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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

On Monday, for an hour, I gave a statement, in the course of which I obviously took questions, to set out why the Government have reluctantly felt compelled to come forward with these amendments to the law, which are to be included in the Bill. Let me now set out some of the background. I am of course ready to take interventions from either side of the House, as I always do. In the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, there was, for a variety of reasons, serious industrial action—often not direct strike action but other kinds of industrial action—within the Prison Service, which made the management of the Prison Service extremely difficult and placed public safety at risk, as well as placing the welfare of prisoners in serious jeopardy. The Government of the day did two things. In 1993, they went to court to seek an injunction restraining prison officers under the existing law, which they succeeded in obtaining. Then, in what became the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, they moved amendments, which became sections 127 and 128 of that Act, to prohibit industrial action by prison officers. At that time, as we were reminded yesterday—and it has been a point that the Prison Officers Association has raised—the Labour Opposition spoke and voted against those amendments. However, I want to make it clear that in doing so, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael) did not give an undertaking to repeal section 127 and made it clear that there could be circumstances in which we would accept that such a restriction on industrial action in the Prison Service should be on the statute book. He said:"““It could be argued that when there are people who have special responsibilities—the police are in such a category and it may be argued that prison officers are as well—and therefore there are difficulties about taking specific forms of…industrial action, there should be a guarantee against that. If that is desired, such people should be given something in return—for example, a right that guarantees fairness in any negotiations.””—[Official Report, 13 April 1994; Vol. 241, c. 335.]" He referred to agreements that existed at the time in respect of the fire service. It is also the case that our former Prime Minister, when he was Leader of the Opposition, gave undertakings in general terms about what was regarded as anti-trade union legislation in that Bill and elsewhere. I have to say to my hon. Friends that there were particular things in the measure as originally proposed by the Conservative Government that were plainly totally unacceptable and raised the temperature. They included measures that would have resulted in the certification officer being able to certify the Prison Officers Association as an independent trade union. It was only under pressure from the Labour Opposition that those matters were sorted out. I also want to make it clear that when I became shadow Home Secretary in the summer of 1994 and considered, in full consultation with the shadow Cabinet of the day, whether we should repeal that legislation, I decided that, without more such legislation, we should not, because of the very special circumstances that apply in respect of the running of a prison, which, I suggest, are similar to those of the services to the state and to the community provided by the police and the armed forces. I say to the House, and remind my colleagues, that at no stage did anybody, be it the then Leader of the Opposition, me or anybody else, ever give undertakings that section 127 would be repealed, nor was it in any manifesto, either in 1997 or 2001. Indeed, on three occasions I had to make use of the injunctive power under section 127 to avoid a very serious situation within the Prison Service. I have no recollection of that ever being the subject of complaint from anyone in the House. However, we were concerned to do what my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said, by ensuring that reciprocal arrangements were put in place to balance the fact that prison officers were not able to take industrial action. First, we sought to bring into force part of the 1994 Act, which could easily have been brought into force by the Conservative Administration, but was not, to set up an independent pay review body in place of the previous ramshackle arrangements for settling prison officers' pay.