Mark, what's actually happening or about to happen in terms of this survey?

So we launched this survey a few years ago in competition with the HMPPS people survey.

And it's conference policy to encourage our members not to fill in any type of survey from our employer at all.

The reason being it always gets used against you.

Let me just give you an example.

So for years now, The reason people, or one of the main reasons people have been leaving the prison service, is because the pay has not been sufficient and doesn't compete with other industries and other public sector organisations.

For the last two years, evidence from HMPPS to the Pay the View body has highlighted through the People survey that pay is no longer a driver why people leave the service.

But the general content of the answers form a vital part of the union submissions to the pay review body and to the employer.

Tell the listeners what you've told the paper.

I think it's an absolute disgrace.

He should serve his entire sentence in a prison, staring at four walls in solitary confinement, thinking about his horrific crime that he committed.

And let's be honest, he's played the system.

Some psychiatrist has decided he's now mentally unwell.

Well, what a surprise.

And he's not the first one who's done this.

And earlier on, you spoke with an incandescent national chair of the Prison Officers Association, Mark Fairhurst.

If endless incentives have failed to reduce violence, is it time to return to the principle that those in custody are prisoners first and children second, with tougher regimes and meaningful sanctions for poor behaviour?

Yeah, again, another great point made there.

But unfortunately, you're dealing with, officially, people under the age of 18 who are classed as children.

It's the most violent part of the prison estate.

It doesn't seem to be getting too much better.

Although the introduction of PAVA has reduced violence a bit, but not as much as we would like.

You're dealing with other agencies.

Staff need help and a decent living wage for the work they do.

Is it the right thing to do?

It is, and unfortunately, although I disagree and don't think it's justice, for example, a perpetrator of a crime getting sentenced to nine years is only gonna serve three years in custody.

That to me is not justice.

And it's a necessary evil because we're so overcrowded and because this is decades of austerity measures, budget cuts, closing prisons, not enough cell spaces, and now cuts have consequences, and this is part of the consequences.

But there need to be exemptions for serious sexual offenders and violent offenders, but there are no exemptions.

This applies to all prisoners on a standard determinate sentence.

So there will be, as you say, by next June, at least 6,000 early releases because of this new legislation.

Now, the response at the time from the Ministry of Justice was, "Really serious offenders will not be released under the scheme." I wonder what both of you make of the fact that the government seem to think child rapists, groomers, exploiters, sexual abusers are not necessarily serious offenders by this definition.

But that will only happen if the investment comes via the Treasury to make it happen.

You're dead right here, Ian.

And I always say this, in my 34-year career so far, I've met more decent people serving a sentence than I've ever met in society.

They're not all bad.

Um, you know, oh, during the austerity years, we were forced to save over 900 million pounds.

The, the, the government of the day closed 20 public sector prisons with a loss of over 10,500 cell spaces.

Oh, wow, we could do with them now-... and we lost over a hundred thousand years of experience by letting staff go early on a redundancy package.

So what's the point of them being there apart from them losing their freedom? There are, there are other ways to do this, aren't there?