Prison Officers (Work-related Stress)
Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Ruane(9 years, 11 months ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
The background to the debate is the publication last month of a report on work-related stress and the well-being of prison officers. It was commissioned by the Prison Officers Association because of the union’s ongoing serious concerns about the health of its members, especially in the light of the Government’s policy of increasing the retirement age to 68 for prison officers and the startling cuts that have taken place.
The report was undertaken by three experts in the field of occupational health, and particularly occupational psychology, at the university of Bedfordshire. I pay tribute to those researchers for their assiduous work. They were Dr Gail Kinman, who is professor of occupational health psychology; Dr Andrew Clements, a lecturer in occupational psychology; and, assisting them, Jacqui Hart, a PhD candidate and researcher. All of them are appropriately qualified and have high reputations in the field.
Let me take the House through some of the findings of the research, which many of us have found shocking to say the least. The Health and Safety Executive establishes benchmarks to measure and monitor work-related stress among employees. Those benchmarks have been developed into a framework after extensive consultation with employers and the unions, and they are agreed standards by which organisations employing staff can assess the work-related stress experienced by those staff.
There are seven elements of work activity—described as the psychosocial hazards—and they are the most critical predictions of employee well-being. They relate first to the demands of the job—the work load, pace, and hours of work—and to control of work, which is the way a person can control their working environment. There is also management support, peer support—the help workers receive from their colleagues—and relationships, which includes interpersonal relationships, interpersonal conflicts and bullying. The benchmarks also include the measurement of the role and whether the job requirements are clear, and whether or not there is belief in the objectives of the organisation. The final benchmark is about change and how well that is communicated and managed in an organisation. The Health and Safety Executive has developed a self-reporting questionnaire that is widely used across industry and the public service.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Last week I met representatives from the Prison Officers Association to discuss mindfulness in the Prison Service. Mindfulness has been accepted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence as an intervention for repeat episodes of depression, but it also improves compassion, reduces absenteeism, helps with relationship building, and reduces stress. Does my hon. Friend think that mindfulness in the Prison Service could help improve job satisfaction and the mental and physical health of prison officers?
John McDonnell
I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend in this House in introducing mindfulness training for Members as well as staff, and developing that whole concept. I have explored the development of mindfulness which, despite elements of contention, has become extremely popular in its application in working environments. I will suggest to the Minister that we need a meeting to talk about the strategy from here on in, and one provision we could include in that is the offer of services such as mindfulness in the sector, which could prove extremely effective.
Chris Ruane
A new prison is to be built in Wrexham and the chief executive of North Wales health authority is predisposed towards mindfulness. Does my hon. Friend think that teaching mindfulness to prisoners and prison officers at that new prison from the outset would be a good experiment and pilot scheme for mindfulness in prisons?
John McDonnell
Given our concerns about that prison—a Titan prison that will house a larger number of prisoners than any other prison has housed—and about the scale of such a prison and the problems that will result from it, I think mindfulness would be an important strategy that should be built in from the beginning.
As I was saying, the health and safety questionnaire was developed in consultation with employers and union representatives. It is now used widely across the public and private sectors and is based on a self-report questionnaire. It is a standard procedure used by academics who in this case established a survey online. They received 1,682 respondents, which is as large as any national opinion poll, and it was a fairly representative sample.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Ruane(12 years, 1 month ago)
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John McDonnell
Exactly. In 2006 we had a lengthy debate on all sides when we identified groups in society that had not been given a fair crack of the whip and which, if they had, could contribute so much to our economy. Clause 52(1)(a), which removes section 3 from the Equality Act 2006, removes that statement.
It is interesting that only a few months ago the European Commission, in its recent report on equality, recommended to other Governments that they follow the example of the UK and embody in legislation a vision of an organisation that can contribute towards developing a society based on equality. Here we are, taking a step backwards from what is happening elsewhere across Europe. This is not just a tidying-up exercise. It is not about creating unrealistic expectations. It undermines the legislative basis of the organisation.
At the recent conference on discrimination law, Sir Bob Hepple QC made it clear what section 3 stands for. He said that it provides the link between the promotion of equality and good relationships between groups and society, and that without it we are rudderless. That was his statement. We included the measure in the original legislation to give direction.
It is extraordinary that in the Government’s own consultation, which has been cited time and again today and which was entitled “Building a fairer Britain”, there was overwhelming opposition to the abolition of section 3. The opposition was 6:1 against removing that visionary statement from the legislative basis of the commission.
