Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) (Urgent Question): The prisons
Minister told the Select Committee on Justice this morning that he
has the number of the chair of the Prison Officers Association on
speed dial. Mr Speaker Order. The hon. Gentleman is getting a
little ahead of himself. At this stage, all he needs to do is put
the urgent question in the very simple...Request free trial
(Urgent Question): The prisons Minister told the Select
Committee on Justice this morning that he has the number of
the chair of the Prison Officers Association on speed dial.
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Order. The hon. Gentleman is getting a little ahead of
himself. At this stage, all he needs to do is put the
urgent question in the very simple terms in which it was
put to me, by saying, “To ask the Secretary of State for
Justice if she will make a statement on the Prison
Officers Association instruction to withdraw from
voluntary tasks.” I have just done the hon. Gentleman’s
work for him. If he wants to say it again, he may, but
that is the way to deal with it. He will have his
opportunity to speak in a moment. He is ahead of himself,
which I suppose is better than being behind the curve.
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Mr Speaker, thank you for asking the urgent question on
behalf of the Opposition. I am grateful for the chance to
update the House on this important issue.
Strike action is unlawful, as we have said to the Prison
Officers Association. It will seriously disrupt normal
operations in prisons and, although we will of course
take any actions we can to mitigate the risks, we are
clear that action of this nature by the POA poses a risk
to the safety of prisons and prison staff. The duties
that the POA refers to in its bulletin are not voluntary
but a fundamental part of a prison officer’s role, and
essential to running a safe and decent prison. They
include: assessment of those at risk of suicide; first
aid; restraint training and intervention; and hostage
negotiation. The instructions by the POA are clearly
designed to disrupt the safe and decent running of
prisons.
We have made the maximum pay offer that we could to all
operational staff in prisons. In addition, we offered a
£1,000 retention payment to all operational staff and a
reduction in pension age to 65, fully funded by the
Government. We were disappointed that the offer was
rejected by the POA membership, despite being endorsed by
the POA leadership. This year’s pay award is now a matter
for the independent Prison Service Pay Review Body, which
will take evidence from all parties and report to the
Government in April. The POA, of course, has the
opportunity to make its case to the pay review body, but
we are not waiting for the pay review body to respond.
In the past week, we have outlined progression
opportunities that will take earnings to more than
£30,000 a year for more than 2,000 staff across the
country. We have also introduced allowances in areas in
which the cost of living is higher to take basic rate
prison officers up to £30,000 a year. We understand that
prison officers do a difficult job in very challenging
circumstances, so we are making these moves on pay to
recognise their effort and hard work. In addition, the
Government are investing £100 million to increase the net
number of prison officers by 2,500 in the next two years.
I urge the shadow Minister, if he has good sense and
cares about the safety and order of our prisons, not to
put prison officers and prisoners at risk, but to condemn
this unlawful strike action.
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The prisons Minister told the Justice Committee this
morning that he has the number of the chair of the Prison
Officers Association on speed dial. If the Minister is
dialling, it is clear that he is not connecting because
the situation could easily have been avoided. Ministers
could have spoken to the POA before imposing a pay policy
that has proven to be so divisive and unpopular. They
need to sit down and talk to the POA, rather than
threaten legal action and claim the action is unlawful
before any court has made any such determination. In
order to fix a prison system currently relying on staff
doing extra work voluntarily—for no extra money—to keep
our system running, Ministers need to focus on the real
problems.
At the Conservative party conference back in October, the
Justice Secretary announced 400 more officers to work in
10 challenging prisons, but the staffing shortfall at
those prisons has grown in the last quarter. After the
White Paper announcement of 2,500 additional officers,
there was a fall of 133 staff in the last quarter of
2016. That 2,500 is now further away than it was in
November.
So where is the Justice Secretary? Why have some prisons
with no recruitment and retention problems received the
pay award, while some prisons struggling most on that
front have received nothing? How much additional money
has been earmarked for this recruitment drive? What
discussions have taken place with the POA leadership
today?
To turn around this mess, we need a Justice Secretary who
is serious—serious about working with prison officers—and
we need a prisons Bill that will deliver serious reform.
Sadly, at the moment, we have neither.
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In relation to the additional allowances that were
announced for staff last week, and also the pay
progression opportunity for 2,000 prison officers across
the estate, the POA was consulted. If the hon. Gentleman
had read its press release in detail, he would have
noticed that the POA actually welcomed those things; its
issue was that it wanted them to apply to all the
country. However, it is not novel to have a pay allowance
in areas where it is difficult to recruit and where the
cost of living is too high—it is not novel in the Prison
Service, and it is not novel in the public sector.
