Prison Officers: Retirement

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, in his suggestion that there should be fresh talks about this issue. That is a sensible suggestion and I hope the Minister will take it up.

My father was a policeman. He retired in his mid-50s with the rank of chief superintendent, after 30 years’ service, on full pension. He told me that throughout his police career he had drawn his baton only once: in 1933, when called upon to charge a crowd of miners on strike at Bersham Colliery, near Wrexham. The only person hurt was a reporter from the Wrexham Leader, who had foolishly stuck his head over the hedge to see what was going on and was clacked, as we say, as the PCs passed. Apropos of nothing, the pit was later the film set for “The Corn is Green”, starring Katharine Hepburn in 1979.

I mention this because in the prison inspectorate’s May 2022 report on Berwyn Prison, only two or three miles away from Bersham, it is recorded in paragraph 3.20 that

“During the previous 12 months, batons had been drawn seven times”


to control prisoners, that an

“incapacitant spray … had been drawn and used once”,

and that this was an improvement on the position in 2019, when batons had been drawn 26 times.

I have referred to Berwyn Prison on a number of occasions in this House because it is close to my home. Opened in 2017, it remains the largest prison in the UK, and is the second largest in Europe, with a capacity of over 2,000 places—although I have to say that it has always been underoccupied and understaffed. It suffers from a drug problem, to the despair of the Crown Court judges in north Wales.

Last May’s report says that, at the prison,

“The rate of violence was falling, although it remained comparatively high when set against comparator prisons.”


It continues:

“Among the key challenges facing the prison was the need to recruit and retain staff … There was some evidence … that staffing pressures were undermining local morale, but crucially, the shortage was impacting the quality of staff-prisoner relationships and the pace of regime recovery.”


There was some improvement on figures dating from 2019, which I have previously referred to in the House. At that time, 90% of the staff were less than two years in post. In this report, it is noted that there was

“a severe shortage of band 3 officers, probation and health care staff”,

which

“affected the delivery of some services.”

I have discussed this situation with a very experienced prison officer from Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight. He told me that a lack of experienced prison officers at Berwyn prison was to be expected. He told me, “We watch each other’s backs as prison officers, and you will not get experienced officers into a prison staffed by rookies.”

There you have the background to this debate. Violence, or the threat of violence, is always there, yet the Ministry of Justice requires a prison officer to serve into his late 60s in a job which is probably beyond his physical capabilities. Of course, if he fails his annual physical test, the prison officer is allowed to retire but does not get his full pension. That saves the MoJ money—the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has already covered that point—but it leads to poor recruitment and retention. It is said that the pool of labour to man Berwyn prison in north Wales has been exhausted, and the Prison Service has to look elsewhere, outside of Wales. I should include women, since there have been 18 instances of improper sexual conduct between female staff and prisoners, some of which have attracted heavy prison sentences on the women.

The Ministry of Justice refuses to equate prison officers with policemen or firefighters. It says that officers in those uniformed services make a higher contribution to pensions—again, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has referred to this; it is 15% as opposed to 5%—but of course they are paid significantly more than prison officers. I am sure that prison officers would welcome the same pay and conditions for the risks to personal safety which they constantly run. They are in the same position as police officers and are not allowed to withdraw their labour. Consequently, their bargaining position is open to exploitation by the Lord Chancellor, and that is what has happened.

Why was the Ministry of Justice the first to accept cuts to its funding and why does it remain incapable of persuading the Treasury to fund services for which it is responsible? As I recall, it was a grand gesture by the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, who wanted to be the first in Cameron’s Government to clutch austerity to his bosom. The consequence is that we have a justice system which is starved of funds, collapsing courts and barristers on strike. The backlog of cases is a disgrace which denies victims justice. On the other side of the coin are its responsibilities. The Prison Service is failing in safety, in combatting drugs and, most importantly, in providing adequate rehabilitation, all through the lack of trained and competent staff. It is easy for Dominic Raab to say that he will not address the question of the pension age when prison officers cannot strike. His legacy, I am afraid, will be failure.