Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

Prison officers play a vital role in combating extremism in our prisons, given the contact and proximity they have with prisoners. Just last December we rolled out a new extensive training programme for all our prison officers to enable them to identify that threat and to help to deal with it.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Northern Ireland Ministers have had to deal with extremism in prisons over the years, with the segregation of loyalist and republican prisoners being an example. Has the Minister had any opportunity to discuss those matters with the relevant Minister in Northern Ireland in order to learn from what we have learned in Northern Ireland to help him to do his job across the UK?

[Mr Gyimah]

We have looked very carefully at the lessons from Northern Ireland in setting up the separation centres that we announced last week. There are significant differences between what is happening in England and what happens in Northern Ireland. No prisoner will default to a separation centre. Ending up in a separation centre will be the result of a prisoner’s behaviour behind bars, and they will be selected by a panel that has been told about their behaviour. The panel will decide where those prisoners go in the prison system, so there are appropriate safeguards in place.