The hon. Gentleman talked about extra money that is going
into the Prison Service. I made it absolutely clear that
we have £100 million for a net 2,500 officers. He
referred to data relating to December last year,
following our announcement in November, so let me update
him briefly on where we are on prison officer
recruitment. We are on track to recruit the 400 new
officers the Secretary of State announced in October for
the 10 most challenging jails. We have more people in
training today to be prison officers than ever before. We
are also investing £4 million in marketing to attract new
prison officers.
The Labour party, I am afraid, is confused on prisons.
Last year, it told us that it wanted the prison
population cut from 80,000 to 45,000. Last Sunday, we
heard from the shadow Attorney General that prisoners
should be allowed to keep mobile phones so that they can
carry on their life of crime in prison. Until the Labour
party has sorted out its position, it is in no position
to question us.
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The Justice Committee has always made it clear that it
recognises that there are great pressures on our prisons,
and that includes pressures on the dedicated men and
women who work in them. However, does the Minister accept
that it is not helpful, given the efforts that are being
made to turn the situation around, which takes time to
achieve, to embark on a course of action that, legal or
otherwise, creates further restrictions on the regime
and, therefore, further tensions in the prison
population? That makes it harder to deliver
rehabilitation and, sadly, makes the job of prison
officers harder in the long term.
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The Chairman of the Justice Committee makes an important
point. We have made progress on pay with the Prison
Officers Association, and we have had progress on health
and safety; indeed, today we were to meet the POA to
discuss pensions. I absolutely agree with the Justice
Secretary that today’s action only puts prisoners and
prison officers, who work very hard, at risk.
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As we have heard, prison staff in England and Wales have
been demoralised by understaffing, underpayment and
overcrowding in prisons. While the Government have
offered a pay rise to prison staff to encourage further
recruitment and retention of current staff, as we have
heard, that will apply only in the south-east and London.
The Minister said that that is not novel, but it does not
address the issue of morale across the board.
This is a matter for England and Wales, but I am here to
encourage the Minister to look at the Scottish
Government’s attempts to reduce the number of people in
prisons by moving away from ineffective, short-term
prison sentences and making more use of community
alternatives. Does he agree that he should concentrate
efforts on such schemes? Never mind the marketing budget
he spoke of to recruit people, what will he do to ensure
that newly recruited prison officers are retained and
that the morale of all prison staff, who already have a
very stressful job, is restored?
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The hon. Lady is right—the morale of prison officers is
important to us. However, let me be clear: we had a pay
deal endorsed by the Prison Officers Association towards
the end of last year that was rejected. That pay deal is
now a matter for the independent pay review body. We have
submitted evidence and the POA can submit its evidence,
so we are taking action on pay for the Prison Service as
a whole. We have also put in place additional allowances
for 31 jails where it is particularly hard to recruit.
Further to that, we have created a new progression
opportunity for 2,000 prison officers across the country,
and today we were due to be in talks about pensions. We
value prison officers and the work they do, and we want
to support them, but unlawful strike action is not the
way to progress. It would actually achieve the opposite,
which is to put prison officers at risk.
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While strongly regretting the strike action announced by
the POA, I welcome the reduction in retirement age to 65
that the Minister has told the House about. In his
further discussions on pensions when this strike is
over—I hope he will be able to get back around the table
soon—will he bear in mind the comparison with the pension
offers for the police and the armed services, in that
members in those schemes have to pay more?
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I will certainly bear that in mind, although the pension
deal offered to the POA and prison officers would have
been fully funded by the Government.
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Last year 119 prisoners took their own lives in our
prisons—the highest level of suicides on record. The POA
instruction urges members to withdraw from
ACCT—assessment, care in custody and teamwork. While I
have every sympathy with the 7,000 POA prison officers
who now face these challenges in our prisons, what impact
will that withdrawal have on the already dismal mental
health support available in our prisons?
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As I said earlier, involvement in ACCT processes and
ceasing suicide and self-harm are fundamental to a prison
officer’s duty. I would encourage and urge all prison
officers to carry on with their tasks as they should.
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May I congratulate my hon. Friend on the excellent work
that he is doing with a difficult pack of cards? Does he
agree that a prison officer joins to serve, and that that
means to serve in whatever guise without striking?
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I certainly do agree. In fact, the legislation on this
was introduced by the previous Labour Government, so I
was surprised that the shadow Minister would not condemn
this unlawful strike action.
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When prisons are in crisis and staff are on strike, every
available penny should be spent on making prisons safe.
Is the Minister aware that last year £500,000 of
compensation was paid to serious criminals because they
were released late from prison? When will he get that
under control and provide prison officers with a safe
working environment and prisoners with a safe and
drug-free environment in which to be detained?
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The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that we published
a White Paper last year, and only last week introduced
the Prisons and Courts Bill—the first Bill in 65 years
that not only puts turning around our prisoners’ lives at
the centre of our work but improves safety and security
in our prisons. We are taking action.
