Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what comparative assessment he has made of levels of (a) assaults, (b) assaults on staff and (c) staffing in public and private prisons.

The Ministry of Justice does not hold data covering a comparative assessment that compares staffing or assaults in public / privately managed prisons.

We publish details on staffing in public prisons every quarter in our HMPPS Workforce Statistics, the latest version is from March and is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/her-majestys-prison-and-probation-service-workforce-quarterly-march-2020. We do not hold data on staffing levels in private prisons.

There were 32,669 assaults in prisons in England and Wales in 2019, of which 26,821 were in public prisons (82% of total assaults) and 5,848 were in private prisons (18% of total assaults).

There were 9,995 assaults on staff in prisons in England and Wales in 2019, of which 8,579 were in public prisons (86% of all assaults on staff) and 1,416 were in private prisons (14% of all assaults on staff).

Please note that Birmingham changed from a private prison to a public prison in July 2019. The figures for Birmingham have not been split between the public prisons total and the private prisons total, all assaults in Birmingham for 2019 were recorded as being in private prisons.

We closely monitor the level of violence in both public and privately managed prisons. This information is used to inform decisions around prison safety, such as procedures and training to support improved safety outcomes.