TUC general secretary Paul Nowak called for an end to prison privatisation as he addressed prison officers at their Eastbourne conference today.

“You can’t run prisons or a criminal justice system on the cheap — and you should never run prisons for profit,” the union federation leader said in his address to the POA.

There are currently 15 prisons in the private sector in the UK — with notorious contractors Serco and G4S among firms operating prison services for profit.

But Mr Nowak said “the incarceration of citizens is the responsibility of the state, not an opportunity to make a quick buck. Let’s say today: no more competition, no more fragmentation, no more privatisation — let’s invest in a publicly owned, publicly accountable prison service.”

The recruitment and retention crisis in prisons could not be addressed without delivering a proper pay rise for prison officers, he warned.

“The cost-of-living crisis is in large part a wages crisis. Since the financial crash of 2008 workers have lost an average £20,000 on their pay packets in real terms. The weekly shop is going up, our rents are going up, our mortgages are up, our bills are up — everything is going up except our wages.

“We live in a country where prison officers are struggling to put the fuel in the car to go to work. Where staff at prisons like Nottingham are setting up food banks for their own colleagues.”

Mr Nowak contrasted the struggles of public servants like prison officers to the booming fortunes of the super rich, noting luxury car dealer Porsche enjoyed record sales in 2022.

“We need a fundamental economic resettlement in this country,” he urged, calling for workers to elect a Labour government to deliver it.