Review Launched at Troubled HMP Wandsworth
David Lammy, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, along with Amber Rudd, a former Conservative home secretary, began a six-month review into the Prison Service on Thursday at HMP Wandsworth in south-west London. The visit occurred during a 35C heatwave, highlighting the challenging conditions at one of the UK’s most notorious jails.
Background of Scandals at Wandsworth
HMP Wandsworth has been the site of multiple scandals in recent years. In 2023, Daniel Khalife, a spy for Iran, escaped by strapping himself to the underside of a delivery truck. Two years prior, prisoners celebrated their release under an emergency scheme outside the gates. In 2024, prison officer Linda De Sousa Abreu was jailed for having sex with an inmate. Additionally, a sex offender and a fraudster were accidentally released due to clerical errors in November.
Rudd’s Role and Goals
Rudd, appointed as the independent reviewer of the prison system, aims to draw up policies within six months to address underlying problems. She wants to provide “guard rails” for improvements that tighten security, improve public safety, and tackle drugs and gangs. “I think that various governments have turned a blind eye to issues to do with prisons and then they suddenly do something when something goes badly wrong,” Rudd said. “There hasn’t been an attempt to say ‘what are we going to do medium to long term?’”
Overcrowding and Victorian Prisons
About a quarter of jailed offenders in England and Wales are held in Victorian prisons like Wandsworth. The latest inspection report noted 1,430 prisoners in cells meant for 894. Conditions have improved since a “catastrophic” inspection in 2024 led to an extra £100m and a reduction in prisoner numbers. Despite evidence that self-harm incidents rise during heatwaves, prisoners at Wandsworth are often confined to cells for up to 22 hours a day without fans or air conditioning. Inmates can buy a handheld fan for £15 through an electronic kiosk, but those without prison jobs receive only about 50p per day.
Drone Drug Smuggling
Hot weather exacerbates drone incursions, as Andy Davy, Wandsworth’s governor, explained: “If the weather is good we get absolutely peppered, usually between two and four in the morning.” Drones, controlled from miles away, use cameras to direct packages to specific cells. During the visit, Lammy and Rudd examined five intercepted packages, one of which was covered in fish hooks for easier retrieval. A prison officer slashed open a package containing large buds of skunk cannabis and rolling tobacco, worth thousands of pounds, along with mobile phone chargers and sim cards. Other drops have included Allen keys for dismantling windows. HMP Wandsworth has seen a drop in drone incursions from a high of 131 in 2025, attributed to a policy of stationing an extra officer outside on clear nights to disrupt dropoffs by shining lights into drone cameras. However, prisoners connected to gangs have reportedly faked self-harm incidents or overdoses to force drone-disrupting staff away from their posts.
Addressing Addictions
Rudd, who resigned from Boris Johnson’s cabinet in 2019 over Brexit, plans to address prisoners’ addictions, a issue close to her family. Her ex-husband, writer AA Gill, was an alcoholic, and their son, Alasdair Gill, has written about his struggles with ketamine and cocaine. “Addictions are certainly not the only problem,” Rudd said. “But helping to address addictions and get free of them will keep the public safe. I’ve seen a lot of it in my family. It is a great blight on many families.”
Cross-Party Hope and Funding Constraints
Rudd, surprised by the offer, hopes her proposals as a former Conservative minister can gain cross-party support. She received a call from Lammy six weeks ago, initially skeptical it was genuine. The review will also examine “safety and decency” but notes that “all costs within this spending review must be absorbed within [Ministry of Justice]’s budget.” Rudd said, “My challenge is to extract the expertise from the people who have it. I’m not going to become an expert in six months. So I hope what I’ll be able to do is not skim the surface, but do some really deep thinking and analysis and get to the right outcomes.”
