Prison Officers Association: Withdrawal from Voluntary Tasks

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

Since 2010 we have deported 33,000 prisoners —5,810 in 2015-16 alone—to their home country. There is a lot more work that we can do, and I am engaging directly with the Governments of the top 10 countries from which foreign national prisoners come in order to speed up the process.

[Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

Our prisons are unsafe and dangerous, and the Minister inherited that situation. We must not forget that we have lost 7,000 experienced prison officers. When Spice, which is a very cheap drug, came on the market, prisoners who were recalled within 28 days of being released were able to expand their business on the next landing. The steps that are being taken are a sticking plaster rather than major surgery. We need to recruit massive numbers of prison officers. We need proper pay and proper skills, not adverts for 18-year-olds with no experience.

[Mr Gyimah]

We lost 6,000 or 7,000 prison officers, as the hon. Lady has said, but during that period we also closed 18 prisons. The key change in our prisons, as she has rightly says, is the advent of drugs such as Spice and Black Mamba, which have a huge value in prisons and make prisoners violent. In addition, our cohort of prisoners has become more violent: three fifths of people in our prisons are there for dangerous or drug-related offences. That is why we face a game-changing situation. More staff is part of the answer, but dealing with drugs and mobile phones is a key part of it, too.