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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

The question I put to the Justice Secretary on Monday, which he did not answer, is why the Government repealed the legislation in the first place. Is it not clear that it was a mistake to do so? If it was not a mistake, why are the Government now coming before the House, after giving 48 hours' notice, to reinstate legislation that they had previously removed? The Government have not yet satisfactorily explained why they took that action in the first place. The scrutiny Committee was clear that the protection afforded was not to the same standard as a no-strike agreement. The unions thought that they had a deal. The quid pro quo for having a no-strike agreement was that there would be a pay review and that any award would be honoured. Today, the Secretary of State justified the staging of the review—in part, the cause of this grievance—by saying that there were ““exceptional economic circumstances””, which is why the award could not be honoured in full. Conservative Members have been constantly told that we are living through a golden economic age with successive years of economic growth. Now it appears, in the words of the Justice Secretary, that there are ““exceptional economic circumstances””, which means that this award and that of the police cannot be paid. We are apparently living in such dire economic straits that the awards cannot be honoured. That breach of the deal that the Prison Officers Association believed it had has driven its anger about current arrangements. As I said on Monday, the POA is also concerned about the conditions in prisons over which the Government have presided.