Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Henderson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of staffing levels in prisons.

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

6. What progress his Department has made on recruiting the 2,500 new prison officers announced in 2016.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

In my first orals in this role, I am very pleased to pay tribute to the hard work of all our prison staff. I have had the opportunity, since I was appointed, to visit a number of prisons and I have seen at first hand the dedication of their staff. It is critical that we recruit and retain staff to keep our prisons secure. We have invested significantly in increasing staff numbers, recruiting a net total of an additional 4,366 prison officers between October 2016 and June 2019, surpassing our original target of 2,500, and we will continue to recruit officers to ensure that our prisons are decent and safe.

[Lucy Frazer]

We have recruited more than 4,000 staff since 2016. The hon. Gentleman is right to identify that if the police catch more criminals and we prosecute them, there will be more people going into our prisons. That is why we have committed to investing £2.5 billion in prison places. He is also right to identify that we will need not only prison places but more prison officers. We are actually ahead of our recruitment targets in this regard. The Prison Service has been lauded as a good employer: for example, it is in the top 100 graduate employers.

[Gordon Henderson]

I congratulate the Government on their efforts to recruit more prison officers. However, does my hon. and learned Friend accept that cuts earlier this decade contributed to a vicious cycle of prison violence because fewer officers on landings led to more assaults, which caused more staff to leave, leading to more violence and so on? With morale and retention of prison officers at rock bottom, does she accept that more must be done to reward these brave public servants—for instance, by improving and reducing their retirement age to 60 because 68 is far too late?

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the profile of the work of prison officers in his Westminster Hall debate last year, as well as this morning in questions, and for participating and promoting the excellent Prison Service parliamentary scheme. He is right to refer to prison officers as “brave public servants”, and the Secretary of State referred to them in his conference speech as “unsung heroes”. We made offers to staff to reduce the pension age in 2013 and 2017, but both offers were rejected by the Prison Officers Association.

Prison Officers: Pension Age

Gordon Henderson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the pension age of prison officers.

Police offers, firefighters and prison officers are all classified as emergency workers. They all do an extremely important job, and their work is physically demanding and often involves an element of risk and danger. Because of that, police officers and firefighters, quite rightly, are allowed to retire at 60 years of age. However, prison officers, who work in an equally stressful operational environment, have been told that they must wait until they are 68. That is not right. In fact, it is patently unfair and deeply resented by the hard-working prison officers in the three prisons in my constituency. I am not surprised by that, because the prospect of having to work until almost 70 years of age adds to the stress of what is already a stressful job.

From the point of view of health and safety at work, there is a clear argument for reducing the retirement age of prison officers, but I believe there is another equally good reason to bring their pensions into line with those of their colleagues in the police and fire and rescue services. Last week, at the Conservative party conference, the Home Secretary made an excellent speech in which she made it clear that Government would crack down on serious crime. That commitment resonates with the public, particularly those who have been victims of such crime, because they want tough action. However, inevitably, such a crackdown will lead to more criminals being sent to prison.

Also last week, the Justice Secretary made a speech in which he made clear his determination to ensure that those who have been convicted of serious crimes will have to serve two thirds of their sentence, rather than the half that they currently serve. Although both initiatives are highly commendable, they will put pressure on already-stretched prison places. That is likely to mean that more prisons will have to be built. If that happens, I have a couple of suggestions. First, finding a suitable location for a new prison is always difficult, because few communities like the idea of having a prison in their backyard. Those of us who live on the beautiful Isle of Sheppey understand the benefits of having a prison, and particularly the work involved. As I mentioned, we have three prisons and plenty of room for more, so we will have another prison if the Government want to build one on the island, subject to improvements to the road that leads to them.

My second suggestion is offered more in hope than with any great expectation that it will be taken up. The Government should abandon their support for private prisons and ensure that any new prisons be run by the public sector. Do not get me wrong—I am a free-market Tory who believes that there is a place for the private sector in the prison service, for instance in catering, education, training and rehabilitation.

I have a couple of examples of the positive involvement of the private sector in the latter of those fields. A private construction company has set up a workshop in HMP Elmley, in my constituency, to train inmates how to install drywalls in buildings. The company guarantees that everyone who completes the course will be offered an interview when they leave prison. Obviously, that does not automatically mean a job, but an interview is the first step. I visited the workshop as part of the Prison Service parliamentary scheme, of which I am a member. I was impressed by the positive attitude of the inmates who were being trained. One of them told me that the training had turned his life around. Also in my constituency is HMP Standford Hill, an open prison where more than 250 inmates are allowed out every day, to do either voluntary work in the community with charities or paid work in one of the local companies that have agreed to employ them.

Those are just two ways in which the private and third sectors can help to rehabilitate prisoners. There are many other examples, but I do not have time to mention them all. Despite those excellent examples of involvement by the private sector, the supervision and care of prisoners should be the sole responsibility of the public sector, for two reasons.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I also have a prison in my constituency, since Deerbolt was upgraded from a young offenders institution to a prison. I agree that a lot of positive work goes on in prisons, but is he not concerned by the increase in violent attacks against prison officers in recent years? Does he not agree that that is another reason why 68 is too late?

[Gordon Henderson]

The hon. Lady must have been listening to Justice questions this morning, when I said exactly that. Since she has a prison in her constituency, I urge her to join the Prison Service parliamentary scheme. If she will bear with me, I will come to the issue of violence in prisons later.

My first reason is that the state has a duty to protect the public. That is why it is the state that prosecutes those suspected of committing a crime, and the state—only the state—that locks up those who are found guilty. That being the case, I do not believe that the state can subcontract the incarceration of those prisoners to the private sector. That leads me to my second reason—

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gordon Henderson]

I will just give my second reason, which is that allowing private companies to make a profit out of the incarceration of human beings is simply immoral.

[David Hanson (in the Chair)]

Before the hon. Lady’s intervention, I remind hon. Members that the debate is tightly focused on the pension age of prison officers, and I hope that interventions and contributions will focus just on that.

[Jo Stevens]

Thank you, Mr Hanson; I will do a quick swerve. On the point about private prisons and the influence of private companies, does the hon. Gentleman agree that privatising probation—the state’s care for people on probation—was the wrong thing to do?

[Gordon Henderson]

No, I do not. They are two entirely different issues. When people are on probation, they have either completed their sentence or they have not yet—[Interruption.] We will have to disagree on that.

If new prisons are built, the Government will have to recruit many more prison officers to staff them. In my area, it has often proven difficult to recruit enough prison officers. I am sure that that applies to many other areas, particularly in south-east England. There are a number of reasons for that difficulty, including the relatively poor salary offered to prison officers, their working conditions, their retirement age and the rising level of violence in our prisons.

The average salary of a prison officer is £23,530 per annum. The problem in my constituency is that people can earn more than that working in one or other of the two supermarket regional warehouses that operate there. There are also plenty of other well-paid jobs in the pipeline locally, and people can commute to London. Those available jobs are more attractive because they provide better working conditions than those of a prison officer.

What are those working conditions? For a start, prison staff are almost as much prisoners as the inmates they look after. Day and night, they work inside buildings surrounded by fences and high-security walls. In addition, prison officers spend their days dealing with inmates who do not want to be where they are. Unsurprisingly, that can make them unco-operative, aggressive and sometimes violent. To add to the problem, an increasing number of inmates have mental health problems.

All in all, that does not make for a happy work environment, and the situation in prisons is getting worse, with ever increasing violence. On average, 30 members of prison staff are assaulted every day. Last year, 1,000 of those assaults were classified by the Government as serious. I know what serious means, because I have seen at first hand the results of some of those assaults, including broken bones, dreadful facial injuries and fingers that have been bitten off.

To try to cut out those assaults, the Prison Officers Association has called repeatedly for frontline prison officers to be equipped with PAVA spray and rigid police-style handcuffs to protect themselves. Last year, the Prison Service ran a pilot in which PAVA spray was issued to staff in four prisons. That pilot was successful, and the Government promised to roll out PAVA across the prison estate. However, that promise has not yet been delivered; indeed, the roll-out has come to a juddering halt. I suspect the reason for that is complaints from the usual suspects, including the Prison Reform Trust, which claimed that prison officers would use PAVA indiscriminately and that its use would breach the human rights of prisoners.

The first of those claims is a shocking slur on the integrity of hard-working professional prison officers, and the second is simply utter rubbish. If the use of PAVA spray breaches a criminal’s human rights, why do police officers carry PAVA as part of their standard equipment? If it is okay for police to carry PAVA, why is it not for prison officers? Section 8 of the Prison Act 1952 states that prison officers

“shall have…the powers, authority, protection and privileges”

of police constables. PAVA offers protection for police and prison officers alike.

That leads me nicely to my last point. What reward do prison officers get for being treated like second-class emergency workers? What reward do they get for dedicating their working lives to the Prison Service in return for a pitiful salary, for working without complaint in a sometimes hostile and dangerous environment, and for risking life and limb on a daily basis? To be made to work eight years longer than their counterparts in the police and fire service, that’s what.

Finally, let me return to the Home Secretary’s speech last week. She said:

“And as well as giving the police the kit and powers they need, we must do more to recognise their commitment, their bravery, and their professionalism.

I have been humbled by the officers I have met and the experiences they have shared with me. This is why I have personally accelerated work to establish the Police Covenant.

This is a pledge to do more as a nation to help those who serve our country.

To recognise the bravery, the commitment and the sacrifices of serving and former officers.

And we will enshrine this into law.

We will also ensure that anyone who assaults a police officer receives a sentence that truly fits the crime, to make the thugs who would attack an officer, think twice.”

Prison officers are equally committed, equally brave and equally professional—they, too, serve our country and make sacrifices to protect the public—so I would like to make my own pledge to the prison officers who work in HMP Swaleside, HMP Elmley and HMP Standford Hill, and their colleagues in prisons across the country, that I will continue to represent them to the best of my ability. I will press the Government to introduce a Prison Service covenant, and I will press for prison staff to receive the same protection from assaults as the police. I want to ensure that those who attack prison staff are given stiff sentences, not a simple slap on the wrist, as has happened so often in the past.

In addition, I assure prison officers that I will support their campaign against prison privatisation, I will support their campaign for better conditions of work, including pay, and I will support their campaign for action to reduce violence in our prisons and for officers to be issued with the equipment they need to protect themselves from attack. Finally, I want them to know that I understand it is wrong that they have been forced into a position where retirement is becoming ever more out of reach and, for some people, potentially unachievable.

As I mentioned, the law is clear that prison officers are entitled to the same powers, authority, protection and privileges as the police. It is time to deliver on the 1952 Act and treat prison officers the same as police officers. As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) said, and as I said this morning, 68 is too late, which is why I also support the POA campaign for a lower pension age. I urge the Minister to listen to the concerns of our fantastic prison officers and let them retire at 60.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Henderson]

I will make just a few points, if I may. We have had consensus today, but I have to say to the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), that the last Labour Government did not cover themselves with glory in the eyes of the POA. Talk to my prison officers: they remember vividly how the Labour party embraced the privatisation of prisons with great enthusiasm. But that was then.

[Imran Hussain]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gordon Henderson]

I do not have time.

With regard to what the Minister said about the difference between prison officers and police officers, I revert to section 8 of the Prison Act 1952, which states that prison officers

“shall have all the powers, authority, protection and privileges of a constable.”

Yet because prison officers happen to be part of the civil service pension scheme, they have to work until they are 68 when the police do not. The Government might have to look at whether prison officers should be part of the civil service, or whether they should be a separate entity again.

The Minister mentioned that staff on Sheppey are getting enhanced pay, and that it is up to £27,000 for new staff. I accept that, but it creates another anomaly in the system: the existing staff do not get that enhancement, so there will be some instances of new staff actually earning more than existing staff. Once again, that is something that we need to look at.

I will end with a little advert. I urge all Members present who have shown an interest in the debate to get involved in the Prison Service parliamentary scheme.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the pension age of prison officers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Henderson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. As he will be aware, we have brought forward the draft Domestic Abuse Bill, which we are currently considering in the Joint Committee. We would very much welcome any reflections he has as part of that process before we draft definitive legislation to bring forward to the House.

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

During an earlier answer, my hon. Friend the Prisons Minister mentioned the roll-out of PAVA spray. When will it be completed?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

I am delighted to be able to remind the House that PAVA spray is an incapacitating spray and that it can be safer, when dealing with acts of extreme violence, to use a spray rather than pulling out a baton or rolling around with someone on the ground. We need to use these sprays in a moderate, controlled fashion, but they can reduce extreme violence in prisons and protect our prison officers, so we are proud to be rolling them out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Henderson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

24. What progress the Government have made on improving the safety of prison officers.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Gauke)]

We do not tolerate violence against our dedicated and hard-working prison officers. We are strengthening frontline officer numbers and rolling out the key worker scheme so that we can improve prisoner-staff relationships and tackle the causes of violence. We are giving officers the tools they need, like body-worn cameras and PAVA spray, to respond where incidents occur.

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point, and it is important that crimes committed within prisons are taken seriously, just as crimes committed outside prisons are taken seriously. We have taken a number of steps, and I have already alluded to some of the measures we are taking to help prison officers in these circumstances. We also recently changed the law to strengthen sentences against those who commit crimes against prison officers.

[Gordon Henderson]

A week before Christmas, one of my local prison officers, Ashley McLean, received horrendous facial injuries when he was violently attacked by a prisoner who was allegedly high on Spice. This was not an isolated incident. It happens every day of every week in one or other of our prisons. Much of that violent behaviour, as we have heard, is caused by drugs, so what steps are being taken to increase sentences for those found guilty of supplying drugs to inmates?

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights an horrific incident, and I know the prisons Minister has already replied to a letter from him on this matter. We are fully committed to addressing the significant increase we have seen in the number of assaults on our hard-working prison staff. The new Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 increases the penalty for those who assault emergency workers, including prison officers, and I understand that the police are continuing to investigate this particular incident.

HMP Birmingham

Gordon Henderson Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

The situation at Nottingham Prison has been very concerning, with deaths at the prison of particular concern. We now have a new governor; a very highly respected, professional governor has come in. Tom Wheatley, the previous governor, is moving on to another role. We would expect to see the beginning of a turnaround there within the next six months, with the things to look at in particular being the statistics on drugs and violence.

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

Paul Newton is an excellent governor. He was transferred from Swaleside prison, in my constituency—a prison that has its own problems. What assurances can the Minister give me that the transfer of Mr Newton will not be detrimental to my local prison?

[Rory Stewart]

We have to be cognisant of that, but the Prison Service is a large system. We have more than 20,000 prison officers, so although moving 32 staff will challenge some of the prisons from which they are removed, this should be accommodated within our prisons system. We have a lot of other talented governors, and we remain confident that the need in Birmingham is greater than that at Swaleside. We will make sure that Paul Newton is replaced with a highly effective governor.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Henderson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

That seems an excellent idea, and I am glad that the POA representatives are here today. As the hon. Lady—and any other Members who have visited a prison—will know, prisons are rarely stage-managed affairs, but we will work closely with the POA to ensure that the scheme reflects the experience of working prison officers.

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

I, too, am delighted by the Minister’s announcement. Can he give us any indication of how long it is likely to take to get the scheme up and running?

[Rory Stewart]

Let me again pay tribute to my hon. Friend for having inspired the scheme. The proposal is being put together by the Department at the moment, and I hope that before the end of the year we shall be able to enrol at least a couple of Members of Parliament on exactly such a scheme.

Prison Officers: Working Conditions

Gordon Henderson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the working conditions of prison officers.

Before I begin, I should explain that I have three prisons in my constituency, and I have raised regularly in this House issues that concern people working in them. As I have done on many other occasions, I pay tribute to the fantastic men and women who work in Elmley, Standford Hill and Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey. I am immensely proud of those dedicated, hard-working professionals, who work in an extremely challenging environment, facing the threat of violence almost daily with few complaints and a great deal of courage.

Violence is not the only issue that concerns prison staff—I intend to talk about numerous other issues later —but I will start by addressing it. Ministry of Justice figures show that violence in our prisons is at its highest level since records began. In the last quarter, there were 21,270 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, of which 3,029 were serious. At the same time, there were 8,429 assaults on prison staff, of which 864 were serious. In one quarter alone, about 4,000 serious assaults took place. Given the nature of what constitutes a serious assault, I suspect many were carried out using some form of offensive weapon.

The Serious Crime Act 2015 made it an offence to be in possession in prison of an offensive weapon, so I would expect action to have been taken against those assailants. However, during 2015 and 2016, there were just 149 prosecutions, which hardly seems to be a deterrent to potential troublemakers. Such a low prosecution rate means that offenders know that if they attack a prison officer, they will probably get away with little more than a slapped wrist.

The lack of prosecutions against violent prisoners by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service has been a long-standing bugbear of mine. I have pointed out on a number of occasions—I make no apology for doing so again—that if a police officer is attacked while on duty, the full weight of the law rightly comes down on the attacker. However, if a prison officer is attacked while on duty, too often nothing happens. That cannot be right.

There are a number of reasons for the increase in violence, and I will touch on a few of them. There has been an increase in organised crime in prisons. I have heard stories of prisoners resorting to violence to avoid the risk of early release because their criminal activities in prison are so lucrative. There has also been an increase in the number of gangs in prisons: they are behind much of the organised crime, including the supply of drugs, which is big business.

The use of drugs in prisons is a huge problem, as I am sure we are all aware. A steady supply is smuggled in by visitors, corrupt prison staff and, increasingly, drones. My local prisons have introduced drone-exclusion zones, but they have no real means of enforcing the ban. The problem will be solved only by installing in every prison a system to detect, track and jam drones before they reach their destination.

Another concern is the increased incidence of prisoners smoking Spice and other harmful drugs in their cells. When prison officers enter the cell, they are at risk of harm from inhaling the lingering smoke. I know of a young prison officer in one of my prisons who was seriously affected by the inhalation of Spice fumes and had to be sent home because he was so ill. To counter that, gas masks should be made available to prison officers who enter cells in which it is suspected that an inmate has been smoking harmful substances, such as Spice. Stemming the flow of drugs is essential, and prison officers believe that the task of detecting drugs will be improved by the use of more sniffer dogs in prisons. I urge the Minister to consider that.

Drugs are not the only issue making the management of our prisons difficult. Mobile phones are also a big problem, as they are used to conduct much of the illicit business in prisons. People perhaps do not realise that mobile phones can be used to take photographs of prison officers, which can be sent to contacts outside the prison, who then intimidate them. The Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Act 2012 was supposed to help solve that problem by allowing phone signals to be blocked, but I understand that there have been difficulties implementing the Act. That is why I welcome the new Bill going through Parliament, with Government support, which will make it easier to prevent the use of mobile phones in prisons.

Combating prison violence can be problematic for a number of reasons, including the lack of control in some prisons. For instance, the Prison Officers Association alleges that prison managers sometimes fail to stick to the agreed regime management plans, which are put in place to set out work practices based on the number of officers available at any given time. The POA claims that some prison managers ignore RMPs because they fear the reaction of prisoners if they are not allowed out of their cells, even if there are not sufficient prison officers to supervise them. That leads to too many prisoners being unlocked without proper supervision. I should add that there is no evidence that that is happening in my three prisons.

