Prison Officers Association: Protest Action

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if she will make a statement on today’s protest action by the Prison Officers Association.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the chance to update the House on this important issue.

Prison officers do a tough and difficult job, and I have been clear that we need to make our prisons safer and more secure. I have announced that an extra 2,500 officers will be recruited to strengthen the frontline. We are already putting in place new measures to tackle the use of dangerous psychoactive drugs and improve security across the estate.

I met the Prison Officers Association on 2 November. Over the past two weeks, my team has been holding talks with the POA on a range of measures to improve safety. Those talks were due to continue this morning. Instead, the POA failed to respond to our proposals and called this unlawful action, without giving any notice. The chief executive of the National Offender Management Service, Michael Spurr, spoke to POA chairman Mike Rolfe this morning reiterating our desire to continue talks today. That offer was refused. The union’s position is unnecessary and unlawful, and it will make the situation in our prisons more dangerous. We are taking the necessary legal steps to end this unlawful industrial action.

The Government are absolutely committed to giving prison officers and governors the support that they need to do their job and to keep them safe from harm. In addition to recruiting an extra 2,500 prison officers, we are rolling out body-worn cameras across the prison estate and we have launched a £3 million major crimes taskforce to crack down on gangs and organised crime. In September we rolled out new tests for dangerous psychoactive substances and we have trained 300 dogs to detect these new drugs. We have set up a daily rapid response unit, led by the prisons Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), to ensure that governors and staff have all the support that they need.

Taken together, these measures will have a real and swift impact on the security and stability of prisons while we recruit additional front-line staff. I urge those on the Opposition Front Bench to join me in condemning this unlawful action, and in calling on the POA to withdraw this action and get back to the negotiating table.

[Richard Burgon]

The Justice Secretary has been told repeatedly that the prisons she presides over are dangerous and volatile. Assaults on staff and prisoners are rising. In the 12 months to June 2016, there were nearly 6,000 assaults on staff, 24,000 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, and 105 self-inflicted deaths of prisoners. There are 6,000 fewer officers on the frontline than in 2010. Staff shortages are stark and morale is low, and officers and prisoners alike feel unsafe. The Government’s White Paper does not provide the rapid action that our prison system so urgently needs and has so long asked for.

The Secretary of State has consistently failed to acknowledge that this is a service in crisis. Today’s protest action by prison officers is the clearest sign yet of the fact that this is a crisis over which she and her ministerial colleagues have lost control. Will she confirm when she last spoke personally to representatives of the POA and when she will talk to them next? What solution was put to the POA to address urgently its concerns about safety? Does she accept that the increase in violence on staff and between prisoners is a direct result of her Government’s staff cuts? Does she regret her Government’s decision to cut 6,000 prison staff, and how does she intend to increase the number of prison officers now, not in two years’ time? This is a Secretary of State in denial. She has let down our judiciary, lost the confidence of our prison staff and failed to take effective action in the face of a crisis of violence in our prisons.

[Elizabeth Truss]

It is disgraceful that the hon. Gentleman refuses to condemn illegal industrial action that is putting our hard-working front-line prison staff at risk—it is completely irresponsible. I have made it absolutely clear ever since I was appointed to this role that safety is my No. 1 priority. That is why we are rolling out new tests for psychoactive substances and making sure that all staff have body-worn cameras. It is also why we are already recruiting new staff, for which we have announced a £100 million increase in the prison budget. The hon. Gentleman needs to act more responsibly. He needs to work with me, as does the Prison Officers Association, to make sure that our prisons are safer. Sanctioning illegal industrial action in our prison estate is actively putting people at risk of harm, and I ask him to reconsider his disgraceful stance.