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Will the Minister update the House on some of the
measures in the Bill that should help to resolve the
situation and ensure that our prisons are places of
safety and reform?
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The central aspect of the Bill is to make it very clear
that the fundamental purpose of prisons is to turn around
offenders’ lives. If prisons are focused on that, we will
reduce reoffending, and the £15 billion reoffending bill,
but also help to make our prisons places of safety and
reform.
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To avoid any doubt, will the Minister say today that he
will accept the recommendations that the independent pay
review body makes?
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We will obviously look at its recommendations. Let me
make this clear: we value prison officers and the hard
work they do, and we have already taken a lot of action
to recognise that. The right hon. Gentleman cannot ask me
to commit at the Dispatch Box to results that I do not
know.
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I agree with the Minister that it is wrong for this
strike to go ahead, particularly given the services that
it affects. I know he will share my concern at the 6,000
assaults on prison officers up until June 2016. Will he
reassure me on the actions being taken to tackle this and
to ensure that those who commit these assaults are held
to account?
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Prison officers work
in a very challenging environment, and our job is to keep
them safe in that environment. We are looking at a number
of things, including making sure that any crime scene is
preserved, working with the local police forces that
attend the scene, and making sure that impact statements
are well prepared and admissible in court. We are also
ensuring that when someone assaults a prison officer and
is convicted, the sentence is consecutive rather than
concurrent with their existing sentence. I agree that it
is vital that we keep prison officers safe.
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This dispute is, on the surface, about pay, and the
Minister has said an awful lot about that, but he must
realise that it is also about unhappiness that has been
developing in the Prison Service for many years now,
principally about safety at work. The levels of assaults
on prison officers, suicide and self-harm are
unprecedented. Fixing that is how the Government are
going to resolve this in the longer term. When are we
going to start to see safety in prisons improve?
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I have said right from the start that the levels of
violence in our prisons are too high. We have been
working very closely with the Prison Officers Association
on health and safety and have made progress—for example,
on regime management plans that the POA would accept. We
are also investing £100 million to add 2,500 officers to
the frontline, in addition to the points on pay that I
have already made. These problems were long in the
making, and yes, it will take time to resolve them, but
we have the resolve to do so and we are doing it.
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The job of prison officers is made more difficult by the
presence in our prisons of drugs and mobile phones. Can
my hon. Friend tell me by what date will we have at least
one prison—just one—that is free of drugs and mobile
phones?
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My hon. Friend will have noticed measures in the Bill
that we introduced last week to make it easier to test
for drugs and deal with the problem of drugs in our
prisons, and we are taking a lot of action on mobile
phones. For example, new legislation under the Serious
Crime Act 2015 has allowed us to turn off 160 mobile
phones in our jails in the past few months. We are also
working with mobile network operators so as to be able to
switch off mobile phones in our jails. A lot of work is
being done, but it will take time.
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These are worrying developments. Does the Minister share
my concern that this action will have an impact on family
visits? As he knows, prisoners meeting their families and
seeing their children—there are 200,000 children of
prisoners—is extremely important for rehabilitation. Can
he confirm that this will not be affected?
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As I have said, strike action is unlawful. If prison
officers withdraw their labour, that will make the regime
even more restrictive, as the Chairman of the Justice
Committee suggested. That is why we are urging
hard-working prison officers to go back to work and make
sure that prisoners can carry on with these regimes,
whether in continuing important rehabilitative work or in
making sure that our prisons are safe.
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It is concerning that this action could lead to Tornado
teams being withdrawn. Will the Minister confirm that
contingency measures are in place to ensure that prison
order can be maintained at all times?
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I am sure that our prison officers will always do their
duty if there is disorder in prisons, even at this
difficult time. We are obviously urging the POA to
withdraw its bulletin, but we also make sure that we have
contingency plans for times like this.
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The Minister does not need me to tell him that staff
morale in our prisons is extremely low, which is not
helped very low staff numbers. In my constituency since
2010, the numbers at Frankland have gone down by 32%, at
Durham by 48% and at Low Newton by 17%. When does the
Minister think that he will be in a position to produce a
pay offer that recognises the difficult and dangerous job
that prison officers do?
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We are already doing that; we are recognising that
difficulty. As I have said, pay packets will go up to
about £30,000 as a result of the measures we have
introduced in the past week. The independent pay review
body will report in April, after which we will take
further action.
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The Government’s commitment to opening new prison places
in fit-for-purpose buildings, including in north
Northamptonshire, is very welcome news. What impact does
the Minister think that that will have on prison officer
safety?
