I beg to move amendment 65, in clause 28, page 24, line 36, at end insert—

“(c) report to the Secretary of State on any breaches of the arrangement made between the United Kingdom and a foreign country.”

This amendment would require the Controller to make a report to the Secretary of State on any breaches of the arrangement between the foreign country and the UK.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 66, in clause 28, page 24, line 39, leave out “may” and insert “must”.

This amendment would ensure that the prisons inspectorate must conduct the duties specified in new section 5A(5D) of the Prisons Act 1952 and ensures its consistency with the legislative basis for its role in England and Wales.

Amendment 67, in clause 28, page 24, line 40, after “prisons” insert “and escort arrangements”.

This amendment would ensure that HM Inspectorate of Prisons can inspect escort arrangements under which prisoners are transferred to foreign prisons. This would bring the legislation into line with inspectorate’s powers in relation to UK prisons and escort arrangements under amendments to the Prisons Act made by the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 (s.46) and ensures scrutiny of an area of evidenced risk.

Amendment 68, in clause 28, page 25, line 3, at end insert—

“(4) In section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, after subsection 2(c) insert—

‘(d) the deceased died while in custody or otherwise in state detention in a foreign country pursuant to a warrant issued by the Secretary of State under section 26 of the Criminal Justice Act 2024 (warrant for transfer of prisoner to or from foreign prison).’”

This probing amendment would clarify how the government intends to apply its obligations under Article 2 (right to life) of the Human Rights Act, through ensuring the duties of the coroner also apply to any death involving a prisoner subject to a transfer agreement with a foreign country.

Clause stand part.

I have already addressed many of the principles pertaining to the Government’s proposals in this part of the Bill, so I will largely confine my remarks to amendments 65 to 68, with some relating to clause stand part.

Amendment 65 would require the controller to make a report to the Secretary of State on any breaches of the arrangement between the foreign country and the UK. Clause 28 provides for the Secretary of State to appoint a “controller” role to keep under review, and report on, the running of any rented prison spaces abroad. It also extends the power of His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons to inspect and report on the conditions of any such spaces.

As it stands, the Bill places a great deal of unaccountable authority in the hands of the Executive to make provision for any arrangement by means of secondary legislation. It is silent on how those subject to this arrangement will be treated. Similarly, it provides no guarantee that the prison rules in secondary legislation, which govern crucial issues including segregation, complaints and the use of force, would apply. I would hope that the Government would agree that, given the potential human rights implications, any agreement made between the UK and a foreign state should be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny and oversight, and to guarantees of compliance with existing human rights standards and obligations.

Furthermore, the implementation of any agreement by a foreign state will need careful monitoring and oversight to ensure compliance. It will also be vital to ensure that any breach of the agreement by the foreign state is promptly reported and acted on. Amendment 65 would help to enable that by requiring the controller to report any breaches of the arrangement to the Secretary of State.

The Bill should also be amended to ensure that it is the UK’s responsibility to investigate and bring to justice any ill-treatment or torture, should it occur under this arrangement, in line with the UK’s obligations under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the UN convention against torture. It should also require that any prisoner transferred to serve their sentence in a foreign country would have to be held in and have access to equivalent conditions and the same quality and range of services afforded to prisoners held in England and Wales, as mandated under Prison Rules 1999. As it stands, nothing in the Bill and related documents gives any indication that the same legal standards and rights in relation to treatment of prisoners, as set out in the prison rules, would apply.

I would be obliged if the Minister would address a number of related questions. Will she confirm the need for the operation of the scheme to be under constant review and that Parliament is entitled to reports on how successful or otherwise it is? Will British prison rules apply to UK prisoners sent abroad? Does she accept that it should be the UK authorities that investigate any allegations of ill treatment or torture of prisoners accommodated abroad under her policy?

I know that services, particularly work and access to rehabilitation services, are very limited in UK prisons because of the crisis in the service, but does the Minister agree that any prisoners sent abroad should have access to at least the same level of services as those held at home?

Amendment 66 would ensure that the prisons inspectorate “must” conduct the duties specified in proposed new subsection 5D in section 5A of the Prisons Act 1952, and would ensure its consistency with the legislative basis for its role in England and Wales.

