Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister back to the Ministry of Justice in her new role. Like her predecessors, she comes to this House triumphant about the Government’s recruitment campaign. However, the reality is that we just have to look at the breakdown in the number of prison officers to see that it is far from the truth. Some 80,000 years of cumulative prison officer experience have been lost, a third of officers have less than two years’ experience and the number of officers is now falling again—still lagging 2,500 behind 2010 levels. Will the Minister in her new role simply commit to bringing prison officer numbers back to 2010 levels?

[Lucy Frazer]

We have made a significant breakthrough in the number of prison officers. We have introduced the key worker scheme, which allows prison officers to build relationships with the prisoners, and during my visits to prisons I have heard that the scheme is extremely popular among prisoners and prison officers. We are professionalising our workforce in the youth estate, providing all frontline officers with a foundation degree—