Prison Officers: Retirement

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Earl Attlee]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what are their reasons for setting a retirement age of 68 for newly recruited prison officers; and what assessment they have made of whether that retirement age is appropriate and in the public interest.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, after a debate about prison overcrowding initiated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, in September 2017, I decided to take a very close interest in the UK’s prison system, because it is quite clear that there is a lot of room for improvement. One of my first actions was to read the 1991 report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, about the riots at Strangeways prison and elsewhere. No one who has read that report could fail to be struck by the risks that prison officers manage on a day-to-day basis and the extraordinary physical and moral courage exhibited by prison officers during those riots. It is clear to me that a 68 year-old prison officer is far too old to deal with physical challenges of this nature, no matter how good their jailcraft is.

In February 2020, I produced a paper that proposed drastic reform in respect of prolific minor offenders. I ran it as an amendment in your Lordships’ House, and it was well received. However, during my researches, as your Lordships would expect, I detected a number of other problems, such as the “potting” of prison officers by prisoners, which is just one example of why prison officers are special and need to be treated differently. Another problem that came up was Friday release, which is where large numbers of prisoners tend to be released on a Friday, when other agencies are not in a good position to help a newly released prisoner, and when those prisoners are at their most vulnerable. Along with my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, I ran suitable amendments, and I am pleased to say that the Government are supporting a Private Member’s Bill that will address this problem. So we do have good news from time to time, and I am grateful to Ministers.

During my researches into our prison system, my admiration and respect for prison officers went only one way: upwards. We charge them with looking after often the most objectionable members of society that we can possibly find. The source of the current problem—although not the cause—is that, in his 2011 review of public sector pensions, the noble Lord, Lord Hutton of Furness, left prison officers off a list of “uniformed services” that he proposed to protect from the state pension age rise to 68, insisting that, for the Armed Forces, police and firefighters,

“where pension age has historically been lower to reflect the unique nature of their work a pension age of 60 is appropriate”.

I understand that a retirement age of 65 has already been conceded in negotiations, although I think that is already too old for practical reasons. I do not believe that a retirement age of 68 for a prison officer is appropriate or in the public interest. I am honoured to debate this Question with my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy, and I look forward to his answers and having many more debates with him about the prison system.

In my time, I have served for over 40 years in the reserves, I have undertaken international aid operations in the Balkans and Rwanda, and I have undertaken military operations in the Balkans and the Middle East. But I am now 66 and, although my brain seems to work reasonably well, my body cannot do what it used to be able to, even five years ago. It would be absolutely out of the question for me to perform the duties of a prison officer. Can any noble Lord honestly picture me attempting to exercise control and restraint of an 18 year-old prisoner? If I cannot do it, even with my background, why should I expect prison officers to do it when they are even older than I am? That is why it is morally wrong to have a retirement age of 68 for our prison officers.

When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, answered my Oral Question on this matter last June, he claimed that prison officers worked in a controlled environment compared with firefighters and police officers. Anyone who thinks that prisons are a controlled environment should go away and read the Woolf report. During my investigations in the Prison Service, I quickly lost count of how often the alarms went off and all available prison officers had to pitch in to control an incident. Most prisons and custodial institutions are inherently violent places, but the skill, courage and fortitude of the prison officers are what limit the frequency and severity of incidents.

The other argument that I expect my noble and learned friend the Minister will advance is that prison officers do not make anything like the pension contributions that police officers and firefighters do. That is true, of course, but the reason is that the low pay of a prison officer makes such contributions unaffordable. I understand that the POA would be quite happy to make greater contributions, but only if the pay was increased. Prison officers are prohibited from taking any form of industrial action. That being the case, Ministers need to be very careful to ensure that they are not abusing this restriction and underpaying and underrewarding prison officers—and I think that they are underpaid. There is very good evidence: the retention rate of newly recruited prison officers. Unfortunately, the retention statistics are terrible. There will be a variety of reasons for this, but mostly it will be the terms and conditions of service.

The pension age of 68 sends a signal that the Government, Ministers and, indeed, the public simply do not care about prison officers. If that is the message we are sending, why are we surprised that junior prison officers walk away and take a much easier job—say, in a warehouse? The Prison Service desperately needs experienced prison officers, but Ministers are failing to retain them. Rather, resources are being wasted on training newly recruited prison officers, who quickly leave, while the Treasury quietly calculates the notional savings from full pensions not being paid out—but those savings will of course not arise for decades.

There is another fatal flaw in treating prison officers as mainstream civil servants. Understandably, prison officers have to undergo regular fitness tests. There are two issues with this. The first is that the process results in early retirement for some very experienced prison officers whose jailcraft is so refined that they hardly ever need to resort to control and restraint—an own goal if ever there was one. The second is that it makes it very hard to stay working as a prison officer until 68. In fact, it is almost unachievable. For instance, last year I was very ill and, if I was a prison officer, I would have had to retire. In any case, I would almost certainly fail any reasonable agility test because my joints are giving up due to a misspent youth. However, if I was an ordinary civil servant, and with the nature of my illness, I could have continued working to 68 with only a few minor adjustments. It is much easier for a mainstream civil servant than a prison officer to achieve the retirement age of 68, and that cannot be right. I have heard that Ministers are, in correspondence, comparing prison officers with ratings on Royal Fleet Auxiliaries. I will have to follow that up with my Defence hat on, because 68 is far too old for that role as well.

I have realistic expectations about what the response from my noble and learned friend the Minister will be this afternoon. It would be good if Ministers could go away and privately have a hard think about whether the current policy makes sense. I do not believe that it is morally right, and nor do I think it is correct in practical terms.