Oral Answers to Questions

Craig Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

12. What assessment she has made of the effect of increasing the number of prison staff on the (a) safety of prison officers and (b) capacity of prison staff to spend more time directly engaging with and supervising prisoners.

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

13. What assessment she has made of the effect of increasing the number of prison staff on the (a) safety of prison officers and (b) capacity of prison staff to spend more time directly engaging with and supervising prisoners.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns), whose 30 years in the House have been a joy to behold—although I have been here for only seven of them. We recently visited Chelmsford prison together, and I saw at first hand his commitment not only to his constituents but to the cause of improving prisons in this country. Chelmsford prison is one of the 10 prisons we selected for the early recruitment of prison officers. We said that 400 prison officers would be recruited by the end of March. I can confirm that they are now in training or in post in those prisons, including Chelmsford.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

First, may I say what a fantastic group of professionals we have in our country’s prison officers? I want to make sure there is good career progression right through from entry into the Prison Service to becoming a governor, and good training—we are launching a new apprenticeship scheme for prison officers to make sure people have the right skills all the way through.

[Craig Williams]

The Unlocked scheme is being rolled out. When will the graduates start?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Unlocked scheme is like Teach First for the Prison Service. We have had an incredible number of applications to join it. The final assessment was held on 1 April and we are now able to offer places to 60 candidates, who will start their training on 18 July. It is a really important scheme for not only bringing top graduates into our prisons but exposing employers to the fantastic work that goes on there.