Recommendation 2

HM Government Acknowledged

Our National Framework, which sets out in detail how we will take decisions about easing coronavirus-related restrictions in prisons, was published in June. This roadmap for easing restrictions in prisons has been guided by public health advice alongside an operational assessment of what can be achieved in custodial settings, while keeping staff and those in our care safe. We recently reviewed these restrictions with key stakeholders as part of our Winter Regime Review to ensure that they remain proportionate and sustainable for winter. We are alive to the risk that anxieties regarding Covid-19, and the regime restrictions required for infection control, may negatively impact prisoners’ wellbeing. We take this extremely seriously and continue to work with Public Health England and Wales to make sure that we are getting the balance right. We have continued to develop mitigations over the course of the pandemic, including increasing the use of testing and rolling out medical-grade face masks for staff. As a result, we were able to maintain much more of the prison regime through the recent period of additional national-level restrictions in England. Although we had to suspend social visits, we continued to offer them in compassionate circumstances, including visits to children in custody. We are extending the duration of our extra mitigations to help alleviate the impact of restricted regimes. These mitigations focus on the additional support to maintain family contact (additional PIN credit, access to mobile PIN phone handsets and video calling), but also includes free TV, food packs and continuing to pay prisoners where infection controls mean they are not able to work. We also continue to make the Samaritans phone service available to prisoners should they need to seek additional support and are working with the Samaritans to ensure that the Listener peer support scheme continues to function effectively. The large majority of prisons continue to operate at Stage 3 of the National Framework meaning that they are able to provide more time out of cell and purposeful activity, including the resumption of essential workshops, classroom-based education in the YCS, and keywork for priority residents to support engagement and wellbeing. Where it is not safe to offer face-to-face education, we have introduced remote and in-cell learning. We will seek to maintain as many establishments at Stage 3 as is possible over the winter, whilst ensuring that we continue to respond to outbreaks and the need to keep our staff and those in our care safe.