Prison officers may strike within weeks in war with Jack Straw

Crippling prison strikes could take place within weeks after Jack Straw yesterday picked a bruising fight with guards.

The Justice Secretary announced laws to ban prison officers from taking any industrial action from May this year.

The contentious move is likely to have the opposite effect in the short term, setting off a wave of protests from the Prison Officers Association.

The union staged one walk-out last year in a bitter dispute over pay and could react to Mr Straw's provocation with more action.

Police - who are themselves threatening to ballot for industrial action and planning a huge protest march through central London - have been lined up by the Government to step in to run jails if strikes take place.

The 12-hour walk-out last August caused chaos, including a riot by inmates at Lancaster Farms Young Offenders Institute in Lancaster that caused £220,000 of damage, according to Mr Straw yesterday.

Prisoners nationwide had to be locked in their cells, paralysing parts of the court and justice system.

Asked how he would react to a strike within days of yesterday's announcement to MPs, Mr Straw said: "I do not want this to happen. If there is industrial action, we will have to take decisions at the time."

Labour opposed a Tory ban on striking introduced in 1994 and later overturned it, bringing in a voluntary no-strike agreement between the Government and POA.

But the agreement has broken down in a bitter wrangle over a decision to stage the prison officers' annual pay rise - the same treatment dealt out to the police.

Last summer, the union gave 12 months' notice that it was withdrawing from the deal, leaving officers free to walk out from May this year. The wildcat strike last August gave a warning of what lies ahead.

Talks have since been ongoing over a new deal but Mr Straw - ahead of any agreement being reached - has decided to pass laws which would ban strike action outright.

The measures will be kept in reserve, and used only if no agreement can be struck. But they will be hugely provocative at a time when a series of rows over pay have rocked the public sector.

Mr Straw said he had been left with "no alternative" but to seek the powers to protect the public and inmates.

But the POA has warned that industrial action is growing "ever closer" and could respond within weeks.

Its members are likely to be furious, and will demand a firm response. Options also include working-to-rule.

General secretary Brian Caton said: "We are not prepared to be bullied or intimidated by murderers and terrorists so we will certainly not be bullied or intimidated by politicians."

He added: "We will be calling all public sector workers to unite against this reserved legislation."

Mr Straw has held secret talks with Scotland Yard chiefs over plans to deploy officers in jails should a strike go ahead. Members of the Met's riot squad - the Territorial Support Group - are to receive extra training to prepare them at a cost expected to be tens of thousands of pounds.

It is understood Mr Straw and his representatives have also been in touch with a number of other force chiefs.

Police Federation leader Peter Smyth described the move as "shameful" at a time when his members, who are banned from striking, are at loggerheads with the Government over pay.

Labour MP John McDonnell accused the Government of an act of "bad faith" to prison guards, who are coping with a chronic overcrowding crisis.

He added: "A pattern of Government attacks on public sector workers seems to be emerging."

Former Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard accused Mr Straw of having "no shame".

He said: "Isn't this the most humiliating U-turn by the Secretary of State who personally campaigned shamelessly for the votes of prison officers in the 1997 General Election by promising to give them the right to strike?"