That leads me nicely to another problem: the lack of prison officers. The Prison Service is in the process of recruiting more officers. Like the POA, I welcome that recruitment drive, but the influx of new recruits has presented its own challenges. Under benchmarking, the Prison Service lost thousands of experienced prison officers. They have been replaced with young, inexperienced officers, who are being asked to manage increasingly violent prisoners. We must do our bit by giving them the tools they need to do their job safety and effectively. One such tool is PAVA—pelargonic acid vanillylamide—which is similar to a pepper spray and is widely used in the police force. The Prison Service is piloting the PAVA in four prisons, and the results have been extremely positive.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I rise as the co-chair of the justice unions parliamentary group. He made a comparison with police forces. I have taken part in the police service parliamentary scheme, which enables MPs to gain a fuller understanding of the nature of the work that we expect public servants, including prison officers, to do. Will the Minister consider establishing in prisons something along the lines of the police service parliamentary scheme so that Members of Parliament can go into that environment? I appreciate it is very dangerous, but we could none the less learn much from it and take away much that would be of benefit to our public servants.

[Gordon Henderson]

I welcome that intervention, and I will talk about that issue later in my speech.

I met my local police chief inspector, who happens to be a very small woman, and she said that, without PAVA, she would not be able to do her job on the beat. Between November 2017 and February 2018, HMP Bedford recorded 23 assaults on staff, of which two were classified as serious, whereas, HMP Preston, which has a larger prison population, recorded just eight assaults on staff, of which one was classified as serious. It cannot be a coincidence that, during that period, officers in Preston were issued with PAVA, but those in Bedford were not. The use of PAVA seems to be a no-brainer. I urge the Minister to roll out its use and issue PAVA to all prison officers in all prisons without delay. I would also like to see made available to prison officers rigid handcuffs, radios and body-worn video cameras.

The environment in our prisons gives rise to another big concern. Unlike police officers and firefighters, prison officers have to work until they are 66 years old. Over time, that will increase to 68.

[Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is coming on to changing the pensionable age for prison officers. Recently, I visited HMP Dumfries in my constituency and was most impressed by the prison officers and the standard of their work. They expressed concern about the pensionable age being 68—as they put it, 68 is too late. I agree with them. Not everyone is physically robust at that age and, if they are not, does my hon. Friend agree that those prison officers should be found jobs in offices so that they need not be on the frontline?

[Gordon Henderson]

I certainly agree with that, but the problem is, what happens when the administrative jobs run out? What do we do with them then? I think there is another solution. Police officers and firefighters have dangerous and physical jobs, which is why they are allowed to retire early. Prison officers, too, have dangerous, physical jobs. I believe that the time has come to allow them the same rights as their colleagues in the police force and the fire service.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I have a number of personal case studies from prison officers at the prison in my constituency. One of the issues that they have flagged up is that changes have, in effect, blocked their ability to be promoted, because to accept promotion, officers have to sign up to the lesser conditions, so we are losing the experienced officers whom we so need to run our prisons. Is my hon. Friend aware of that and does he share those concerns?

[Gordon Henderson]

Yes and yes. That is just another example of the way in which those in the Prison Service—prison officers in particular but also other prison staff—are treated as second-class citizens of the public service. It is time for us to treat them in exactly the same way as police officers and firefighters.

Equalising the retirement age, for example, would help to make the role of a prison officer more attractive, as would increasing the salary structure. It is difficult to recruit prison staff because they are paid less than other public sector workers, such as border staff. A lot of prison officers who leave the service become border staff. Is it any wonder that a very small minority of corrupt prison officers are tempted to earn money on the side by turning a blind eye to criminal activity in prisons?

As I have pointed out before in the House, it is particularly difficult to attract staff to work in Sheppey’s prisons, because local people can earn more working in a warehouse than they can working in a prison. I believe that my prison staff are worth more money, and they should be paid what they are worth. There is also a frustration among prison officers that they are seen simply as turnkeys. That, too, is wrong. They are not jailers. They are not prison guards. They are prison officers. They should be treated with the respect that their position deserves.

