That this House has considered the potential merits of mandatory body armour for prison officers.
May I begin by thanking all the Members who have taken the trouble to attend and hopefully speak in this important debate, and also the Minister and shadow Minister for their anticipated contributions? Members of all parties in the House will wish to put on the record our appreciation for prison officers up and down the country, who work tirelessly and courageously to protect our society. Let us especially pay tribute to Claire Lewis, a brave constituent of my friend the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), the newly appointed Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who we heard in full voice a few moments ago on another debate topic. She rightly drew attention to Claire’s work on 18 June last year.
After suffering a horrific assault, Claire set up a petition calling for anti-stab and anti-slash protective gear to be made mandatory for all prison officers. It achieved over 32,500 signatures. She had been severely stabbed in the back with a broken bottle while working on a supposedly less risky general population wing at HMP Frankland as a prison officer in 2010. In her own words, the attack left her with
“life-changing physical injuries and deep psychological toll…to this day.”
I understand Claire is watching at home today, so this is a good opportunity to acknowledge her remarkable commitment and dedication in turning such a dreadful experience into an inspirational campaign for change. No one should be subject to needless vulnerability while doing his or her job. Prison officers work constantly to safeguard society from some of the most dangerous and violent people. They are entitled, in return, to expect from us the maximum practicable protection from attack.
Sadly, Claire’s experience is no isolated incident. According to The Independent, the number of assaults on staff in adult prisons in England and Wales nearly trebled in the decade from 2014 to the end of 2024, from 3,640 to 10,605.
I commend the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. The figures in Northern Ireland have also increased in recent years, with 96 attacks recorded in 2024, up from 59 in 2023 and 66 in 2022, reflecting rising safety concerns in Northern Ireland’s prison system, as he has referred to. It is attributed to factors such as overcrowding and higher prison populations. Does he agree that if we are to address the issue of prison officer safety, we need to address the issue of overcrowding and higher prison populations? Every prison officer should have access to body armour to ensure their safety.
Yes, indeed. No debate in this Chamber or the main Chamber would be worth while without a typically relevant contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
The rise that I quoted earlier equated to 122 attacks on staff for every 1,000 inmates on the prison estate. Such a level of violence has inevitably brought into question the safety and adequacy of the current protective equipment available to prison officers at work. Only last year, three officers were viciously attacked in a particularly serious incident at HMP Frankland, the same prison where Claire was badly wounded.
The full implications of this unacceptable deterioration have yet to be learned, though significant progress was made last September, when the Justice Secretary announced during a visit to Belmarsh prison that 10,000 more staff would be given stab-proof vests and 500 tasers would be supplied to trained personnel. Although those steps are welcome—they would have helped protect Claire in her prison—they go only part of the way. The extra 10,000 vests will provide a stab-proof garment for every prison guard working in high-security facilities, but even with body armour being made mandatory for prison officers working in close supervision and separation centres, too many at-risk staff remain without protection.
Any prison officer working on any wing of any prison can be attacked. Therefore, any prison officer working on any wing of any prison deserves to be protected from violence while trying to do his or her job. Yes, progress has been made, but as long as any prison officers lack adequate protection and remain vulnerable to attack, there is still work to do.
High levels of violence coupled with a lack of protective equipment will undoubtedly serve as a recruitment disincentive for potential prison officers. That must be remedied to ensure that our justice system continues to function and our society remains safe. Prison officers will always face challenges, often in trying circumstances. It is up to us to minimise the risk of attack, if we expect people to volunteer for such a vital, though difficult, career. It is also a matter of justice and fair play. We cannot expect to be protected by brave prison officers if they do not feel that appropriate safety measures are in place.
Order. Six Members wish to contribute to the debate and we have about 50 minutes, so people can do the sums on that—it is about eight minutes maximum for each speech.
It is a pleasure to talk about this very important matter under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I suspect there will be quite a degree of agreement across the House.
The first thing that struck me was a quote from some evidence that the Prison Officers’ Association submitted to the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee last year:
“prisons are inherently violent institutions to live and work in because they are places where large numbers of often violent criminals are forced to stay against their will”.
That may seem rather obvious, but if it is true, and I think it is, then we need to take every step to minimise the levels and seriousness of violence. This would not be tolerated in any other profession or environment, and it should not be tolerated in prisons. I pay tribute to the courage and fortitude of all our prison officers, who have to put up not just with assaults, but with risk and vulnerability every day—10,000 assaults a year, or 30, including three serious assaults, a day. That is not acceptable.
