Handouts for ex-prisoners dwarf rate rise for 999 staff

PRISONERS are to be given “pay” rises which are double the rate of increases for nurses, police and firefighters.

Offenders leaving jail will see their subsistence payment increase by 8.4 per cent in recognition of the rising cost of living.

Their payout – which increases to £82.39 from £76 this month – is being linked to the Consumer Price Index for the next three years.

It follows the lifting of a 26-year freeze on the value of the handout, which increased it from £46 to £76 last year. It was also renamed from the discharge grant to a subsistence payment.

The 8.4 per cent rise compares with government plans for a 4 per cent rise in nurses’ pay, 5 per cent for police wages and 2 per cent for firefighters.

The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) said the rise was justified to ensure prison leavers have enough money to help meet basic needs on release, a critical point in the prevention of re-offending.

The MOJ is reviewing other handouts and prison pay schemes in the face of the cost of living crisis. “Prisoners are not immune from changes in the cost of living in terms of buying essentials in jail,” said a source.

“There are particular risks if nothing is done in terms of the prison regime and in terms of the need to maintain good relationships.”

All eligible prisoners aged 18 or over who have served more than 14 days in custody after receiving a custodial sentence must be given a subsistence payment of £82.39.

Only prisoners on remand, recalled on licence, discharged to a hospital under a mental health section order, or awaiting deportation or removal from the UK are not eligible for the payment.

‘Prisoners are not immune from changes in the cost of living in terms of buying essentials in jail’

It is effectively means-tested in that sentenced prisoners known to have more than £16,000 in savings are not entitled to the payment. Announcing the unfreezing of the payment, then justice secretary Robert Buckland said it “should give offenders the best chance of staying on the straight and narrow in those crucial early days after release.”

An MOJ spokesman said: “This oneoff payment to buy essential items such as food and toiletries so that offenders aren’t forced straight back into crime on release has increased by £6.”