Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff worked for her Department in each year between 2015 and 2022; and what the average vacancy rate was in the same period.

The headcount of staff at the end of each financial year since March 2016 can be found in the attached table. Data is taken from published reports on Gov.uk and March 2015 data is not accessible.

Core Defra cannot provide information on vacancy rate as its Single Operating Platform system does not hold individual vacancy information (this is the same for the whole of Defra).