As the Chair of the Justice Committee, I routinely receive the chief inspector’s reports, as well as urgent notifications when there are particular problems, and I will refer to two that I received in the past few days. One relates to HMP Woodhill, of which the chief inspector says:
“The prison was not safe. Rates of violence were very high and at the time of this inspection, only Swaleside (also subject to a UN) had a higher rate of violence among similar prisons. The rate of serious assaults on staff was the highest in the long-term high secure estate and around a third of all violent incidents involved the use of weapons. Unsurprisingly, 61% of prisoners said they had felt unsafe at some point.”
On Swaleside, the other prison referred to there, the chief inspector states:
I declare an interest as an honorary life member of the Prison Officers Association. I also apologise as I am trying to represent my constituents in about four different debates today.
One of the issues that the POA has consistently raised is the nature of the people it is dealing with at the moment. Many prisoners have severe mental health problems. The POA says that they should not be in prison; they should be in specialist units, as should those who are drug dependent. Recently, there have been examples of the POA having tried and failed to negotiate safe practices with management. Limited action has taken place and the union has been dragged through the courts because of the ban on it being able to withdraw its members’ labour. That has to be addressed; there have to be some basic protections. As well as body armour, which I support, there has to be the protection of workers having the ability to take industrial action and negotiate a safe working place.
I thank my right hon. Friend for all the work that he and other Members present do in supporting the POA and making sure that its voice is heard. It is often the case with prisons that out of sight is out of mind. Both because of the conditions in prisons, which are deplorable in many cases, and in particular for the welfare of staff, it is important that we speak loudly on this subject.
The basic principle of this debate is absolutely right and should be followed through, but I have three qualifications to make. First, I believe—we will no doubt hear this from the Minister—that the Government have done a substantial amount more to address this issue. Body armour was first available in particularly dangerous institutions and is now available in all high-category prisons. That is a huge improvement, which has been acknowledged on all sides, including by the staff. It is in the lower-category prisons where it is not routinely available. That may be where we are moving to, but I want to acknowledge what has been done so far because it is a significant development. Both the current and previous Lord Chancellors have been clear on their intention to give the upmost protection to staff.
Secondly, if there is a danger that, through the widespread, customary, routine use of body armour, we will get into a mode of accepting levels of violence. Violence should never be acceptable in our prisons. Yes, the first priority is to keep staff safe, but beyond that, we have to do something about the appalling conditions in prisons. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned mental health; we could equally talk about the chronic levels of drug addiction, organised crime and overcrowding, and the conditions in prisons, all of which create an environment in which violence thrives. That is what I worry about.
It is an honour to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) on securing today’s debate. For more than a decade, I have had the honour of being the co-chair of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group, during which time I have heard first-hand accounts, some of them grim, visited many prisons and heard from prison officers, the Prison Officers Association and others about the violence and how deeply it affects people.
The Prison Officers Association has been warning for years that its members’ health and safety is in practice a low priority for the Prison Service—that is the reality of what they experience. It has been difficult for the union, for a long period, to improve the safety of prison officers. We must now find a way to change that, but that has been their experience, and some aspects of their experience have yet to be addressed in any meaningful way.
Six years ago, I helped to launch the first Safe Inside Prisons Charter, developed by the Joint Unions in Prisons Alliance, a coalition of 10 national trade unions representing the majority of prison staff, including the POA. The third updated version of that charter was published last year, but the Prison Service has yet to adopt its common-sense recommendations. I press the Minister to tell us why it has not done so. A vast majority of unions that are present in prisons have adopted it and saying, “Every union needs to adopt it,” as a reason not to take it on board is not a reasonable rationale.
It is important to highlight how significantly violence in prisons has increased over the last 15 years. We have heard already how the rate of prisoner-on-prisoner violence has risen from around 130 assaults per 1,000 prisoners in 2013 to 240 last year, nearly doubling. The rate of prisoner-on-staff violence has also soared from roughly 40 assaults per 1,000 prisoners to just under 120, tripling in just over a decade. I also have a snapshot from Wales. In 2024, assaults on prison staff rose 22% on the previous year, with a total of 536 attacks. At HMP Berwyn, the nearest prison to my constituency in north-west Wales, there was an increase in that year of 42%. Unsurprisingly, recruitment at that prison in Wrexham has long been challenging.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I thank the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) for bringing this very important debate to Westminster Hall.
