Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the levels of recruitment and retention of prison officers in England and Wales; and how many positions are vacant due to retirement, resignation or ill health.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We know that sufficient and skilled frontline staffing is fundamental to delivering safe, secure, and rehabilitative prisons. We remain committed to ensuring prisons are sufficiently resourced and that we retain and build levels of experience.
Substantive recruitment efforts will continue at all prisons where vacancies exist or are projected, with targeted interventions applied to those prisons with the most need. We closely monitor staffing levels across the estate, including at a regional level, and look to provide short-term tactical support where possible. Where establishments feel that their staffing levels will affect stability or regime, there are a number of ways they can maximise the use of their own resource and seek support from other establishments in the short term, through processes managed nationally at Agency level.
HMPPS has a retention strategy in place which is linked to wider activities around employee experience, employee lifecycle, and staff engagement at work. Alongside the strategy a retention toolkit has been introduced which identifies local, regional, and national interventions against the drivers of attrition, which are utilised by establishments to ensure that they are embedding individual Retention Plans.
HMPPS publishes the following data as part of the HMPPS Workforce quarterly statistics for prison officers. This includes:
The number of prison officers appointed to HMPPS annually, consisting of direct new recruits and existing staff who converted to a band 3 officer grade;
Resignation rates cover the rate for those who voluntarily resigned from the organisation;
Leaving rates covers the rate for all leavers and all reasons for leaving, including deaths, resignation, dismissals and redundancies; and,
Reasons for leaving for prison officers.
This data can be accessed via the following link: HM Prison and Probation Service workforce quarterly: HM Prison & Probation Service workforce quarterly: September 2025 - GOV.UK:. Table 1 below gives an overview of Band 3-5 prison officer joiners, leavers, leaving rate and resignation rate: 2019/20 to 2024/25:
Table 1: Band 3-5 prison officer joiners, leavers, leaving rate and resignation rate: 2019/20 to 2024/25
12 months to end of… | Number of joiners | Number of leavers | Leaving rate | Resignation rate |
Mar-20 | 2,317 | 2,852 | 12.2% | 8.0% |
Mar-21 | 2,410 | 2,116 | 9.2% | 5.4% |
Mar-22 | 3,845 | 3,386 | 14.5% | 10.9% |
Mar-23 | 4,314 | 3,331 | 14.6% | 9.7% |
Mar-24 | 4,821 | 3,170 | 13.2% | 8.5% |
Mar-25 | 2,416 | 3,047 | 12.5% | 8.3% |
Sep-25 | 1,971 | 2,622 | 10.9% | 7.0% |
HMPPS also publishes the difference between Staff in Post (SIP) and Target Staffing Figures (TSF) for Band 3 to 5 Prison Officers at establishment and national level in the Annex of the workforce quarterly publication (Table 4 of the Prison and Probation Officer Recruitment Annex, which can also be accessed via the link above). There was a difference of 1,225 FTE between the SIP and TSF for Band 3-5 prison officers in HMPPS at the end of September 2025. We are unable to attribute specific vacancies to reasons for leaving and as such, cannot calculate a breakdown of vacancies by reasons for leaving.
Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prison officers in England and Wales were recruited from (1) the Commonwealth, and (2) the European Union, in each of the last three years for which figures are available; and how many of these earn in excess of £41,700 a year.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice does not hold the requested data in a single central system. Information on nationality, new joiners, and salary is recorded across separate administrative systems, and linking these datasets accurately would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prison officers in England and Wales hold work visas which are due to expire in 2026; and what assessment they have made of the effect of this on the morale of staff and good order within the prison estate.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice holds data pertaining to employees who have limited leave to remain. This data includes all employees, past or present, for whom this would be the case, but there is no functionality to withdraw any ex-employees from the data other than manually checking every file. To provide an accurate response to the question would be of disproportionate cost.
We are clear that net migration, as a whole must, come down. We will of course provide support to those affected by the changes to Immigration Rules, and anyone with a Skilled Worker visa can be considered for an extension where possible.
We are working with Home Office colleagues to consider the impact of the reforms and options to ensure the safety and stability of our prisons. We know that sufficient and skilled frontline staffing is fundamental to delivering safe, secure, and rehabilitative prison regimes.
Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations they have received about the impact of COVID-19 on the (1) livelihoods, (2) retention, and (3) recruitment of lawyers who are dependent on the legal aid scheme; and what action they intend to take as a result of any such representations.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
The measures introduced by HM Treasury have provided some support to the profession. We are working closely with legal practitioners and other providers of legal support across the justice system at official and Ministerial level, to understand their concerns and the immediate and longer-term support needs to keep the justice system running during the crisis and beyond.
The Legal Aid Agency, which administers legal aid on behalf of the Lord Chancellor, has taken steps designed to help support legal aid provision during this period including making money available to draw down as interim payments and halting debt collection.
On 1 May, new hardship payment rules came into force for criminal practitioners allowing them to claim 1 month after they were first instructed instead of 6 months and to lower the threshold for work done on the case from £5,000 to £450. We estimate up to 20,000 cases under the LGFS (Crown Court litigators’ fee scheme) and 27,000 cases under the AGFS (Crown Court advocacy fee scheme) could be eligible under the new provisions, increasing the amount of funding brought forward (when combined with the interim payments already available) from £45m to £140m.
We also recognise the impact of covid-19 on third sector advice organisations. This is why the Government announced that it is allocating £5.4 million in funding to specialist legal advice not for profit organisations, including Law Centres, in addition to the funding that the National Lottery Communities Fund is administering.
We will continue to work with practitioners to support a strong legal services sector, which includes consideration of recruitment and retention within the professions with the ultimate aim of ensuring that the most vulnerable in society are provided with the representation and support they need.
Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of COVID-19 on the administration of justice, and in particular on (1) victim services, (2) litigants in person, and (3) defendants.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie - Shadow Minister (Justice)
HM Courts & Tribunals Service is working hard to keep our justice system functioning during this unprecedented public health emergency. Our priorities are to maintain access to justice and to protect the safety of all who work in the courts and tribunals.
We are continuously reviewing our approach in light of PHE advice and to understand impacts on our all our users, particularly those who are vulnerable.
(1) Victim services
We are committed to ensuring victims continue to receive the support they need during this challenging time, and have robust and flexible plans in place to ensure that we can continue to deliver key services across the justice system, including the support of victims.
We have been working across government and with justice partner agencies to ensure that there will be comprehensive support for victims and witnesses across England and Wales.
(2) Litigants in person
The recently agreed Legal Support for Litigants in Person Grant will invest £3.1m over two years to enhance support for litigants in person. We are working closely with delivery partners in the advice sector to ensure the department’s grant funding to litigants in person support services remains responsive to the needs of those self-representing in the justice system, including the impacts of COVID-19. This new funding is in addition to the approximately £8m invested through the Litigants in Person Support Strategy (LIPSS) since 2014/15.
(3) Defendants
We are working very closely with the judiciary to prioritise caseload and case types, and continually reviewing procedures to support access to justice during the emergency period, particularly for the most time-critical and sensitive cases. In the Crown and magistrates’ courts, bail applications and cases where the defendant is in custody awaiting sentence have been prioritised.