Prisons Strategy

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will take the time to read the report, as he will see our emphasis on the vital contribution made by our staff day in, day out and night in, night out to keep our communities safe. I have agreed to meet the Prison Officers Association to discuss the pension age. Prison officers are part of the civil service pension scheme, and the long and short of it is that prison staff pay between two and three times less than colleagues in the fire and police services. However, I want to listen to officers on this point and I am very happy to be meeting my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) and the Prison Officers Association to do so.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

HMP Winchester recently marked 10 successful years of Spurgeons helping prisoners keep contact with their families, and the Minister knows how important that is in breaking the cycle. The only problem is that Spurgeons has not had any family days in the facility for a very long time because of, you guessed it, the pandemic. Does she agree that learning to live with covid must also extend to the secure estate? To enable that, what is the Government’s plan to change the currently very low vaccine uptake in prisons such as mine?

[Victoria Atkins]

My hon. Friend is right to say that we must learn to live with covid within the prison estate, as we do outside prison walls. We are working with NHS local services to roll out the vaccine in custody, and clearly we encourage everyone to be vaccinated, not just inside but outside prison. That will be key to our consideration of further removing the national framework. Of course, we must be led by the evidence and the data.