Luciana Berger
Main Page: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)Department Debates - View all Luciana Berger's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We do not have sufficient staff in our prisons, which is why the Government are putting in additional investment. We started with 10 of our most challenging prisons, where we needed to recruit an extra 400 staff. We have already been able to put out 280 job offers, which shows that we can recruit. In 75% of our prisons we do not have a problem recruiting. In the areas where we do have a problem, we are offering extra retention payments to achieve our recruitment plans.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Our prisons have had 7,000 fewer prison officers since 2010: a cut of 28%. Two thirds of our prisons are overcrowded. We have seen disturbances at many prisons—not just at Birmingham, which we are discussing today—and the level of suicide in our prisons is at its highest for 25 years. That is a truly shameful record and we have seen very little remorse from the Secretary of State today. Will she now apologise?
Elizabeth Truss
I have been very clear about the issues in our prison system. Since I secured this role in July, I have been focused on dealing with them, making sure that we make our prisons safer, invest in prison staff and invest in mental health facilities in our prisons in order to deal with this situation.