Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison staff required hospital treatment following a prisoner assault in each year since 2015.

The number of incidents of a prisoner assault leading to a prison staff member requiring hospital treatment 2018-2022 can be found in the attached table. Data on staff assaults for the calendar year 2023 is subject to future publication on 25 April, in ‘Safety in custody: quarterly update to December 2023’.

Changes were made to the recording of assaults in April 2017 that affects the reporting of hospitalisation. This change means that a comparable time series for this question can only be provided from 2018 onwards.

Staff must be able to expect a safe and decent work environment. We will not tolerate any violence against prison officers, and prisoners who are violent towards staff will face the full consequences of their actions.

We are committed to making prisons a safe place to work and providing prison officers with the right support, training and tools to empower them to do their jobs.

To protect staff and prisoners in very serious assaults, we have rolled out PAVA – a synthetic pepper spray – for use by prison officers in the adult male estate. Staff are able to use the PAVA spray where there is serious violence or an imminent or perceived risk of it.

We have rolled out a new Body Worn Video Camera system which has increased the overall number of cameras across public sector prisons to over 13,000. This enables every operational band 3-5 officer on shift to wear a camera. They are supported by a new Policy Framework which mandates the wearing of the cameras.