Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential effect of different policy options on levels of recruitment and retention among staff at prisons that are located close to but not within the London weighting qualifying area.

We continue to review policies to ensure that they still meet business requirements. As a result, the performance of HMPPS recruitment has been strong over the past 18 months and we have had regional populated merit lists of eligible candidates for use as needed across all establishments. We have improved other policies to improve staff retention and to ensure that staff continue their career in HMPPS.