One way to enhance esteem for prison officers would be to make better use of them in other roles, such as in the provision of education and healthcare to prisoners. An inmate is more likely to respect a prison officer if they know that that officer is helping them in some way. That is simply human nature.

I am not expecting—surprise, surprise—the Minister to wave a magic wand and to deliver immediately all the measures that I have suggested. However, it would be nice if he at least acknowledged the important role of prison officers and pledged to start some of the reforms needed to make their working conditions better.

Finally, I have another special request to make of the Minister—the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) touched on this earlier. I was invited by my local prison officers to spend a day with them on the frontline. I agreed straightaway. I thought it would be a good way of understanding better the conditions in which they work. But I made one condition: I would join them only if I was able to wear a uniform and to be treated in the same way as a prison officer, so I could really know what was going on at the coalface. I am sure other right hon. and hon. Members with prisons in their constituencies would like to do the same. Unfortunately, the Prison Service ruled that I would not be allowed to take part in such an exercise. I would be really grateful if the Minister encouraged the National Offender Management Service to change its mind.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rory Stewart]

My hon. Friend makes a very generous offer. We are incredibly interested in that, but the real thing that we need to make the idea work is Members of Parliament prepared to do it. If the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey and even my hon. Friend the Member for Henley are interested in being part of a parliamentary scheme, we really have got something to take to the head of Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service: I can say not just that this is a theoretical idea, but that we have real, living Members of Parliament who are genuinely interested. We can set up a pilot scheme, learn from what happens in the armed forces and the police service parliamentary schemes, and look at the potential support suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley. That would be an incredibly useful thing.

For anyone listening to the debate who is not aware of such schemes, the amazing idea behind the armed forces and police parliamentary schemes is that Members of Parliament can see for themselves what people are going through on the frontline. In fact, legislation considered on Friday, partly on behalf of the police, was driven in part by the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who had been on the police scheme and had been inspired by seeing the action of police officers. So the scheme has changed legislation here in Parliament.

To accelerate, what useful things can we do for prison officers, apart from paying tribute to them for their extraordinary service, intelligence, commitment, honour, loyalty, courage and resilience, and for the way in which they work with unsociable hours and difficult people? Concretely, there are three different types of thing. My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey touched on terms and conditions, but that I will not touch on today, because we are in confidential discussions with the public sector pay review body, looking at exactly the issues raised, such as those of how we move people from the pre-existing closed-term contracts to the new fair and sustainable contract, and the difference in salary compared with other employment opportunities.

To give one small example, of which my hon. Friend is probably aware, in the Isle of Sheppey we pay an increased amount to attract people away from competing professions, such as in transport or the police, to get them to work in the Prison Service. There is much more to be said about that, but I want to talk concretely about the equipment that we can bring in to try to make a prison officer’s life better. We talked about PAVA spray—pepper spray, in other words. My hon. Friend also talked about the introduction of rigid handcuffs and discussed other equipment being proposed, including suggestions for stab-proof vests, body-worn cameras, which we are rolling out across the estate, and CCTV. All that will increase the confidence of the prison officer in dealing with the prisoner.

We also need to be able to prosecute prisoners who assault prisoner officers. We were very proud, on Friday, to be able to double the maximum sentence for anybody who assaults a prison officer from six months to 12 months. But that requires the Crown Prosecution Service to bring those prosecutions. Too often, as my hon. Friend pointed out, there has been an attitude that, somehow, assaulting a prison officer is different from assaulting a police officer on the street.

[Gordon Henderson]

That is a particularly sore point with me. The CPS standpoint has always been that it is not in the public interest to prosecute a prisoner who is already in prison. It may not be, but it is certainly in the interest of the staff who have to suffer those assaults.

[Rory Stewart]

It is 100% in the public interest to prosecute prisoners who assault prisoner officers. If they are not prosecuted, the authority of the state is undermined; it becomes almost impossible for prison officers to run a decent and human regime, very difficult for people to be unlocked from their cells and difficult to move people into education and purposeful activity.

