Starmer Hands Prisoners 6.6% Pay Rise at Cost of £4.4 Million
Keir Starmer has handed prisoners a 6.6% pay rise at a cost of £4.4 million despite depriving 10 million pensioners of their winter fuel allowance because money is so tight. The Telegraph has the story.
Some 85,000 prisoners in England and Wales will get £1 extra a week in their basic pay, which averages about £15, equivalent to a one-off, above-inflation increase of about 6.6%.
The Prison Service said the pay rise recognised that prisoners’ wages had fallen behind inflation during the eight-year freeze since their last wage increase in 2016.
Governors of all public sector prisons in England and Wales were sent a memo in September, just two months after Labour came to power, telling them to raise the wage rates, according to Inside Time, the prisoner newspaper that revealed the increase.
They could choose between an across-the-board rise or bigger targeted increases for the lowest paid. The extra money appeared on prisoners’ wage slips and canteen sheets from October.
However, no announcement was made as Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, prepared to unveil her Budget, with its record-breaking £40 billion tax raid.
It followed July’s announcement stripping more than 10 million pensioners of their winter fuel allowance.
Explaining the decision to raise pay, a Prison Service spokesman said: “Earning money for honest work is vital in helping offenders stay on the straight and narrow, which ultimately protects the public.”
They said prisoner pay had remained unchanged since 2016 and the “modest” rise came at no additional cost to the taxpayer, as it was being funded from existing Prison Service budgets.
A Ministry of Justice source added that pay motivated prisoners to attend work and education, helping to reduce their risk of reoffending, while higher pay may reduce the risk of prison debt, which can spiral into violence.
Offenders can work in jail workshops, where they produce goods such as clothes and furniture, and in prison support roles such as washing dishes, preparing meals and cleaning laundry.
Worth reading in full.
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Sir Two-Tier trawling the bottom of the barrel for votes.
Utterly shameless.
Do prisoners have the vote?
Don’t go giving him ideas…
Why do we pay them?
We pay prisoners?
For what?
They do no work.
They should be paying us! In labour!
Clown World.
I wondered that as well…
A friend of mine, a retired prison officer, explained how much prisoners in Open Prisons can earn during their “confinement”. Many of these inmates are white-collar criminals with valuable skills and contacts, and are encouraged to find work in their previous fields of employment, but return to the prison each evening to eat and sleep. The Prison Service insists that it takes the bulk of any remuneration they receive from their work, which sounds logical and fair.
However, these guys weren’t born yesterday. They go back to work at their old desks having arranged to be paid minimum wage, but negotiate a very substantial “terminal bonus”, paid after their release from prison, which is beyond the reach of the Prison Service.
This only begs more questions.
Well as a means of stoking anger and resentment this is small beer, but as we all know…
Every little helps.
This chap’s on the same page and knows the score;
“There is a consensus of opinion that Labour is appeasing Islam for votes. What they fail to understand is that Islam is using labour until it is strong enough to form its own party at which point labour will be dumped and we face the prospect of Sharia law in the UK. They have already taken over the Home Office and councils.” Lord Talbot
https://x.com/RobertM39748880/status/1886849050479042865
Okay. I write regularly to someone in a UK prison, and he tells me that whole corridors have already been cleared out and replaced with convicted members of grooming gangs, predominantly taxi drivers. They keep themselves to themselves, and during exercise time when they’re let out, they embrace and hug like brothers.
Back in the day, BBC Panorama might have made a documentary about it.
In other news, prisoners to get a pay rise. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Prisons are now Fifth Column training grounds?
We give them full board and lodging for years AND a pay rise. No wonder so many keep re-offending
I can’t reply to all the commenters here but I must reply to you. I have a close relation (23) in prison. It may be his own fault that he is in there but he would never choose prison as preferable to being free. If you had any idea how they are treated you wouldn’t say this. You might find it helpful to read and learn about prison life from the Secret Prisoner columns that were published weekly until recently in the Telegraph (now ended as, after serving many months on remand, a jury unanimously acquitted him in less than an hour). Many prisoners are paid a pittance for doing jobs that actually take some of the load off the prison guards (eg helping dish out food) and prisoners have to pay for extra food (they don’t get nearly enough under the prison regime and it is extremely poor quality), as well as phone credit. I believe some desperate people do reoffend to get back to prison but this is likely because life outside is extremely difficult for them, especially for those who have no family or friends to help them – prisoners get released with only £40 (I think),… Read more »
…though I gather that withdrawing the winter fuel payment has cost money rather than saving it.
What an irony! They so know what they’re doing, don’t they? (That’s being sarcastic!)
Makes you wonder about the idea of means testing the state pension. Will it cost more to staff this than it will save which has already been said of the Winter Fuel Payment.
Government is all about choices. ——This government makes the WRONG choice on EVERYTHING. This must be some kind of World Record and this is what happens when you govern by ideology and common sense is ditched.
Please all see my reply to Lulu-b45 – I haven’t got the energy to write it all over again. I am not particularly supporting the present government over this but I don’t think it is so unreasonable as this article and all the comments that I’ve read are making out. Many people who used to get the winter fuel allowance can afford to do without it (eg me); many prisoners are desperate and rely on financial support from family or friends and if they don’t have such support are in bad straits. Not all those in prison have done very bad things, some nothing at all (eg those on remand who don’t succumb to the blandishments of pleading guilty to get out of jail sooner – a bit like in a bad game of Monopoly). I do not support the Labour government in any shape or form but I think this is one of their slightly less bad moves. I am surprised that those who have commented here appear to know so little about what it’s like in prison, especially for the young – and when they come out the police don’t give them a chance, often hounding them for… Read more »