Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what comparative assessment he has made of levels of (a) violence and (b) staffing in (i) public and (ii) private prisons.

The Ministry of Justice does not hold data that makes a comparative assessment of staffing and assaults in public and privately managed prisons.

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

There were 32,800 assaults in prisons in England and Wales in 2019, of which 26,960 were in public prisons (82% of total assaults) and 5,840 were in private prisons (18% of total assaults).

Violence in prisons remains unacceptably high, which is why we are spending £100 million to bolster prison security, clamping down on the weapons, drugs and mobile phones that fuel violence and crime behind bars. This will fund tough airport-style security, body scanners and phone-blocking technology.

We are giving officers tools like PAVA pepper spray and body-worn cameras to make their jobs safer.

Our Assaults on Emergency Workers Act increased the maximum penalty for those who attack them to 12 months and we recently announced we will double the penalty further to two years.

HMP Birmingham changed from a private prison to a public prison in July 2019. Therefore, 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.