Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Gordon Henderson

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

Will my hon. and learned Friend explain what she is doing to ensure that prison staff have access to swift testing, to avoid unnecessary periods of self-isolation? Has consideration been given to making mandatory the wearing of face masks by prison officers when on duty?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

I would like to thank all the staff who have been working so hard at this particularly challenging time. We have started to routinely test staff, and we are providing personal protective equipment, including medical-grade face masks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Gordon Henderson

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of staffing levels in prisons.

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

6. What progress his Department has made on recruiting the 2,500 new prison officers announced in 2016.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

In my first orals in this role, I am very pleased to pay tribute to the hard work of all our prison staff. I have had the opportunity, since I was appointed, to visit a number of prisons and I have seen at first hand the dedication of their staff. It is critical that we recruit and retain staff to keep our prisons secure. We have invested significantly in increasing staff numbers, recruiting a net total of an additional 4,366 prison officers between October 2016 and June 2019, surpassing our original target of 2,500, and we will continue to recruit officers to ensure that our prisons are decent and safe.

[Lucy Frazer]

We have recruited more than 4,000 staff since 2016. The hon. Gentleman is right to identify that if the police catch more criminals and we prosecute them, there will be more people going into our prisons. That is why we have committed to investing £2.5 billion in prison places. He is also right to identify that we will need not only prison places but more prison officers. We are actually ahead of our recruitment targets in this regard. The Prison Service has been lauded as a good employer: for example, it is in the top 100 graduate employers.

[Gordon Henderson]

I congratulate the Government on their efforts to recruit more prison officers. However, does my hon. and learned Friend accept that cuts earlier this decade contributed to a vicious cycle of prison violence because fewer officers on landings led to more assaults, which caused more staff to leave, leading to more violence and so on? With morale and retention of prison officers at rock bottom, does she accept that more must be done to reward these brave public servants—for instance, by improving and reducing their retirement age to 60 because 68 is far too late?

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the profile of the work of prison officers in his Westminster Hall debate last year, as well as this morning in questions, and for participating and promoting the excellent Prison Service parliamentary scheme. He is right to refer to prison officers as “brave public servants”, and the Secretary of State referred to them in his conference speech as “unsung heroes”. We made offers to staff to reduce the pension age in 2013 and 2017, but both offers were rejected by the Prison Officers Association.