PRISONS Minister Damian Hinds faced a grilling from prison officers at their annual conference in Eastbourne today.

The East Hampshire MP met cries of “answer the question!” from members of the POA union after failing to answer Yes or No on whether it was appropriate for prison officers to work until 68.

The union’s chairman Mark Fairhurst told the minister: “Our workplace has become more violent.

“You really can’t expect a 67-year-old to roll around on the floor with a violent 21-year-old. It’s cruel. It’s unrealistic. We want to retire with dignity — we don’t want to die in service.”

He asked him: “Do you agree that the retirement age for prison officers is too high? And will you commit to entering into negotiations with this union to achieve a standalone offer to reduce the retirement age for prison officers to 60?”

Mr Fairhurst said a statement in Parliament comparing prison officers’ work to that of seafarers was inappropriate. 

Seafarers did not routinely get “assaulted by a shipmate with a sharp-edged weapon, or get faeces and urine thrown over them, or go back to their cabin to find their cabin mate has smashed it up and barricaded the door because in the galley the chef refused to give him more chips,” he said to stormy applause.

But Mr Hinds said the union knew the government’s position and he was unable to offer anything new.

In an address to the conference, he said the Tories had reduced crime rates and regarded the POA as a valued partner whose members’ often unseen contribution to society was appreciated by government.

But the lengthy speech did not address pay or the pension age, two key concerns of union members.

The recruitment crisis was so severe that “in some prisons we’re struggling to unlock people to give them showers and phone calls, and if recruitment is so great” (as the minister had implied) “why is there a desire to send over 300 people on detached duty, getting to the point of forcing people to live hundreds of miles away from their homes, because we can’t recruit staff?

“If you want to retain staff pay us what we’re worth — give us an above-inflation pay rise!” the union leader urged.