We are concerned that the oversight of both the controller and His Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons will ultimately be subject to negotiation with a relevant partner country. The wording in the Bill relating to the powers of HM inspectorate of prisons differs from the Prisons Act in that it states the chief inspector “may” inspect rather than “shall” inspect. The implication is that inspections could take place only by invitation of the foreign state rather than as a statutory requirement. That leaves open to future negotiation crucial aspects of HMIP’s role and methodology, such as its ability to conduct unannounced inspections, to speak to prisoners in private and to access records such as those relating to the use of force. That would mean a lower standard of independent scrutiny would be applied to the treatment and conditions for UK prisoners held under such arrangements. It would fall short of the UK’s obligations under the optional protocol to the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment—OPCAT—which establishes requirements for independent detention monitoring to be conducted by a national preventive mechanism.

In the UK, the national preventive mechanism was established in 2009 and HMIP is one of the bodies designated to it. Amending the Bill to ensure that HMIP’s role can be performed in accordance with its duties under OPCAT would provide an important safeguard to ensure rigorous independent scrutiny of the treatment and conditions for prisoners held under these arrangements. Will the Minister guarantee that HMIP will be able to conduct its crucial role to the same standards that we would expect for any inspection on home soil, with unfettered access to prisoners, their records and staff?

Amendment 67 would ensure that HM inspectorate of prisons can inspect escort arrangements under which prisoners are transferred to foreign prisons. Clause 28 specifies that the chief inspector may inspect or arrange for the inspection of any prisons where prisoners are detained under an arrangement between the UK and a foreign state. Our amendment would bring the legislation into line with the inspectorate’s powers in relation to prisons in England and Wales by also enabling it to inspect or arrange for the inspection of escort arrangements.

The inspectorate’s powers to inspect escort arrangements were made by amendments to the Prisons Act in section 46 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. It is particularly important that the inspectorate should be able to inspect the escort arrangements for the transfer of UK prisoners to foreign prisons. We had a debate the other day about escort arrangements and the security of staff, which comes into play here. How do we ensure the safety of the staff of whichever organisation is moving people from this country to another?

A foreign state with which the UK makes an agreement could potentially be many thousands of miles from the UK. The transfer of prisoners could involve a lengthy journey involving a variety of modes of transport, including potentially prison vans, planes, trains and ferries.

As countless HMIP inspection reports show, escort, particularly when a person is being transferred against their will, can pose a number of risks to prisoners, including the mixing of men, women and children in the same transport—although I acknowledge that children will not be sent abroad; poor information sharing with escort services of the needs and risks presented by prisoners; poor conditions; poor escort safety and lack of seat belts; risk of suicide and self-harm, which may be exacerbated by long journeys under stress; lack of food, drink and comfort stops; poor treatment by escort staff; failure to address health and welfare needs; overuse of restraints with potentially fatal consequences; poor complaints processes and accountability; and damage to prisoners’ property.

The potential for trouble appears limitless. I hope that the Minister will recognise that she needs to act now to ensure all the necessary processes are in place to make sure that it is contained. Failure to do so could result in all manner of actions against the Government, including civil actions by prisoners who could well have grounds for going to court because they have not been treated properly in line with the UK law under this new policy.

12.30 pm

I turn to amendment 68. This probing amendment would clarify how the Government intend to apply their obligations under article 2 on the right to life of the Human Rights Act, through ensuring that the duties of the coroner also apply to any death involving a prisoner subject to a transfer agreement with a foreign country.

It is our view that the nature of the arrangement to send individuals to overseas prisons will establish the UK’s jurisdiction over any deaths that occur. Given the unprecedented nature of these arrangements, it is crucial that the responsibility of coroners to investigate overseas deaths be established clearly in advance, otherwise it would invite significant uncertainty and likely legal challenge if any individual were to die while imprisoned overseas. Furthermore, such a move will ensure that the coronial system is prepared to address the practical challenges of holding such an inquest, which are likely to include challenges in obtaining evidence and witness statements.

I move on to my comments on clause stand part. I am well aware that there is a school of thought that says that prisoners give up their rights to everything when they commit a crime and are deprived of their liberty, but I hope the Minister will agree with me that they do have rights and we have a responsibility to ensure they are not deprived of them, whether in a prison on home or foreign soil. It is critical that we nail down exactly how UK systems will be implemented abroad. I see that as all but impossible if we do not specify in the Bill the necessary requirements for that to happen.

