenever I visit prisons, as I do regularly, I meet the Prison Officers Association representative in that prison. They are key partners in tackling the problems that we have inherited from the previous Government.

High-security prisons ensure that our national security is not compromised, because they house some of the most dangerous threats to our society. In government, the Conservatives introduced legislation to make it an automatic offence to fly drones within 400 metres of any closed prison. What assurances can the Minister give this House that those who commit such offences will feel the full force of the law?

That important action taken by the previous Government was, quite correctly, supported by Labour in opposition. When anybody is found guilty of flying a detected drone, the appropriate prosecution will follow.

The Welsh Affairs Committee recently visited Parc Prison in Wales, where we saw the types of contraband being smuggled into prisons by drones. One of the biggest problems reported to us was multiple drones coming in at the same time; it is difficult for the security team to then bring them down, even though they are using CCTV. What is the Minister doing to outlaw the use of those drones, to keep our prisoners safe and secure?

The security and safety of prisoners and prison officers is very important. The Prisons Minister and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), sitting to my right, recently visited Parc Prison, and are well aware of the issues. They are working with the prison authorities to address them.

Two months ago in the House, I raised concerns that HMP Garth had been likened to an airport because of the number of drones illegally flying drugs into the prison. In response, the Lord Chancellor told me that the Prisons Minister was meeting the governor and thinking

“about how to deal with those problems”.—[Official Report, 5 November 2024; Vol. 756, c. 164.]

What precise action has the Department taken since then, and what action will the Minister take today to deal with the problems at HMP Manchester?

Actions are being taken and things are being done. I have mentioned the issues around windows, and netting and bars, but frankly this is a security issue. We are up against organised crime. We will not talk publicly about the measures that we are considering, because that would not be the best way of tackling the issue.

I recognise that this issue is very much related to drugs. Having previously worked for a homeless charity, I have seen the huge amount of damage that drugs can cause to people’s lives, and to their families. What are the Government doing about the wider issue of drugs supply, both in and out of prisons?

As I have already said, it is very important that we tackle drug dependency in prisons. The fact that we now have a little bit more space in prisons allows more work to go on there to tackle drug dependency. We know that education and employment also help to reduce reoffending, which is why we have committed to improving prisoners’ access to not only drug support programmes, but purposeful activity and employment.

The Government have said time and again that they want to smash the criminal gangs that illegally smuggle illegal migrants into the UK, yet the Government cannot even smash the gangs that smuggle drugs and phones into our prisons. How can my residents trust the Government to smash these gangs?

The residents of Broxbourne will be well aware that for 14 years, the Government that the hon. Gentleman supported failed to tackle this problem. This Government are rolling up our sleeves and getting on with it.

This is a long-standing problem, and the previous Government did not do anywhere near enough to deal with it. What they did do, when former Prime Minister Liz Truss was Lord Chancellor, was arrange for more dogs to bark at drones around prisons, which they assured us would work. Has the Ministry of Justice done an assessment on how effective that policy was?

I think everybody agrees that that policy was barking.

I thank the Minister for his answers today, and for his clear commitment to making changes that will make a difference. In Northern Ireland prisons, contraband has been a difficult issue to get on top of. Given the news today that drones are being so successfully used in the UK, there is obvious cause for concern that their use may become more prevalent. How will the Minister ensure that the steps taken apply equally across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and that any additional funding that is required will be allocated?

Any lessons learned need to be applied across the United Kingdom, and that will happen. We need to work with our Five Eyes partners to ensure that the very best action is taken. Northern Ireland needs to get the best of that as well.