If the education and purposeful activity and the decent and safe environment of the prisoner are not delivered, the prisoner is much more likely to reoffend when they leave that prison. That is a direct threat to public safety; therefore, as my hon. Friend implies, the Crown Prosecution Service must prosecute prisoners for attacking prison officers. We owe that to prison officers, but we also owe it to the public as a whole to have safe, clean and decent prisons. These are our prisons; in the end, prisoners are citizens who come out and reoffend on the streets. We have to restore discipline.

My hon. Friend spoke about drugs and the importation of mobile telephones. In the end, those issues can be dealt with. There are basically only five ways in which mobile telephones or drugs can get into a prison—after all, there is a fence around the prison. They can be thrown into the prison, flown into a prison, dragged into a prison, posted into a prison or carried into a prison. Every single one of these ways needs to be addressed.

We address the issue of people flying things into prisons by tackling drones; of people throwing things into prisons by the use of nets and proper yard searching; of people dragging things into prison by identifying the wire set-ups that run into prison windows; and of people posting things into prison—for example, a letter impregnated with Spice so it can be smoked can be photocopied. But we have not been good enough in England for nearly 40 years is searching humans going in and out of prisons.

Scotland is different. I venture to suggest that it is not a coincidence that the violence and drug rates have been lower in Scottish prisons and that there has been much more regular routine searching of people going in and out of Scottish prisons. I do not think that is an accident. I would be very interested in working with the Prison Service to pilot in 10 prisons increasing the security and routine searching at the gate, to see what would happen. But that will not be enough—many other things need to happen. At the core are people: the prison officers themselves.

There is no point in my standing here and pontificating about the Prison Service because there are more than 100 prisons. With the best will in the world, even if I visited two prisons a week, I would not be able to visit them all in a year. There are more than 20,000 prison officers and 84,000 prisoners. In the end, good prisons depend on good people. That is about recruiting, training and promoting the right kind of people and managing people in the right way.

How do we recruit the right kind of people? We search for exactly the values we are looking for. We train them by focusing on institutions such as Newbold Revel, the prison officer training college, to make sure people feel proud of being prison officers. I am very interested in reintroducing the passing out parade—getting families in to applaud people as they graduate from that training college, so that they feel they are extraordinary public servants, protecting our nation through their work. They need to feel that in their uniform, in their passing-out parade and in every day of their work.

We need to get the training right when people enter, and when people move into the custodial manager role. We need to think about how supervisory officers on the units, even if they do not have formal line management responsibilities, can mentor and drive those young, inexperienced staff. In many prisons, 60% to 65% of prison officers have been there for less than a year; we need supervisory officers to be able to work with them, to give them the confidence and the jailcraft to manage those prisons.

Then, we need to think about what happens at the governor level. How do we make sure that we do not end up in the situation that my hon. Friend found in a prison in his constituency, where there were four governors in five years? We need governors to stay longer in the prisons. We need them to be formally trained before they arrive in those prisons. One of the key determining features in trying to work out why one prison is performing well and another is not has to do with questions that are very difficult to put on paper. We sit here and look at staff numbers, drug levels and the age of the building, but the biggest constant is always the human factor: the culture of that prison and the prison officers, the nature of the leadership and management, the morale of the place and the way in which people work together.

This has been a really important debate. From our point of view in Parliament, we are very proud that there are three Bills on their way through the House of Commons that will help prison officers. One of them is doubling the maximum sentence for assaulting a prison officer. We have another Bill going through that will focus on new psychoactive substances and testing of drugs in prison. We have a third Bill going through the House that focuses on excluding mobile telephones from prisons.

Legislation on its own is not enough. It is about public understanding and support for one of the most unique, precious and impressive services that we have in the United Kingdom. That is why I believe that the proposal, made today by my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey and the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, and supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley, of a parliamentary scheme focused on telling Members of Parliament about the Prison Service will be an enormous help in getting legislators to understand how much our prisons matter to our society and, above all, understanding how much we owe our prison officers.