Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of levels of staff (a) retention and (b) morale at HMP Woodhill.

Ensuring prison officers stay and progress their careers is a priority, and we are working hard to retain and develop clear career paths for operational staff.

HMP Woodhill has implemented an action plan focused on staff retention and improvements have been seen in attrition rates this year.

We have created a retention framework which is linked to wider activities around employee experience, employee lifecycle and staff engagement at work.

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Justice, will publish an initial action plan by no later than 29 September 2023, addressing immediate concerns at HMP Woodhill. The prison is already taking steps to drive improvement including:

• receiving support from the Standards Coaching Team, which provides prisons with advice to improve standards in priority locations; and
• temporarily reducing capacity to free up resources and support stability.

We will be monitoring the situation at HMP Woodhill very closely to ensure there is a speedy and sustained improvement.