Even though the prison system is largely a devolved matter, I would like to speak about things from a Scottish perspective. I regularly speak about prison officers’ working conditions in this place, in both Chambers and as a member of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group.
I am fortunate to know many serving and recently retired officers from HMP Glenochil in my constituency. Officers at Glenochil and every other prison in Scotland do remarkable work every day for pay and conditions that, in all honesty, do not match their skills, commitment and efforts. The 3.5% pay award that officers are due to receive this coming year is just not enough—not when inflation is sitting at 3% and is projected to rise with ongoing global war and conflict, increasing energy costs and a cost of living crisis that shows no sign of stopping. Prison officers deserve better—all workers deserve better. No one should become poorer. When we factor in the fact that those officers are expected to work until they are 68, which is ludicrous for any worker, and when we look at the mental and physical demands of being a prison officer, we see that it is unrealistic, unjust and utterly unacceptable.
Let me talk briefly about the psychological strain of the profession. No amount of body armour will assist an officer who has to deal with criminals who are looking to gain psychological advantages over them and trying to ingratiate themselves, ultimately to manipulate the officer and to garner information. It is a relentless mental attack, all done to assert power, control and dominance over the officers.
Many officers have said that the mental strength and fortitude necessary to be always in a heightened state of alertness is incredibly exhausting. There is also the physical element of working on landings. It is absolutely ridiculous to ask someone in their mid to late 60s to cope with the demands of going up against a prisoner who could be 40 to 50 years younger. Common sense says that that just should not happen.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), who instigated it and who does so much in this area. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) for securing the debate, and you, Mr Betts, for chairing it.
Styal prison, in my constituency of Tatton, is a closed female prison and young offenders institution with approximately 450 prisoners. Violence levels there have increased significantly: 189 assaults on staff and 167 assaults between prisoners were reported in the 12 months to March 2025. That, in itself, tells us that greater protection must be afforded to prison staff. In one horrific incident, a prison officer in Styal, Chloe Armstrong, was left with a tennis ball-sized lump in the back of her head, a swollen face and black eyes after she was repeatedly kicked and punched for just delivering a prisoner’s lunch. What a horrific attack as a thank you for a lunch.
Nationally, violence against prison staff is up. Assaults against prison staff have almost trebled in the last decade. In the 12 months to March 2025, there were more than 10,500 assaults on staff, a record high: 26% involved improvised weapons, while the rest involved blunt force or liquids such as hot oil or boiling water. It should come as no surprise that the rate of prison officers leaving each year is more than 13%—a very turnover rate that no doubt leads to understaffed facilities and further exacerbates the safety risks to both staff and prisoners.
The reality is that life as a prison officer, even at the best of times, is extremely challenging. They must confront and contain unthinkable situations almost daily. To do the job, they must possess a level of bravery that most of us simply do not have. But to do the job without proper protective gear is beyond belief.
If staff do not feel safe at work, it will be hard to attract and retain new employees. We know from a recent survey of officers by the POA, the largest union of prison workers, that officers want extra protection. Who wouldn’t? Some 74% want to be issued with slash and bite-proof vests. Yes, the Government have made body armour mandatory for officers working with the most dangerous offenders, and the news last year that 10,000 more officers in high-security facilities would get stab vests and tasers was greatly welcome, but the Minister should not be surprised that with the increase in violence against staff, I and other Members would like to see the Government go further.
The right hon. Lady had the courtesy to advise me in advance that she would have to leave shortly after 4 pm, so I think it was reasonable to allow her to speak in the debate.
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If the principle of providing protective body armour to all prison officers is accepted, we must ensure the adequacy of the equipment itself. We must listen to and draw upon the experiences of those who have already been issued with protective equipment to make certain that it meets the highest safety standards. In 2024, more than half of police officers and staff in England and Wales said that their uniforms were “unfit for purpose”, restrictive and causing health problems, according to the first national police uniform and equipment survey ever undertaken. Furthermore, that survey revealed alarming health consequences, with 44% of men reporting muscular pain, which was often linked to body armour or heavy equipment, and women reporting that body armour failed adequately to accommodate female anatomy. Ultimately, 62% of male and 85% of female respondents reported at least one physical health condition as a result of equipment flaws.