The Minister is likely to say that we have to have a level of trust in the agreement with any foreign Government to stick to the standards required, but I am not so sure it is as simple as that. There will be huge costs associated with what may well just be a Government experiment—costs relating to travel and escort services, the fees to the receiving prison, potential costs for families of prisoners to travel abroad to visit, plus all the costs related to managing, inspecting and reporting on the services provided.

Put simply, the choice to send British prisoners abroad is a serious endeavour that requires meaningful protections to prevent abuses. It is also likely to come at substantial cost to the taxpayer, with the Government’s own best estimate of cost being £24.4 million per year to house a tiny number—600 prisoners. That amounts to £40,700 per prisoner, approximately £8,000 less per prisoner than to house them in a domestic prison: figures which are difficult to reconcile given that incidental costs like transportation will be additional to ordinary prison expenditure.

In any event, the proposal is going to create only a small number of spaces, meaning that it is not just an easy answer to the overcrowding crisis. Rather, if prisoners end up being mistreated or are simply unable to engage in rehabilitation and other processes that can help get their lives back on the straight and narrow, it could lead to more problems than it solves.

If the Minister is not prepared to accept our amendments, I ask her to take them away and consider exactly how she will fulfil her duties under the law in relation to UK prisoners accommodated abroad, and perhaps bring forward her own amendments on Report, which we would happily consider.

I thank the hon. Member for his amendments, which I will address before turning to clause 28. I hope that nothing we have said and nothing that appears in the Bill would suggest for a moment that any of the 600 prisoners who end up being transferred to a foreign prison would not have their human rights respected. We remind the hon. Member that prisoners remain the responsibility of the Secretary of State. Although the matter of the exact arrangements will need to be negotiated, we are committed to ensuring parity for prisoners—that they have access to the same regime and the same rehabilitation opportunities—as part of any agreement.

I thank the hon. Member for his views on performance management mechanisms. We agree that they need to be in place. The controller role stands alongside our wider plans for robust and effective scrutiny mechanisms, including making arrangements for independent inspection and monitoring in rented prison places. The UK-appointed controller will be responsible for reporting to the Secretary of State on the running of a rented prison via HMPPS performance-monitoring mechanisms, and will be expected to report to the Secretary of State on the running of a rented prison overseas. I want to provide some reassurance that we have begun the process of engaging a number of existing inspection monitoring bodies in England and Wales to discuss how best that service might be provided.

My second point is that we are committed to ensuring that Parliament has appropriate opportunities to scrutinise any treaty that we negotiate with a partner state. Our current intention is that any future treaty establishing rental arrangements, including monitoring and control, would be subject to ratification, which would of course be subject to further scrutiny by Parliament, according to the procedure set out in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.

On amendment 66, clause 28 currently only extends the inspectorate’s remit and does not place an obligation on it to inspect rented prisons overseas, as the shadow Minister pointed out, but we fully agree that rented prison places must be subject to effective inspection and we are ensuring that an appropriate inspectorate will be able to conduct such inspections. That commitment is made with due regard to the inspectorate’s need for operational independence and freedom of access to prisoners, including in private as the shadow Minister described, and to prison facilities. We are considering the logistical realities that that kind of access implies.

We are already working with HM inspectorate of prisons to discuss how best to ensure that the inspections will take place. The exact arrangements will be subject to negotiation and agreement with a partner country, at which point, if necessary, we can confirm what the law ought to say on this matter and make amendments as necessary using the delegated power that we are seeking in clause 29.

The Minister just said that these rights and arrangements would be “subject to negotiation”. Could she explain what she means by that? Does that mean that some rights and arrangements may well not be available to prisoners or to inspectors in carrying out their duties?

We are committed to ensuring that any foreign prison will be subject to an inspection arrangement; it is simply the terms of that inspection arrangement that we are not putting into primary legislation.

