Prison Officers: Retirement

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I open by agreeing with the three previous speakers. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, closed by asking for a “hard think” about this situation. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, asked for informal talks to start with the POA, and that request was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas.

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for securing this debate. He has shown dogged determination to secure justice and dignity for prison officers. I know that the POA union is extremely grateful for everything he does in this place for its members, who, let us face it, have one of the toughest and most dangerous jobs that we ask public servants to do.

We have heard some of the statistics, but I shall go over them again. Violence in prisons, especially against people working in them, has increased in recent years. The latest ONS safety in custody statistics, published January, show that there were 20,872 assault incidents in the 12 months to September 2022, up 11% from the 12 months to September 2021. In the most recent quarter, assaults were up 5% to 5,590 incidents.

It was recently reported that civil servants at the probation service’s HQ are being redeployed to work in prisons because of the staffing crisis there. An HMPPS spokesman said:

“We are temporarily moving around 90 qualified staff from desk-based roles to help frontline colleagues in prisons and probation.”


My first question for the Minister is: what action will the Government be taking immediately to address insufficient staffing in our prisons?

As the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said in introducing this debate, newly recruited prison officers cannot draw their full occupational pension until they are getting on for 68 years old, depending on their date of birth. As he said, the POA has argued that this increased pension age is one reason why many younger officers are leaving the occupation. In recent evidence to the House of Commons Justice Committee, Mark Fairhurst, the national chair of the Prison Officers’ Association, said:

“If I join now as an 18-year-old recruit, I have to work for 50 years on the frontline before I can access my full pension, because our retirement time is now 68; it is related to the state pension. We must be the only uniformed frontline service in the entire country that expects staff to work in what I class as the most volatile, hostile workplace environment … That is not practical, and it puts off a lot of people.”


As we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, a 2011 report by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton of Furness, proposed that some uniformed services—namely the police, firefighters and the Armed Forces—should be exempt from the rise in the retirement age to 68. The decision excluded prison officers from the uniformed services that were spared the retirement age rise. This omission has never been explained or justified; it is a cause of anger and resentment among prison officers. This omission was then enshrined in law with the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 despite its apparent conflict with the Prison Act 1952, which grants prison officers

“all the powers, authority, protection and privileges”

of the police.

In 2016, as part of a prospective deal negotiated by the then Secretary of State for Justice, Liz Truss, the retirement age for prison officers would have been reduced by up to three years from 68 to 65. This was voted on by the POA’s members but was rejected by 65% of those polled. Since then—this is another point made by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee; in fact, by all the speakers in this debate—Conservative Ministers have argued that any lowering of the pension age for prison officers would

“mean that their pension contributions would have to increase.”

Of course, prison officers would be quite happy to make a greater contribution if their salaries were comparable to those of the other uniformed services.

Another point, which has not been made, is that reports by the Prison Service Pay Review Body have continued to raise the pension age as a concern, arguing that it is

“far too old to cope with the physical and mental demands of being an operational frontline Prison Officer.”

I quote again the POA’s national chair, Mark Fairhurst, who told the Justice Committee this last month:

“Lord Hutton neglected to include us as a frontline uniformed service. He classed us as civil servants who are deskbound. We are not. We are unique. We face violence every single shift. The police do not. They might go through the entire week dealing with pleasant people, and of a weekend they have to deal with a bit of violence when the pubs spill out. We deal with violent people every single shift, and we are expected to do that in our late 60s.”


In concluding, my question for the Minister is this: do the Government recognise that it is more difficult for men and women in their late 60s to control and restrain people who may be only a third of their age? Can the Minister show any evidence that prison officers at this age are able to do this work?

I think all noble Lords have asked for talks to be reopened. This is a difficult issue; it will not go away, and I will listen to the Minister’s answer with interest.