Prison Officers Association: Protest Action Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Justice
Victoria Prentis
Main Page: Victoria Prentis (Conservative - Banbury)Department Debates - View all Victoria Prentis's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
I respectfully say to the right hon. Gentleman that I have had a number of meetings with the POA and discussed issues of safety, on which I share its concerns. I am absolutely not attacking the hard-working prison officers on our frontline, but it is a mistake for the POA to call for unlawful industrial action in the middle of talks. I urge it instead to come back to the negotiating table, because that is how we will get a safer environment for our prison officers to work in; we will not get that through unlawful industrial action.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
When I was a very junior civil servant under a Labour Government, one of my first tasks was to get an injunction to stop the POA going on strike—we did that many years ago. Will the Secretary of State tell us the effects of the current unlawful industrial action, both on those who work in our prisons and on those detained in them?
Elizabeth Truss
We have implemented our contingency plans across the prison estate, at local, regional and national levels, but clearly we will not be able to run full regimes and that puts people at more risk. We are managing as safely as we can, but I strongly urge the POA to come back to the table to start negotiations again, so that we can reach a solution that helps make our prisons safer.