• part of an ongoing tour of prisons to get to the heart of the daily challenges staff face
• Minister Gyimah thanks staff at Winchester for their vital work in delivering major reforms to improve safety and reduce reoffending
• follows £100 million investment in 2,500 extra officers across the estate and specific funding at HMP YOI Winchester to help give offenders the skills to find employment on release

Prisons Minister Sam Gyimah has paid tribute to the vital work of the Governor and staff at HMP YOI Winchester in part of a nationwide tour of prisons to hear concerns from staff on the frontline.

The visit comes as Ministers embark on wholescale reforms to the prison system – including an additional £100 million to bolster frontline staff by 2,500 and a major package of safety measures. Winchester has been allocated an additional £584,000 of funding to help tackle the rise in drugs, reduce violence and improve safety.

HMP YOI Winchester is also building a new industries and education workshop, which will help give prisoners on-the-job skills to prepare them for finding work on release.

Training schemes such as these provide valuable vocational work for offenders and can help to break the cycle of re-offending which costs society £15 billion a year.

Today (3 February 2017) the Prisons Minister sat down with the Governor and prison officers at Winchester to hear first-hand the challenges they face and how the reforms and increased investment is helping.

Speaking after the visit, Prisons Minister Gyimah said:

Prison officers at HMP YOI Winchester do a challenging and often dangerous job and provide support for a range of offenders.

I came to Winchester to thank the staff for their vital work in helping turn prisoners’ lives around. Schemes to prepare prisoners for employment on the outside are exactly what we want to see across the estate as we embark upon the biggest prisons overhaul in a generation.

“I want to see all prisons becoming places of hard work and discipline where offenders are given the help they need to turn their lives around.

We are investing £100 million to boost frontline prison staff by 2,500 to improve safety and are already carrying out a comprehensive review of our probation reforms to improve outcomes for offenders and communities.

The tour of the prison followed a visit to see the work of probation staff at the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) and the local National Probation Service. The CRC provide a Through the Gate service to support prisoners in the run up to, and after, their release from custody.

Staff from the local CRC work with prisoners at Winchester before they are released into the community to provide a network of specialist support services. This includes providing accommodation, employment and debt advice, support in opening a bank account, as well as offering tailored training and education programmes.

Prisoners released as part of the Through the Gate service are then supervised in the community by HIOW CRC, where they are offered a range of support to help their resettlement into the community and reduce reoffending.

Kim Thornden-Edwards, chief of the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Community Rehabilitation Company (HIOW CRC), said:

I am delighted that the Minister took time out of his busy schedule to meet with our staff and people on probation in order to learn more about the service we deliver.

The visit gave the minister the opportunity to see how we work intimately with HMP YOI Winchester to provide a genuinely Through the Gate service, and to also see how we work in partnership with a range of agencies in order to reduce reoffending.

We are committed to supporting people on probation to ensure their rehabilitation and are proud to get the chance to showcase our approach with the minister.

The strong partnerships between staff at HMP YOI Winchester and the local Community Rehabilitation Company represent the wholescale changes that are taking place across the prison system following on from last year’s White Paper announcement. This includes giving governors more powers over education, work and health, so they can tailor support to the prisoners in their charge.

The Prison Service is also leading a nationwide recruitment drive to bring in the additional 2,500 prison officers. This week, a new scheme to recruit ex-services personnel into the prison service launched at Newbury Race Course. It will aim to attract the thousands of talented men and women who leave the Armed Forces every year with the right skills, grit and determination to make a real difference to the lives of prisoners. They will use their talent and skills to bolster the frontline and support offenders to turn their backs on crime.

A new, 2 year graduate scheme called Unlocked has also been launched and will see participants complete a Master’s degree whilst working on the frontline.

By having more staff on the ground, staff will be better supported to do the job they came into the Prison Service to do, and spend more time reforming offenders.

The UK is helping migrants return home rather than risk their lives continuing perilous journeys to Europe, and protecting men, women and children in danger of trafficking and sexual violence, Prime Minister Theresa May announced today.

Speaking at the Valletta summit in Malta, which is focused on tackling the migration crisis, the Prime Minister announced a new package of more than £30 million in UK aid to provide desperately needed assistance to refugees and migrants across Greece, the Balkans, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Sudan.

This will include life-saving supplies for refugees facing freezing conditions across eastern Europe and Greece, such as warm clothing, shelter and medical care. The UK has also set up a special protection fund that will provide care and support to women and girl refugees in the Mediterranean who may be cut off from family and friends, vulnerable and at risk from trafficking, violence and exploitation.

