George Howarth
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Prison Officers: Pension Age
George Howarth Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Grahame Morris
I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s analysis. We heard the Minister talking this morning about the recruitment of an additional 4,500 prison officers, but from the information provided by the POA it seems that substantial numbers of newly trained prison officers—at least 72 trainee prison officers—are leaving the service each month. That must be due, at least in part, to the terrible conditions they face. Again, that is placing great strain on older officers who are expected to take up the slack.
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case, as did the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson). Is it not the case that beyond a certain point some jobs are difficult to do? In the past, that could have included construction workers, working on cold, tough building sites in the dead of winter. This is another example of people reaching a point in life when it is no longer tenable for them to be expected to carry out these duties.
Grahame Morris
It is no longer tenable, Mr Hanson. We have reached tipping point, if I might quote a couple of quiz shows. The fact that prison officers are expected to work until the age of 68 disregards basic health and safety; in the opinion of many, it is a complete failure by the Ministry of Justice in its duty of care, under legislation, to prison officers.
I and many Members of the House believe that our uniformed emergency services deserve pension protection. Police officers and firefighters are able to retire at 60,
“to reflect the unique nature of their work”,
to quote Lord Hutton. A prison officer’s unique nature of work has been recognised as being the same as that of a police officer. Section 8 of the Prison Act 1952 gives prison officers
“all the powers, authority, protection and privileges”
of police officers. So the Hutton pension test—
“to reflect the unique nature of their work”—
applies equally to prison officers, police officers and firefighters. Sixty-eight is too late. How many Members of this House would be able to serve on prison landings at 68? There are few who would be able to serve for a week, or even a day, in such violent and dangerous prisons.