Palatinate www.palatinate.org.uk | FREE
Thursday 9th March 2017 | No. 794
Women in Politics
Is the book always better than the film?
Politics talks to Lisa Nandy MP about women in Parliament
Artistic rivalry Almost 6,000 students respond to proposed term length changes Eugene Smith Deputy News Editor
The Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics is set to be officially opened today
Photograph: Durham University
People and Planet Society call for University to end contract with Mitie Group plc Twenty-four student representatives sign letter to Vice-Chancellor demanding rejection of outsourcing company accused of human rights abuses Sophie Gregory Deputy News Editor Durham University’s People and Planet Society have written a letter to Vice-Chancellor Stuart Corbridge calling for Durham University to end its contract with Mitie Group plc, due to the company’s allegedly poor human rights record. Mitie, a FTSE 250 strategic outsourcing company, has a contract worth £5 million with Durham University that is due to end soon. The company provides Integrated Facilitates Management for Durham and
has been working with the University since 2010, with the contract being renewed again in 2014. However, Mitie has repeatedly been accused of several human rights violations, prompting questions as to why the University continues to do business with them. Though their work with Durham University focuses on a range of services including cleaning, landscaping, pest control and total security management, Mitie is also the largest single private sector provider of immigration detention centres in the UK. Currently, it is in charge of the management of Heathrow (Col-
brook and Harmondsworth) and Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centres (IRC). Mitie’s treatment of those detained in these immigration centres has been viewed as unacceptable. Following an inspection by HM Inspectorate of Prisons in 2016, Mitie’s provisions were deemed to be “in a severely insanitary condition”. Standards of cleanliness and hygiene were deemed to be poor. Further, overcrowding was a problem, with bedrooms designed for two people housing three or four. Three hunger strikes and the suicide of a Moldovan man in 2011 have also been reported at the de-
tention centres. People and Planet’s letter further includes details of poor fire safety, writing that “a suicidal prisoner set fire to his bedding, resulting in nearly £1 million worth of damage to the centre because Mitie had failed to install sprinklers despite multiple requests by the fire services”. In addition to this, official Home Office figures state that detainees are being used for cleaning and maintenance tasks. For these hours, they are paid £1 per hour. In their letter, People and Planet condemn this, saying that “Mitie Continued on page six
Just under 6,000 Durham students have completed a survey responding to proposed changes in the length of the University term, with the protection of pre-exam revision time revealed as respondents’ most important priority. According to figures disclosed to Palatinate, 46.9 percent of students ranked preserving revision time as the most important consideration, whilst 23.6 percent placed preserving a three-week post-exam period as most important, 22.4 percent chose maintaining the length of the Easter holidays, and 7.1 percent of respondents primarily preferred keeping graduation directly after term, rather than a few weeks after. Durham Students’ Union (DSU) released the online feedback form at the end of January after it emerged the University Executive Committee had proposed extending the summer examination period, mainly out of a need to accommodate the influx of students soon to be relocated to Durham City from Queen’s Campus. The potential effects of the proposed changes were said to include a reduction in revision weeks, a shortening of the Easter holiday, delays to graduation and/ or a shortening of the post-exam period. The survey, created due to a prior lack of student consultation on the proposed term changes, garnered around 5,800 responses in six days, constituting 52 percent of the target undergraduate population. Lisa Whiting, the Academic Affairs Officer for the DSU who organised the survey, said: “With 6,000 responses, this is something students definitely care about, and my job is to make sure their views are considered when the final decisions are made. Continued on page six