Lessons must be learned and procurement tailored accordingly, in both senses of the word. As well as its protective function, body armour must be light in weight, not impair mobility and remain comfortable if worn for lengthy periods. I understand that Claire Lewis has identified at least one designer and manufacturer of stab vests and other protective clothing that she believes to offer enhanced protection against blunt force, significantly reducing the risk of injuries from punches, kicks and strikes from improvised weapons. Clearly, market research and objective evaluation will need to be done.
The argument is twofold: we should ensure that all prison officers have comparable protection from attack by prisoners, and the selection of protective equipment must be right rather than rushed. Not only is this morally sound, but it will save costly claims later on from individuals suffering health consequences from faulty equipment.
I conclude with the following questions for the Minister, to whom I have given advance notice—I thank him for his accessibility in this matter. First, does he accept that, regardless of which prison wing an officer works on, he or she deserves protection from violence? Secondly, if that is agreed, will the Government seriously consider rolling out mandatory body armour to all prison officers in all prisons? Finally, may we have the Minister’s word, here and now, that any new body armour procured will be of the highest specification, to avoid causing physical problems for male and female officers further down the line?
“Our inspection of Swaleside, a category B training prison on the Isle of Sheppey, revealed a prison in disarray, with the lowest scores in my five years as chief inspector…levels of violence were some of the highest of any prison in England and Wales and assaults on staff, many of which were serious, had more than doubled since our last inspection in 2023.
Much of the violence had been driven by the large amounts of drugs being brought into the prison by drones. Drug debts and gang rivalry were often the cause of assaults, and many prisoners were routinely making and carrying weapons.”
I appreciate that that rather dystopian description is not typical of every prison in the country, and certainly not of every prisoner. However, if that is the level of harm, then we have to give proper protections to prison officers, including body armour. In principle, I support that, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) for securing this debate just before we pack up for the Easter recess. I am glad, as he is, to see so many people here, because it is a vital issue.
“The real drivers of prison violence—unsafe conditions, lack of purposeful activity, and poor mental health—can only be addressed through improved safety, decency, and respect. That means better staff training, supporting leadership development, and the political will to invest in prison conditions and reduce demand for drugs.”
I hope that view will be echoed on all sides. Rolling out body armour across the entire prison estate may be the right thing to do, and it may be that what has been done so far needs to be improved upon, but it should not hide the systemic, dangerous problems and conditions in our prisons, which are the result of decades of neglect, overcrowding and failure to provide decent standards for prisoners and for staff, who have an incredibly difficult job.
In any other workplace, this would be all over the news as a national emergency, but because this is about prison staff, who are effectively hidden in their work behind high walls, the POA tells me—and I have seen this—that it is treated as just business as usual by the Ministry of Justice, as if this is what people should expect in this workplace.
The POA gave evidence to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee in the other place last year, in which it described being taken to the High Court by the previous Government after two horrific attacks on staff at HMP Lindholme in South Yorkshire. One of those attacks saw a prison officer strangled to the point of unconsciousness, but when officers at the prison told the governor that the prison was unsafe and demanded immediate changes, this was put into effect with the operation of a controlled lockdown to restrict the regime, and the MOJ responded by dragging them into court. Something is very wrong when the response to such extreme workplace violence is to punish those very workers at the sharp end of the assaults.
At the High Court, what shocked me most about the POA’s evidence is that the Government barrister, according to media reports at the time, made the argument that although the violence at Lindholme was “deeply regrettable”, it was—once again—
“business as usual in a prison”.
The POA was dragged back to the High Court again the following year, also for standing up for the health and safety of its members. Because of the permanent injunction that the Government have against the union from taking any form of industrial action, the POA was fined a six-figure sum for what the court called the illegal inducement of members to take action.
Even more outrageous were the threats made in court by Government lawyers to imprison the POA’s leadership for simply protecting their members, meaning that prison officers were threatened with jail for protecting other prison officers. That is the context in which we are talking about the steady increase in violence and the feeling in the profession that there is a lack of response.
I wish I could say that the direction under the Labour Government was significantly different, but evidence suggests that we must question that. When officers at HMP Liverpool took issue last year with the governor’s changes to the prison regime—changes that he himself admitted to the Justice Committee carried an expectation of leading to a potential increase in violence—he cut off direct contact with the local POA committee and restricted facility time, threatening members with disciplinary action and dismissal simply for exercising their health and safety rights.
It is clear to me from talking to the POA many times that the blanket ban on its members from taking any form of industrial action is one of the key factors in prison officers’ discontent. They sense that they are impotent and unable to change their circumstances. The European Committee of Social Rights recently ruled that the UK is in breach of its obligations under the European social charter because of that very ban. It said that
“the blanket ban on prisoner officers striking cannot be deemed proportionate and thus goes beyond the limits permitted by Article G of the Charter.”
