Prison Officers: Mandatory Body Armour

Brian Leishman Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I thank the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) for bringing this very important debate to Westminster Hall.

Even though the prison system is largely a devolved matter, I would like to speak about things from a Scottish perspective. I regularly speak about prison officers’ working conditions in this place, in both Chambers and as a member of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group.

I am fortunate to know many serving and recently retired officers from HMP Glenochil in my constituency. Officers at Glenochil and every other prison in Scotland do remarkable work every day for pay and conditions that, in all honesty, do not match their skills, commitment and efforts. The 3.5% pay award that officers are due to receive this coming year is just not enough—not when inflation is sitting at 3% and is projected to rise with ongoing global war and conflict, increasing energy costs and a cost of living crisis that shows no sign of stopping. Prison officers deserve better—all workers deserve better. No one should become poorer. When we factor in the fact that those officers are expected to work until they are 68, which is ludicrous for any worker, and when we look at the mental and physical demands of being a prison officer, we see that it is unrealistic, unjust and utterly unacceptable.

Let me talk briefly about the psychological strain of the profession. No amount of body armour will assist an officer who has to deal with criminals who are looking to gain psychological advantages over them and trying to ingratiate themselves, ultimately to manipulate the officer and to garner information. It is a relentless mental attack, all done to assert power, control and dominance over the officers.

Many officers have said that the mental strength and fortitude necessary to be always in a heightened state of alertness is incredibly exhausting. There is also the physical element of working on landings. It is absolutely ridiculous to ask someone in their mid to late 60s to cope with the demands of going up against a prisoner who could be 40 to 50 years younger. Common sense says that that just should not happen.

Why are we considering body armour provision as a solution? Scotland’s prison population is the largest we have ever had. Overcrowding is making everything much more difficult. It has an impact on officers’ ability to look after prisoners safely, and a negative impact on the likelihood of effectively rehabilitating offenders. We simply do not have enough prison officers to safely manage a prison population of this size.

Alongside the record numbers, the complexity of the prisoner demographic means an urgent need for extra prison spaces, increased investment in staff training, a staff recruitment drive and an overall longer-term strategy that will define the purpose of our prisons. With much of our prison estate in dire need of investment, many facilities are not at the standard necessary to keep officers and prisoners safe. Facilities that are outdated and unhygienic must be addressed. No one should go to their workplace if it is in a decrepit condition.

Our prison officers pride themselves on their professionalism. They are rightly concerned about conditions for the prisoners that they are tasked with keeping safe, but also with helping to rehabilitate. If these issues are not tackled, the strain on our prison system and on the officers who staff it will only keep growing, leaving our prisons much more dangerous and rehabilitation much less likely.

Overcrowding, squalid conditions and increases in prison violence can be attributed to the political cuts of austerity. Rising numbers of assaults on officers have led to retention issues. With so many officers leaving the service, that means an exodus of vital skills and expertise. This is no anecdotal tale. The Prison Officers Association has stated that since 2010, over 116,000 years of cumulative prison officer experience have left the UK wide service.

Time is pressing, so I will lay out some questions for the Minister to address either today or, if it is more convenient, by letter. On body armour, does he agree with the POA that stab-proof vests should be mandated across the entire closed adult male estate, not just separation centres and close supervision centres? Does he agree that slash-proof vests should be available to all prison officers, wherever they work? Does he accept that one of the drivers for increased prison violence is the amount of experience that has left the Prison Service? Can he name another profession that encounters such high levels of violence, where it is so normalised and where workers are expected to work until they are 68 years old? Does he accept that prison officers working until 68 is unrealistic and that the unjust retirement age is a factor in the staff recruitment and retention issues in the service? Finally, will the Government do the right and sensible thing and lower the retirement age for prison officers?