Peter Bone
Main Page: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)Department Debates - View all Peter Bone's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I expect to recruit about 80 to 100 temporary staff, and of course we have a recruitment process all the time. Like any big organisation with tens of thousands of employees, we have a constant process of people moving on and people being recruited and trained. As I outlined earlier, we need some 80 to 100 officers, but I want to build up a much larger reserve so that if we get fluctuations in future we have a pool of people we can draw on, in the same way as the health service and education system do.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I agree entirely with the thrust of policy from the Secretary of State and, of course, the excellent prisons Minister. In Wellingborough, we have a prison that is, rightly, temporarily closed, but which could be opened very quickly. The problem is not capacity across the nation; it is overcrowding in London. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss the possibility of reopening the prison in Wellingborough?
Chris Grayling
I assure my hon. Friend that I am well aware of the situation in Wellingborough, and I do not intend to take any steps to dispose of that prison, because it is sensible for us to have reserve capacity available. I have no immediate plans to change the status of Wellingborough from being a mothballed site.