Prison Officers: Working Conditions

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson]

I certainly agree with that, but the problem is, what happens when the administrative jobs run out? What do we do with them then? I think there is another solution. Police officers and firefighters have dangerous and physical jobs, which is why they are allowed to retire early. Prison officers, too, have dangerous, physical jobs. I believe that the time has come to allow them the same rights as their colleagues in the police force and the fire service.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I have a number of personal case studies from prison officers at the prison in my constituency. One of the issues that they have flagged up is that changes have, in effect, blocked their ability to be promoted, because to accept promotion, officers have to sign up to the lesser conditions, so we are losing the experienced officers whom we so need to run our prisons. Is my hon. Friend aware of that and does he share those concerns?

[Gordon Henderson]

Yes and yes. That is just another example of the way in which those in the Prison Service—prison officers in particular but also other prison staff—are treated as second-class citizens of the public service. It is time for us to treat them in exactly the same way as police officers and firefighters.

Equalising the retirement age, for example, would help to make the role of a prison officer more attractive, as would increasing the salary structure. It is difficult to recruit prison staff because they are paid less than other public sector workers, such as border staff. A lot of prison officers who leave the service become border staff. Is it any wonder that a very small minority of corrupt prison officers are tempted to earn money on the side by turning a blind eye to criminal activity in prisons?

As I have pointed out before in the House, it is particularly difficult to attract staff to work in Sheppey’s prisons, because local people can earn more working in a warehouse than they can working in a prison. I believe that my prison staff are worth more money, and they should be paid what they are worth. There is also a frustration among prison officers that they are seen simply as turnkeys. That, too, is wrong. They are not jailers. They are not prison guards. They are prison officers. They should be treated with the respect that their position deserves.

One way to enhance esteem for prison officers would be to make better use of them in other roles, such as in the provision of education and healthcare to prisoners. An inmate is more likely to respect a prison officer if they know that that officer is helping them in some way. That is simply human nature.

I am not expecting—surprise, surprise—the Minister to wave a magic wand and to deliver immediately all the measures that I have suggested. However, it would be nice if he at least acknowledged the important role of prison officers and pledged to start some of the reforms needed to make their working conditions better.

Finally, I have another special request to make of the Minister—the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) touched on this earlier. I was invited by my local prison officers to spend a day with them on the frontline. I agreed straightaway. I thought it would be a good way of understanding better the conditions in which they work. But I made one condition: I would join them only if I was able to wear a uniform and to be treated in the same way as a prison officer, so I could really know what was going on at the coalface. I am sure other right hon. and hon. Members with prisons in their constituencies would like to do the same. Unfortunately, the Prison Service ruled that I would not be allowed to take part in such an exercise. I would be really grateful if the Minister encouraged the National Offender Management Service to change its mind.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson). It is important for the Houses of Parliament to focus on prisons and in particular on the service of prison officers. As my hon. Friend pointed out in his substantial and eloquent speech—he is extremely well informed, with three prisons in his constituency—and indeed as my hon. Friends the Members for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack) and for Henley (John Howell), and the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) pointed out in their interventions, we have a very strong debt of obligation towards our prison officers. Prison officers are very unusual uniformed public servants. They generally operate outside the public eye, and prisons are not places that the public generally visit. That is why I wish to come on to that good idea of a parliamentary scheme suggested by hon. Members.

The job of prison officers is very unusual. On the one hand, it has some of the features of the job of the police, in so far as they are dealing with criminals and therefore with a lot of violence and trauma but, on the other, a particular set of skills is also required. Unlike a police officer, a prison officer may often see the same individual hour after hour, day after day, week after week and even year after year, having to provide a moral exemplar for such individuals on their journey towards ceasing reoffending. Prison officers are helping to educate and support them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey pointed out, in everything from healthcare through to employment.

The challenge presented by my hon. Friend is what we can do practically to help prison officers in their daily work—and, my goodness, they face a challenging situation.

[John Howell]

I am fascinated by the idea of providing opportunities for Members of Parliament to work in prisons. I happen to be the deputy chairman of the Industry and Parliament Trust. Will the Minister work with me to see whether the trust might develop a form of fellowship to take the idea forward?

[Rory Stewart]

My hon. Friend makes a very generous offer. We are incredibly interested in that, but the real thing that we need to make the idea work is Members of Parliament prepared to do it. If the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey and even my hon. Friend the Member for Henley are interested in being part of a parliamentary scheme, we really have got something to take to the head of Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service: I can say not just that this is a theoretical idea, but that we have real, living Members of Parliament who are genuinely interested. We can set up a pilot scheme, learn from what happens in the armed forces and the police service parliamentary schemes, and look at the potential support suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley. That would be an incredibly useful thing.

For anyone listening to the debate who is not aware of such schemes, the amazing idea behind the armed forces and police parliamentary schemes is that Members of Parliament can see for themselves what people are going through on the frontline. In fact, legislation considered on Friday, partly on behalf of the police, was driven in part by the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who had been on the police scheme and had been inspired by seeing the action of police officers. So the scheme has changed legislation here in Parliament.

To accelerate, what useful things can we do for prison officers, apart from paying tribute to them for their extraordinary service, intelligence, commitment, honour, loyalty, courage and resilience, and for the way in which they work with unsociable hours and difficult people? Concretely, there are three different types of thing. My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey touched on terms and conditions, but that I will not touch on today, because we are in confidential discussions with the public sector pay review body, looking at exactly the issues raised, such as those of how we move people from the pre-existing closed-term contracts to the new fair and sustainable contract, and the difference in salary compared with other employment opportunities.

To give one small example, of which my hon. Friend is probably aware, in the Isle of Sheppey we pay an increased amount to attract people away from competing professions, such as in transport or the police, to get them to work in the Prison Service. There is much more to be said about that, but I want to talk concretely about the equipment that we can bring in to try to make a prison officer’s life better. We talked about PAVA spray—pepper spray, in other words. My hon. Friend also talked about the introduction of rigid handcuffs and discussed other equipment being proposed, including suggestions for stab-proof vests, body-worn cameras, which we are rolling out across the estate, and CCTV. All that will increase the confidence of the prison officer in dealing with the prisoner.

We also need to be able to prosecute prisoners who assault prisoner officers. We were very proud, on Friday, to be able to double the maximum sentence for anybody who assaults a prison officer from six months to 12 months. But that requires the Crown Prosecution Service to bring those prosecutions. Too often, as my hon. Friend pointed out, there has been an attitude that, somehow, assaulting a prison officer is different from assaulting a police officer on the street.