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Modern, fit-for-purpose prisons will have a huge impact
on prison officer safety, not least because they will not
have all those corners where people can hide. They will
also be good for rehabilitation. Today we have opened Her
Majesty’s Prison Berwyn, which is the largest prison in
Europe and is taking its first prisoners today. That is a
huge step in our efforts not only to reorganise the
estate, reduce overcrowding and improve safety in our
prisons, but to ensure that they can be places of
rehabilitation.
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I have listened carefully to the Minister. He said that
he thought that this action was designed to disrupt the
safe and decent running of prisons. Does he not
understand that the whole reason why prison officers are
withdrawing from these tasks is that we do not have safe
and decent prisons? We have intolerable and dangerous
prisons; I would not want to work in them, and I am sure
that the Minister would not either.
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As I have said, our prison officers do an incredibly
difficult job. I visit prisons almost every week and I
know how hard the officers work. The POA has decided to
make a stand on pay, as we have seen in today’s bulletin.
I urge it to withdraw its bulletin because it will not do
anything to improve safety in our prisons.
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What steps has the Minister taken in the past few months
to improve the career prospects of prison officers?
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In addition to the workforce strategy that we will
publish later this year, which will focus on the
professionalisation of the workforce, last week we
announced a progressive promotion opportunity that will
allow band 3 officers to do roles relating to safer
custody, mentoring and hostage negotiation, and to get a
pay rise. That is a huge step not just in
professionalising the workforce and allowing people to
operate in more senior roles, but in improving the pay
packets of our hard-working prison officers.
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Will the Minister accept that his precipitative action
will be counterproductive and that any lockdowns will
likely lead to a lot more trouble in prisons?
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The precipitous action, if I understand the hon.
Gentleman correctly, is unlawful strike action, which
will do nothing to make our prisons safe.
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It would be easier to manage the 85,000 prisoners in our
jails if we did not have to incarcerate 10,000 foreign
nationals who should be in prison in their own country.
This week Jamaica rejected the Government’s offer of
returning its foreign nationals. What steps are the
Government taking to get these people back to secure
detention in their own countries?
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Since 2010 we have deported 33,000 prisoners—5,810 in
2015-16 alone—to their home country. There is a lot more
work that we can do, and I am engaging directly with the
Governments of the top 10 countries from which foreign
national prisoners come in order to speed up the process.
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Our prisons are unsafe and dangerous, and the Minister
inherited that situation. We must not forget that we have
lost 7,000 experienced prison officers. When Spice, which
is a very cheap drug, came on the market, prisoners who
were recalled within 28 days of being released were able
to expand their business on the next landing. The steps
that are being taken are a sticking plaster rather than
major surgery. We need to recruit massive numbers of
prison officers. We need proper pay and proper skills,
not adverts for 18-year-olds with no experience.
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We lost 6,000 or 7,000 prison officers, as the hon. Lady
has said, but during that period we also closed 18
prisons. The key change in our prisons, as she has
rightly says, is the advent of drugs such as Spice and
Black Mamba, which have a huge value in prisons and make
prisoners violent. In addition, our cohort of prisoners
has become more violent: three fifths of people in our
prisons are there for dangerous or drug-related offences.
That is why we face a game-changing situation. More staff
is part of the answer, but dealing with drugs and mobile
phones is a key part of it, too.
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Is not improving working conditions for prison officers
part of the solution to the problem, and are not the
Government wholly right to close old Victorian prisons
and open modern ones, such as that in Wellingborough?
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the working
conditions for prison officers and the estates in which
we house prisoners are important to improving safety in
our prisons. I look forward to the new prison in
Wellingborough opening shortly.
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Given that 15 of the most dangerous prisoners have been
transferred to Hull following the Birmingham riot earlier
this year, that prison officers are saying that they fear
for their safety, and that the prison was in lockdown in
December, does the Minister understand why morale is so
low, especially when the pay award is not going to areas
such as Hull? Will the governor there have the
flexibility come April to give these hard-working prison
officers that pay increase?
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Yes, prison governors will have control over their
budgets and will be able to make decisions about staffing
and how their staff are deployed from this April. We have
to be absolutely clear. The POA says that this unlawful
strike action is about pay. However, only last week we
announced not only promotion opportunities but increased
pay for vast numbers of prison officers across the
country.
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Having had an in-depth conversation with a constituent
who has just left his role as a prison officer, I
understand that the prison population is getting younger,
that Spice and mental health issues are on the rise, and
that morale is at rock bottom. Given the POA instruction
urging its members to withdraw from detached duties such
as Tornado work during prison riots, what is the Minister
doing to reassure the families of vulnerable people in
prison that they will not suffer during this dispute?
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The best reassurance we can give to the families of
prisoners is for the Prison Officers Association to
withdraw its bulletin and not to pursue unlawful strike
action.
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