Separation Centres: Terrorist Offenders

Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

As I said to my noble friend, we are considering appealing the decision. It is also important that the staff who work in our separation centres have the skills they need to care for the people there. The system is robust, but we always need to look for improvements. That is why we commissioned Mr Hall to look at all our separation centres and the policies we have to make sure they are right for the future.

[Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister think that we are doing enough to keep our prison staff safe? With increasingly violent prisoners challenging authority, what else is being done?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to raise this question. One of the things that surprises me going round prisons now compared with 25 years ago is how much more violence there is on our wings. That is probably due to a combination of the amount of drugs in our prisons and the number of people with severe mental health issues, but also people serving very long sentences.

We are investing in protecting our staff. As my noble friend said, our staff do an amazing job, often in very difficult and dangerous situations. That is why we have invested £15 million in 10,000 personal body armour jackets and suits. We are also training 500 staff in how to use Tasers. Every other week, I speak to prison leaders. Last week, I spoke to the governors of the long-term high-security estate, who told me how much reassurance the staff have had from the fact they are now getting investment in this extra protection.