ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE PROVISION OF PRISONER ESCORTS (Hansard, 25 June 1991)

§ Mrs. Rumbold
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

§ Madam Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments Nos. 89 to 92, 94 to 96, and 122 to 129.

§ Mrs. Rumbold
Amendment No. 88 and the associated amendments are all concerned with the Bill's provisions on prisoner custody officers. Amendments Nos. 90, 94 to 96 and 122 to 129 make some modest improvements to the provisions of the Bill relating to the certification of prisoner custody officers. They do two things.
First, they enable different grades of certificates to be issued depending on whether the person concerned wishes to be authorised to escort prisoners, to work in a contracted-out prison, or both. However, we believe that it is most likely that many prison custody officers will want to do prisoner escorting only or in a contracted-out prison only. Although many of the requirements and much of the training will be common to the two functions, it does not seem necessary for someone who is going to escort prisoners to receive training which is relevant to work inside a prison only, and vice versa. Secondly, the amendments provide for expiry dates to be set for prisoner custody officer certificates. We think that it would be better if provision were made for the certificates to expire after a certain period. Otherwise, they could remain in force for many years after the holder has ceased to be employed as a prisoner custody officer—perhaps for the rest of his lifetime.
Amendment No. 92 was introduced in response to an undertaking that I made when the clause was considered by the House in Committee. The clause places prisoner custody officers under a duty to attend to the well-being of prisoners under escort. We agree that that duty should include matters such as the explicit obligation to protect 948 prisoners from public scrutiny and insult and to provide adequate light, ventilation and standards of physical comfort in the vans used to transport them.
We intend to make rules to cover those matters, so as to ensure that prisoner custody officers are under no less an obligation than are prison officers under prison rules with regard to the escort of prisoners.
The amendment is phrased in general terms because matters other than those mentioned may also affect the welfare of prisoners, and they may need to be taken Into account, too.