Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he has taken to help increase the retention rate of staff in HM Prison and Probation Service.

Safe, decent, rehabilitative prisons require excellent and experienced staff, as does supervising offenders in the community to keep the public safe.

We want them to stay in the Prison Service and to support retention, we have:

• Accepted every penny of the Prisons Service PRB pay recommendations for 2023/24.

• Injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year since 2021 to support Probation staff to deliver more robust supervision.

• Rolled out BWV to every officer, to help protect staff by defusing volatile situations.

• Introduced a New Colleague Mentor scheme to help new recruits feel supported in their early weeks and months.

Retention for prison officers is improving, with the staff resignation rate dropping from around 10.7% to around 8.3% over the last year to December 2023.