The committee concluded that
“the situation is not in conformity with Article 6§4 of the Charter on the ground that that there is an absolute prohibition on the right to strike for the prison officers.”
That is an important ruling, and I urge the Minister to consider its implications seriously, especially in the light of the POA’s current case before the European Court of Human Rights.
Let me go from one aspect of safety to another: back to body armour. The roll-out of stab-proof vests in the high security estate is of course to be welcomed, but it needs to be the norm. The POA is calling for that vital equipment to be mandated across the entire closed male estate. I urge the Minister to take seriously other demands, such as replacing the cumbersome and impractical utility belts, which are weighed down with equipment, with lightweight slash-proof vests, which redistribute weight and can prevent injuries, especially for female officers.
According to the POA, the last Government objected to utility vests because they look too militaristic and intimidating, but surely that is yet another example of the low priority given to prison officer health and safety. In the circumstances, those were not credible objections. Protection at work for prison officers means more than just the right personal protective equipment; it also means the legal protections that almost every other worker enjoys, and specifically the right to take industrial action as a last resort. The last Government treated prison officers as expendable. I urge this Government not to make the same mistake.
Why are we considering body armour provision as a solution? Scotland’s prison population is the largest we have ever had. Overcrowding is making everything much more difficult. It has an impact on officers’ ability to look after prisoners safely, and a negative impact on the likelihood of effectively rehabilitating offenders. We simply do not have enough prison officers to safely manage a prison population of this size.
Alongside the record numbers, the complexity of the prisoner demographic means an urgent need for extra prison spaces, increased investment in staff training, a staff recruitment drive and an overall longer-term strategy that will define the purpose of our prisons. With much of our prison estate in dire need of investment, many facilities are not at the standard necessary to keep officers and prisoners safe. Facilities that are outdated and unhygienic must be addressed. No one should go to their workplace if it is in a decrepit condition.
Our prison officers pride themselves on their professionalism. They are rightly concerned about conditions for the prisoners that they are tasked with keeping safe, but also with helping to rehabilitate. If these issues are not tackled, the strain on our prison system and on the officers who staff it will only keep growing, leaving our prisons much more dangerous and rehabilitation much less likely.
Overcrowding, squalid conditions and increases in prison violence can be attributed to the political cuts of austerity. Rising numbers of assaults on officers have led to retention issues. With so many officers leaving the service, that means an exodus of vital skills and expertise. This is no anecdotal tale. The Prison Officers Association has stated that since 2010, over 116,000 years of cumulative prison officer experience have left the UK wide service.
Time is pressing, so I will lay out some questions for the Minister to address either today or, if it is more convenient, by letter. On body armour, does he agree with the POA that stab-proof vests should be mandated across the entire closed adult male estate, not just separation centres and close supervision centres? Does he agree that slash-proof vests should be available to all prison officers, wherever they work? Does he accept that one of the drivers for increased prison violence is the amount of experience that has left the Prison Service? Can he name another profession that encounters such high levels of violence, where it is so normalised and where workers are expected to work until they are 68 years old? Does he accept that prison officers working until 68 is unrealistic and that the unjust retirement age is a factor in the staff recruitment and retention issues in the service? Finally, will the Government do the right and sensible thing and lower the retirement age for prison officers?
Protective equipment and clothing should be provided irrespective of the category of prison. Sadly, violence can happen in all types of prison. Figures from the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons consistently show that local prisons, which are mostly category B rather than A—the high-security ones—have extremely high numbers of assaults. Although the lower categories of C and D have less violence, the risk can still be considerable, and it is rising.
I will end by quoting the retired prison officer Claire Lewis, who was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East. She was brutally stabbed in the back while on duty—an entirely preventable incident that left her with life-changing injuries. Claire said:
“Protective clothing is not a luxury—it’s a basic necessity. It can mean the difference between an officer walking out of their shift or being carried out. Prison officers deserve to feel safe.”
I have just read—this must really be a slap in the face for prison officers—that killers and terrorists have just got £1 million in compensation, plus legal fees, for being segregated alone in a prison, which was viewed as unlawful and in breach of their human rights. Surely money cannot be spent on violent criminals for their human rights when we are not looking after the human rights of our officers, who are there to protect and look after those prisoners, and who do such a good job for us in society.