Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

We support the amendment. The pay review bodies set up by the Government report in good faith. If the Government wish not to accept their recommendations, they should explain their reasons to the House of Commons and be subject to examination on those reasons. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, has said, trust is eroding among prison officers and the police in the efficacy of these pay review bodies. The appointment of a pay review body has been used over and again to take the sting out of an industrial conflict. It has very often been the price that the Government or a state body have paid for seeing an end to industrial conflict. They ought not in our view to undermine those provisions. That is why we support the amendment.