CIRC 103: EARLY DAY MOTION CALLING FOR PRISON MAINTENANCE TO BE INSOURCED

The National Audit Office estimates the Prison maintenance backlog has doubled to £1.8 billion in the past four years. Kim Johnson MP has tabled an Early Day Motion, EDM, calling for Prison maintenance to be brought back 'in-house'. 

Further to this, recent reports by the Independent Monitoring Boards highlight how broken and outdated windows make it easy for drones to deliver drugs and weapons, while prisoners are living in squalor with rats, cockroaches and other vermin.

The POA NEC wholeheartedly endorses Kim Johnson’s EDM. The previous Tory government systematically underinvested in prison infrastructure and estate management which has led to the wide scale dilapidation referenced in the IMB Thematic Review and to the estimated £1.8 billion backlog in prison maintenance required, when only £300 million has been allocated for the next financial year.

The Government now has the opportunity to put this right by insourcing facilities and estates management rather than increasing the profits of private companies. If prisoners are living in squalor, our members are working in squalor. We do not agree that it is too late to invite inhouse tenders.

It is now time to invest in existing prisons, not just new prisons, by ensuring HMPPS manages its own maintenance and facilities management.

I would urge all members to call on their MPs to sign the EDM. MPs can be contacted via ‘Find Your MP’ at https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/

Thank you for your anticipated support.

Yours sincerely

STEVE GILLAN
General Secretary