International Development Secretary Priti Patel said:

Global Britain is stepping up its support for the most vulnerable refugees who are at risk and need our help. Conflict, drought and political upheaval have fuelled protracted crises and driven mass migration. We cannot ignore these challenges.

This latest support from the UK will help those who decide they want to return home to do so safely, protect men, women and children from exploitation, and ensure that those caught in freezing conditions get the basic help they need to survive.

The support announced today will be delivered by trusted humanitarian partners such as the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Start NGO network. It will:

• provide 22,400 life-saving relief items including tents, blankets, winter clothes such as hats and gloves and hygiene kits including mother and baby products;
• protect more than 60,000 vulnerable refugees and migrants from physical or mental suffering. This includes emergency medical care including for those rescued at sea, visits to people in detention centres, provision of legal support, and training of frontline workers to better identify, protect and prevent violence and trafficking of women and girls in camps and in transit;
• allow up to 22,000 people to reunite with family members they have become separated from during their journey, to access legal processes such as registering as refugees, or to return home voluntarily where possible, including with advice, facilitating travel and helping with reintegration on their return;
• help countries that might be able to resettle refugees put the infrastructure and systems in place to do so, potentially including countries in Asia and Latin America, as well as providing advice and support to help governments in countries such as Greece, Egypt and the Balkans better integrate refugees into local communities;
• provide more than 1,500 refugees in Egypt, including those fleeing Syria and other conflicts, with urgent health assistance including medical care for those suffering from malnutrition, exposure, dehydration and other life-threatening conditions as a result of their travel, as well as providing 1,000 educational grants to migrant students making it easier for them to cover the costs of getting back in to school and so encouraging them to settle in Egypt;
• monitor standards and conditions for migrants in detention, including support to the Greek government to improve living conditions in closed camps and conducting visits to 14 detention centres and 5 sea ports in Libya to improve sanitation and hygiene conditions, benefitting 10,000 people;
• fund the running of a newly-established migrant centre in Sudan, replicating a successful model in Niger to provide emergency assistance to migrants in transit and enable voluntary returns home when safe.

In addition to renewed efforts to address the migration of people through Libya, the UK is providing new humanitarian support to people inside the country affected by the conflict. This includes trauma kits and training for frontline medical personnel in medical centres; blankets, mattresses and emergency food aid to those who have been forced to flee their homes by the fighting; as well as supporting the UN to improve the efficiency and co-ordination of its response in Libya by seconding expert staff to support this work.

Notes to editors

1. In addition to this new package of £30.3 million, the UK has set up an £8 million special protection fund to keep women and girl refugees in the Mediterranean region safe from trafficking, violence and exploitation. The humanitarian response inside Libya is a further £2 million, and includes support for the work of the UNHCR and other UN agencies.
2. Overall this brings total UK humanitarian support in response to the Mediterranean migration crisis to more than £100 million since October 2015.
3. In addition to the UK’s funding migration for the response in European and North African countries, we have pledged £2.3 billion for the Syria crisis, our largest ever humanitarian response. By focusing support on meeting basic humanitarian needs in the region as well as providing jobs and education, we are helping Syrians stay in the region and close to their homes.

In its effort to make Namami Gange programme a mass movement with the involvement of more and more voluntary organisations, National Mission for Clean Ganga under Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation signed an MoU with Rotary India in New Delhi today.

The Defence Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar presented the Raksha Mantri’s Trophy and Citation for the best Service Hospital in the Armed Forces

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s
Shadow Health Secretary, commenting
on the latest winter pressures data from NHS England, said:

“The NHS has been stretched to its limits this
winter, with wards
closed, operations cancelled and treatments delayed. Over 3 million people have had to go to A&E
since the start of December and A&E diverts are 86 per cent up on last
winter.

“But this week brought
further evidence of an NHS recruitment crisis – with 2.7 million breaches of
the Government’s agency cap in nine months, applications for nursing degrees
driven down 23 per cent and news today that in 2016 only half of junior doctors
progressed to specialty training. It will be patients who suffer further as a
consequence.

“Theresa May and her ministers simply cannot keep burying their hands in the
sand. The Prime Minister’s utter disregard is letting patients and their
families down.

“The Government is failing
to protect our NHS for the future. Urgent action is required and Labour is
calling for a sustainable funding package for health and social care to be
brought forward in the March Budget, so that the NHS and its patients never have
to go through a winter like this again.”