Amendment 67, tabled by the shadow Minister, is important. Arrangements for the independent inspection of escort arrangements in England and Wales already engage HM inspectorate of prisons to some extent, and the Prison Act 1952 allows the Secretary of State to investigate any matter connected to prisoners and prisons in England and Wales. We are committed to ensuring that effective scrutiny of escort arrangements is in place but, again, the exact terms of the arrangements are yet to be concluded and it is inappropriate to attempt to distribute specific responsibilities without prior agreement.

Amendment 68 addresses deaths in custody. This is an important point and must be subject to high-level scrutiny. That is especially true where there may be a death in custody that occurs overseas. This matter will be of primary importance to us during negotiations with any partner country. We are committed to ensuring that we are able to comprehensively investigate any deaths that may occur in rented prisons overseas.

This subject is a prime example of how we intend to use the delegated power we are seeking in clause 29. Once we have agreed arrangements with a partner country, we intend to use our delegated power—by potentially extending the remit of relevant bodies in England and Wales, for example. Until those arrangements are finalised it would be inappropriate to bind any potential body or person, including coroners, in law.

We are also committed, of course, to upholding the human rights of prisoners, including their rights under articles 2 and 3 of the European convention on human rights. That is legally binding on us, and those are absolute rights. We are currently considering only entering into arrangements to rent prisons from countries that can demonstrate that their prison conditions and capabilities—including for death investigations—comply with that same human rights law and our expectations on the fair treatment of prisoners.

On the basis that this is an important issue for future negotiations, or is non-negotiable given our international obligations, it is too early to begin considering how issues such as death investigation will be accounted for without first making precise arrangements with a partner country. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Stockton North to withdraw this amendment and to not press the other amendments in his name in this group.

I will speak now to clause 28, which concerns oversight arrangements for rented prison spaces. I have said already that the clause establishes a duty on the Secretary of State to appoint a controller. I have also set out their responsibilities for ensuring that any prisoner transferred to a foreign prison will be returned before the end of their sentence to allow for sufficient time for resettlement and reintegration back into the United Kingdom before release.

Clause 28 also extends the remit of His Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons to allow for inspections of any rented prison spaces overseas and subsequent reports to the Secretary of State on their findings—respecting their operational independence. Consideration of prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners has been, and will remain, central to our decision making.

On the point of saying here, and the law even saying, although the law does not say it, that prisoners will be returned to the UK before the end of their sentence, is there—well, I imagine that there is—a chance that their sentence might be extended because there is no place for them to be brought back to?

For example, our modern slavery laws say that we would have to wait for 45 days of reflection in cases of modern slavery. In reality, it is 700 days at the moment. So, laying out a term: is there any worry that, if we say that prisoners have to come back here before they are released to do a period of parole, we will in fact be extending people’s sentences because there are not any places for them to come back into?

Can I just clarify that I have understood the hon. Lady’s intervention?

Basically, what if there is no space?

I think it would have to be part of the planning for any prisoner who was going to be transferred for there to be space for them to be returned, because that is part of the policy—that they will be brought back into a domestic prison before release so that there can be proper engagement with the parole and probation services. That is, as hon. Members would expect, to facilitate a smooth release back into the community, as with any prisoner.

We are mindful of the need to ensure that effective inspection and monitoring provisions are in place. While the exact arrangements will be subject to future negotiation, we will ensure that those are sufficient, and they will also be subject to further parliamentary scrutiny. I commend clause 28 to the Committee.

I have listened carefully to what the Minister said, and an awful lot of it seems to be about something that might happen in the future or be subject to negotiation. Many of the measures that we are pushing for are in our amendments; as I said, I invite the Minister to take the amendments away and consider them in some detail. Being “subject to negotiation” is not good enough. We actually need to know that the necessary access or protections will actually be in place.

I will not press any of the amendments to a vote—with the exception of amendment 66, because I think that the inspector must carry out the necessary inspection. I accept that the Minister said that that is the intention, but “intention” is not good enough; that provision needs to be in the Bill. I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 65.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: 66, in clause 28, page 24, line 39, leave out “may” and insert “must”.—(Alex Cunningham.)

This amendment would ensure that the prisons inspectorate must conduct the duties specified in new section 5A(5D) of the Prisons Act 1952 and ensures its consistency with the legislative basis for its role in England and Wales.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 28 ordered to stand part of the Bill