Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department's budget has adequate resources to fund the prison anti-corruption taskforce without decreasing spending on other departmental responsibilities.

The Counter Corruption Unit was launched in April this year. It monitors prison and probation services across England and Wales, with 29 specialist staff split into one national and five regional teams. The new unit will help protect prison and probation staff raising awareness amongst staff of the threat from corruption, encouraging staff to report any suspicions of wrongdoing and working closely with the police to pursue cases of suspected corruption. Funding for the unit has been met in full within existing budgets and without a decrease in spend on other areas of prison and probation services.