A Burning Issue

 

Two reports this week about HMP Forest Bank, the privately run prison in Manchester. Both the national Prison Inspectorate  and local Independent Monitoring Board are broadly in agreement about the state of the Category B reception and resettlement prison- rising rates of violence and use of force, continuing problems of drugs and concerns about the attitudes of some staff members.

Surprising to my mind is the fact that neither report makes reference to one striking fact about the prison: according to a parliamentary answer, last year there were 137 cell fires at the prison, the highest number of any establishment in England and Wales, and up from 91 the in 2023. There were just 13 fires there in 2016.

The prison was subject to various enforcement notices from the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate in 2018, thankfully all complied with.  But it seems a major failing that the two main prison oversight bodies haven’t reported on last year’s troubling figures.

The Prisons Minister in the last government said that during 2024-25, “H M Prison & Probation Service will introduce an ignition-free Safer Vape Pen to replace the existing product, which is the source of approximately 80 per cent of fires set” across the prison estate. There does not seem to have been any announcement on this.

I know this is a topic I’ve banged on about before but it really deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness.