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Offender Management Bill

I thank the Prison Officers Association for briefing me on the amendment. The Bill is currently silent about which restricted activities the Home Secretary plans to allow non-prison custody officers to perform. I understand that that will be revealed only when the Home Secretary publishes the order, which will be ““subject to negative procedure”” in relation to which restricted activities a worker may be authorised to carry out. Once the order has been passed, it will be for the director of the private prison to instruct non-prison custody officer staff to carry out some, if not most, of the currently restricted activities. Amendment No. 104 is, I believe, an attempt to clarify at least some of the restricted activity areas that may be the subject of any such authorisation and place them in the Bill. As such, I support it.