John McDonnell
Main Page: John McDonnell (Independent - Hayes and Harlington)Department Debates - View all John McDonnell's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
Yes, I absolutely will. We will work on rehabilitation reforms post-prison and look to improve the level of work in prisons. We will also look to continue to expand education and training in prisons. We have, for example, set in train plans to double the amount of education in the youth estate. Those things simply did not happen under the previous Government. Labour Members accuse us of warehousing offenders, but I think they were the ones who were guilty of that.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has quoted the Prison Officers Association. He is not a man who would want to mislead or confuse the House, so may I tell him what the POA has said today? It has said:
“The decision by NOMS”—
that is, himself—
“to further ‘crowd’ the already overcrowded public sector estate by an additional 440 undermines the commitment that prisons will be safe, secure and decent”.
The POA describes that as
“the perfect storm of a rising population, a lack of staff and too few prison cells.”
Could the Secretary of State start listening to the prison officers themselves, for a change?
Chris Grayling
When we set about the current programme of benchmarking, I did precisely that: I listened to our staff and governors and accepted their recommendation, and I am implementing their recommendation thanks to the hard work of staff at all levels across the prison estate. The hon. Gentleman talks nonsense when he suggests I am not listening to the staff.