Clause 52(1)(b) repeals the duty to promote good relations between members of different groups. MPs who have been working in their constituencies as MPs, councillors or community activists will recall that it is these sections that we have used to protect individual groups against racist attacks, attacks on Travellers and against undermining and stigmatising people with mental health problems. This is the legislative base that we have used time and again to ensure that the commission can play its full role.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham said, this is the measure that we used to tackle racism in football, so it has been used in campaigns and it has been effective. We have used it to undermine the development of extremist racism in our society and to ensure that we give advice to public authorities, particularly local authorities at elections, to set standards.
It has been argued that other organisations will be available to do this, such as the Runnymede Trust and the Fawcett Society, but both of them are reliant on public funds and some of the public funds that go to those organisations are from the EHRC. The EHRC is having its grant-making cut so those organisations will not be out there to fulfil that role.
On the removal of the duty in section 10, I want to raise an issue on behalf of organisations such as DPAC—Disabled People Against Cuts—and the group in Scotland, Black Triangle. Section 10(5) places a duty on the commission
“to promote or encourage the favourable treatment of disabled persons.”
Over the past year we have had debate after debate on hate crime against people with disabilities. We thought we had a breakthrough with the Paralympics in raising the profile of people with disabilities and extolling what they can do if given the chance. What message does it send out that we are scrapping that duty of the commission?
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Four or five categories of hate crime are monitored—race, religion, gender, sexuality and disability. Over the past year disability hate crimes are the only hate crimes across all the categories that have gone up, and the reason is the language used by the Tories. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Sovereign Grant Bill
Debate between John McDonnell and Chris Ruane(13 years, 4 months ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I rise to speak to amendment 1, page 2, line 31, at end add—
“(4A) The statement must be accompanied by information showing the numbers of directly or indirectly employed hourly-paid staff of the Royal Household working in or in connection with the Royal Palaces in London who in the financial year in question were paid at or below £8.30 an hour.”.
I shall be as brief as possible, given the time constraints. The amendment is straightforward. Clause 2 proposes that the royal household’s accounts are to be reported. I am asking that a statement be included in that report to show the number of employees who are directly or indirectly employed by the royal household and who are being paid at or below £8.30 an hour. The reason that I have arrived at the figure of £8.30 is that that is the London living wage, as set by the Mayor of London, who has described it as the wage level designed to provide a
“minimum acceptable quality of life”
for people working in the capital.
The London living wage was started by a group of religious organisations, churches and trade unions 10 years ago, as part of a campaign by London Citizens. They came together to try to tackle poverty, and recognised that the national minimum wage did not allow people to avoid living in poverty in the capital city. They have campaigned over the past decade to press employers to pay the London living wage. They have targeted cleaners, in particular, who are living in poverty. They campaigned and they won. First, they won in a number of banks at Canary Wharf, then they came to Parliament and ensured that we paid our cleaners the London living wage. The campaign continued right through the capital, and more than 200 major companies have now signed up to the London living wage campaign. The Prime Minister himself described it as
“an idea whose time had come”.
The Leader of the Opposition appeared with him on a platform before the general election with members of London Citizens to sign up to the London living wage. Every mayoral candidate has supported it. Why? They did so because all of us want to see people living out of poverty. Yet in the royal household, which is only a mile and a half away from here, the workers who are employed by contracting companies including KGB—
John McDonnell
It is an unfortunate name, but there we are.
People working in the royal household for companies such as KGB and GreenZone are being paid £6.45 an hour, maximum. We have discovered that many of them are organised by the Public and Commercial Services Union, which is not recognised by the companies. Many of those people do not even have written contracts, which is an illegal practice. The number of jobs there has just been cut, and the work load has increased. Some people have had their hours increased, but they are still living on poverty wages.
The amendment would simply ask the royal household to publish the information on how many people working for the royal family, cleaning their rooms and corridors and serving them in different ways, are being paid below the London minimum wage. In this way, I want to recruit the royal household to support the London Citizens campaign. I want it to lead the campaign. As the Mayor of London himself has said, no company in London should be paying less than the London living wage. The Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and, I believe, the Chancellor and the shadow Chancellor have signed up to the campaign in the past. The amendment simply seeks to tackle poverty wages in London. On that basis, I hope that we can expect the unanimous support of the House.