Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans he has to set a maximum age limit for prison officer staff involved in the security of category A terrorist prisoners.

There are no plans to set a maximum age for prison officers working with prisoners convicted of terrorist offences in Category A prisons.

HMPPS takes the safety of its staff seriously and takes a risk-based approach when deciding which officers are best placed to work with specific types of offender.

This is more appropriate than any blanket age limit, especially as this could exclude some of our most experienced or specialist officers and be discriminatory on age grounds.