Deploying guards to jails cost £2.4m
Prison guards were deployed to ‘plug gaps’ at understaffed jails more than 1,700 times last year – at a cost of £2.4m.
Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon said the figures revealed the “chaos at the heart of the Government’s prisons strategy”. The Ministry of Justice said it was “committed” to making sure it had enough staff to deliver safe regimes. PRINCE HARRY has spoken out about “a lack of strong leadership” in the nation, suggesting more needs to be done to support youth centres helping disadvantaged young people.
Harry highlighted the issue when he visited a youth centre in a London borough with a notorious reputation for gang trouble, which is providing a safe space for teenagers.
His visit to the Roundwood centre in Harlesden was staged to support the national Fit and Fed Campaign – which provides children with sporting activities and a nutritional meal – and is being run locally by the charity Sport at the Heart.
After hosting Harry’s visit to the London borough of Brent, Nary Wijeratne, the founder of Sport at the Heart, said: “I feel like he understood, he got it, he got what communities need these days and he said ‘there’s a lack of strong leadership in this country’.” Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales joked he was like a 900-year-old cathedral with “bits falling off it” as he toured a new exhibition of its splendours. The 69-year-old prince was full of praise for Durham Cathedral’s £10m Open Treasure exhibition, where the priceless St Cuthbert’s Pectoral Cross is on view. The bejewelled artefact was thought to have been buried with Cuthbert in the seventh century and laid untouched for 1,200 years until it was found hidden in his robes in 1827. Charles is today due to mark a “major milestone” in the steel industry by formally reigniting a previously mothballed furnace. The electric arc furnace at Liberty Speciality Steels in Rotherham was mothballed by previous owners during the steel crisis two and a half years ago.