Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Liz Truss, Justice Secretary, 19.02.17

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY, SKY NEWS

SOPHY RIDGE: Good morning and welcome to Sophy Ridge on Sunday.  It is fair to say it has been a difficult start to the job for Justice Secretary Liz Truss – riots, strikes and record figures for assaults and suicides in prison.  This week she is announcing the government’s plan to fix the system so I’ve been to HMP Thameside to speak to her and to the inmates about it.  
In this Serco run jail, prisoners are learning printing skills to help cut reoffending and improve their job prospects, no wonder it was the location chosen by Justice Secretary Liz Truss to announce her new initiate.

LIZ TRUSS: We are doing a huge amount of practical things, we are investing in 2500 prison officers across the prison estate, that will mean that we have one officers for every six offenders, helping them and encouraging them to turn their lives around.  We are also dealing with the issues of drugs, drones and phones but it is incredibly important that we all agree the purpose of our prisons is of course about punishing people, people have done wrong, but it is also about reforming people and that has never been agreed before.  What this will also do is give the Prison Inspector new teeth so he is able to say if a prison is succeeding at that or it’s failing and if it’s failing the Secretary of State, i.e. me, will have to act and that’s really important, that’s the first time the Prison Inspector will have those teeth.

SR: You mentioned there 2500 extra prison officers, now that’s replacing half the total that have been lost since 2010, is that an admission that the last government went too far in cuts to prisons?

LIZ TRUSS: Well things have changed over the last six years, we’ve got a higher proportion of people in prison for violent crime, sex crime and drug supply.  We’ve also got different prisons so we’ve got more digital prisons …

SR: But should those cuts have been made, did they go too far?

LIZ TRUSS: What I think we faced at the time was an increase in psycho-active substances, an increase in phones and drones and we didn’t have – and I’ve been clear about that – we don’t have enough staff to be able to deal with those challenges so what I’m doing is I’m putting those new staff in.  We are also making sure those staff are deployed in the right way because what’s important is we have people on the wings who are there, who are fully trained up, who are skilled, who can encourage those people to turn their lives around.

SR: Now part of your announcement as well is more money for some prison officers.  At the same time there was nearly six and a half thousand assaults in prisons last year, the head of the Prison Officers Union warned that it was a bloodbath, is a bit of extra money really going to help recruit more people to what is a very difficult profession?

LIZ TRUSS: It is tough for prison officers and I go round prisons, around the country and they are fantastic people who are in the job for all the right reasons and that is why I want to make sure they are properly rewarded for the work they do, that they have got good training and progression, so we are creating new jobs in the service as well at higher level in the organisation, so people can earn more money for specific skills like the ability to deal with mental health issues for example but what we are particularly doing in areas like London and the South East is giving a pay boost for new recruits so you’ll be able to join on a starting salary of about £30,000 if you join the prison service.  Now of course it’s a tough environment to recruit in, I recognise that, we’re not going to turn our prisons round in weeks or months, it takes time to train people and bring new people on.

SR: It has been a difficult time recently for prisons, we’ve had riots that were the worst in decades, suicides are at a record number, assaults in prison are at a record number.  Is the prison system in crisis?

LIZ TRUSS: We’re in a very difficult situation, I have absolutely said that that is true but I don’t believe the council of despair, the people around who are saying this can’t be solved, it can’t be worked out.  We have got some fantastic examples of good thing that are happening in our prisons, here at HMP Thameside we have got a great print workshop, we can see people are learning, they are going to get the skills they need to do jobs on the outside.  What we need to do is make sure that’s happening across our system, that’s why we need a much better framework to make the purpose of prison clear, that as well as being about punishment it is also about reform and that’s why we need those officers.

SR: There are clearly good examples of what’s happening in prisons but at the same time there are also some pretty worrying examples as well, when you have prison officers walking out because they say they feel unsafe, that sounds like a crisis doesn’t it?

LIZ TRUSS: It is a very difficult situation we’re in but what we’re announcing today is additional funding for those prison officers, we are announcing new positions for more senior prison officers.  I want to see a professionalised prison service where people have good career development and good training.  All of those things take time but we’re moving in the right direction.

SR: The UK locks people up at a higher rate than any other country in Western Europe, it’s a simple fact that we are actually incarcerating too many people.

LIZ TRUSS: Well if you compare us internationally we lock up far fewer people than the US, we lock up fewer people than Australia, so we’re roughly mid-table in terms of the number of people we lock up and over the last six years the prison population has remained stable at about 85,000.  What is actually happening is we are locking up more people for crimes like sex crime and we’re prosecuting more people for those crimes and we’re actually locking fewer people up for crimes like shoplifting so over the last six years we’ve locked up 3000 more sex offenders but the overall prison population didn’t go up and I think it’s right that the sentencing for sex offending has gone up by 50%.

