Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

We are very short of time so I will make some quick points. This is an industrial relations issue. Of course, it is necessary for the Secretary of State for Justice to see it in the context of the security of the Prison Service. He rightly talks about the statutory position. My recollection is that the Prison Act 1952 makes the prison officer a constable, but the real position is that the Prison Officers Association is different from the trade unions for the police and the Army. The trade unions for the police and Army have always been subject to limitation on their actions and in relation to strikes. For most of its existence over 70 years, the POA has been a normal trade union with all the normal trade union rights. If we go back to the situation in the early 1990s, there were a lot of industrial difficulties. There are still industrial difficulties in the prison system, but it was the courts that decided that prison officer trade unions were not to be allowed to operate as normal trade unions. It is an irony that the 1994 Act, introduced by the then Conservative Government, restored some of the rights that they had lost. There was another event, as well as that legislation and the court case. That was the inquiry into the Strangeways disaster. It is important to put on the record a couple of the decisions made by the report produced by Lord Justice Woolf and Judge Stephen Tumim. They decided that there was no need to abolish the trade union status of the prison officers. They said: "““We take the view that industrial action by prison officers should not be made unlawful at this stage.""Conditions in prisons have significantly contributed to the present hostile state of industrial relations, just as they have contributed to souring relations between staff and prisoners.””" That is important at a time when prisons are full and getting fuller. The report went on to say:"““We are encouraged to take this view because we found from the Inquiry's visits to establishments that those places with satisfactory conditions and constructive regimes appeared more likely than other, less well endowed prisons, to have satisfactory industrial relations.””" Therefore, the message from that report is, ““If you sort out the prisons, you will sort out the industrial relations.”” I know it is not quite as easy as that, but I have a strong view, which is shared by most of my colleagues on the Labour Benches— It being two hours after commencement of proceedings on the programme motion, Mr. Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of business to be concluded at that hour, pursuant to Order [this day]. The House proceeded to a Division—