Safety of Prison Staff

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

First, I will, of course, place a copy in the Library. Secondly, for those who are even more eager to read it, I believe a copy is available on the Ministry of Justice website. We will do everything possible to facilitate the widespread dissemination and reading of that speech.

The Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee makes a very good point: there are far too many foreign national offenders in our prisons. I have been working with the Home Secretary to reduce those numbers. I am always loth to mention Albania, but some countries outside the European Union have concluded good bilateral arrangements with this country in order to facilitate the return of criminals, and Albania—outside the EU at the moment—is one such country. It is not necessary to be in the EU to have good bilateral arrangements, but it is vital, as we move to our new relationship with our European neighbours, to ensure that we return those offenders who are not British citizens.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

The safety of prison staff is a huge issue for me, as I have three prisons in my constituency. Does the Secretary of State agree that we will not get the rehabilitation of prisoners that we all want unless prison staff have the time and resources to enable it to happen and both they and prisoners feel safe enough to achieve it, and that this process will not be helped by ongoing reductions in prison staff numbers?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. I am delighted that we have been able to give Durham prison in her constituency an additional £220,000 in order to help deal with current problems. More broadly, she is right. Even though staff were reduced in the previous Parliament in order to meet benchmarking requirements, there has been a net increase in the number of prison staff since January 2015, and we will be making more announcements in due course about how we intend to recruit even more high-quality people into that important job.