SR: Are you comfortable then with the people we lock up?

LIZ TRUSS: Yes, the fact is that in the 80s and 90s we were not putting people in jail for long enough for serious sex crimes, for issues like child abuse and we weren’t prosecuting people.  Too often the victims were on trial rather than the perpetrators.  That has now changed, we’ve seen 140% increase in the amount of sex criminals we’re prosecuting and bringing to justice, that has consequences for our jail population.  Over time I want to see us reduce reoffending so we’re not having the same people going in and out of our jails, I want to see us intervene earlier to stop these horrible crimes being committed but I do think that if somebody has committed a serious crime – and we know that three-fifths of the people in our jails have committed serious sexual violence or drug supply offenders – then yes, we should be putting them in jail and I do not support the idea that we are going to solve the problems in our prisons simply by letting those people out early into society.  We need to solve the problem by reforming those people while they’re in our prisons so that they don’t commit those crimes again and that is absolutely doable and it is absolutely possible.

SR: So your predecessor, Michael Gove, has said that it’s an inconvenient truth that we send too many people to prison, you’re saying that he’s wrong?

LIZ TRUSS: I’m not saying he’s wrong at all, what I’m saying is that the best way to send fewer people to prison is to make sure that while people are in prison they are doing things that are productive, they are doing things that will help turn their lives around so they are less likely to reoffend.  We are seeing fewer people going into prison for the first time which is a big success but our reoffending rates are sky high so that they are going in and out the system and that is the problem that I am seeking to address.  But what I’m saying is, there is no quick fix to this, we can’t just suddenly let out those sexual offenders or violent offenders early, I think that would be the wrong approach.  Instead we need to make sure our prisons are focused on reforming them so we don’t have those people going back into prison.

SR: The big legal story that came into your in-tray so far of course was when the Supreme Court decided that parliament should have a say over Article 50.   You were criticised for not backing the judges strongly enough and quickly enough and they received a storm of attacks in the media and from elsewhere, on social media as well.  If you went back would you have acted a bit quicker to support the justice system?

LIZ TRUSS: Well I consistently stood up for all the judiciary … I had already made statements before that, whilst swearing in as Lord Chancellor I made clear about my belief in the rule of law and how vital it is but I do think it is very dangerous if politicians start commenting on newspaper headlines and telling the press what it is acceptable to print or what it’s acceptable not to print.  My job as Lord Chancellor is to uphold the rule of law and uphold the independence of the judiciary and these are traditions and institutions that have been going for over a thousand years.  I think it’s wrong to suggest that a few newspaper headlines are the problem.  

SR: Even when the President of the Supreme Court says that politicians could have been quicker and clearer in the defence?

LIZ TRUSS: What I would say about the President of the Supreme Court is that he is a great individual, I think the Supreme Court came out very well from the increased public scrutiny that it received and it was good for people to understand how the Supreme Court operates, what the role of the judiciary is and it’s good that he is going out there and explaining the role of the judiciary because I think too many people in our country don’t understand what judges do, what the role of the judiciary is in the constitution which is we’ve got a sovereign parliament and their role is interpreting the law.  I think it’s really important that in the modern age when more of us are under scrutiny, whether you are a captain of industry, a politician or a judge, that judges themselves are out there explaining what they do, I think that’s really positive.

SR: You have been quite passionate in your defence there of the justice system so how does it make you feel to see the man in the White House attacking some of the legal decisions that have been made?

LIZ TRUSS: Well I think what we’re seeing in the US is again a very robust constitution that has separation of powers and we are seeing the judges involved in that, the President involved in that and we’re seeing …

SR: Does it make you feel uncomfortable, Donald Trump’s attacks on the legal system?

LIZ TRUSS: Well I think we see a constitution in action and what is being shown there is the limits of Presidential power and the fact that they do have a strong independent judiciary in the US.

SR: It almost feels with every day that goes by in Donald Trump’s presidency, that decision by the UK to cosy up to him, to befriend him, is looking increasingly risky.

LIZ TRUSS: I completely disagree with that, I completely disagree with that. These are our most important international allies.  Of course we should work with the US, of course we should.

SR: So you are comfortable then to see us going over there, inviting him to have a state visit, inviting him to meet the Queen, you don’t think there’s risks to that?

LIZ TRUSS: Absolutely and the US is vital, our partnership with the US and in fact Europe’s partnership with the US, is vital for our economy and is also vital for our security and I think the Prime Minister’s work in securing that agreement on NATO was really, really important.  There are big issues, there are big threats in the world that we face at the moment and it’s important that countries work together. Of course we don’t agree with everything that happens in the US as actually we don’t agree with most things, with a lot of things that don’t happen in other countries but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work together, of course it doesn’t.  

SR: Liz Truss there at HMP Thameside.