Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the workloads of prison officers in the North West.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Staffing models in public sector prisons and associated staffing numbers, are reviewed on a routine basis to take account of business changes that may impact on the workload of staff.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Reform UK - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) murderers and (b) prisoners with a history of attacking prison officers are in open prisons for which the latest data is available.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
As of 30 September 2025, there were 266 prisoners with an index offence of murder in prisons whose predominant function is open in England and Wales.
Information on the number of prisoners in the open estate with a history of attacking prison officers could not be provided without incurring disproportionate cost.
The decision to categorise a prisoner at Category D, indicating suitability to be placed in open conditions, involves a thorough risk assessment that takes into account the prisoner’s individual circumstances, including the nature of the offence and any risk they present to the public. In the case of a prisoner serving a sentence of imprisonment for life, or for public protection, the assessment takes account of advice from the independent Parole Board.
Note: The figure has been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prison officers hold work visas.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The requested data is not held centrally in a reportable format.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government on how many occasions pelargonic acid vanillylamide (PAVA) incapacitant spray has been (1) drawn, and (2) drawn and deployed in prisons in 2024 and 2025; and what was the (a) ethnicity, (b) religion, and (c) disability status of the prisoner involved in each case.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Data relating to the use of PAVA broken down by disability comes from internal management information that is under development. It is not quality assured and does not meet the standard required for publication.
The table below provides information on the use of PAVA broken down ethnicity and religion.
| 2024 | 2024 Total | 2025 | 2025 YTD Total* | |||
Drawn and used | Drawn not used | Drawn and used | Drawn not used | ||||
Ethnicity | Asian | 93 | 36 | 129 | 121 | 35 | 156 |
Black | 543 | 187 | 730 | 524 | 193 | 717 | |
Mixed | 166 | 65 | 231 | 159 | 71 | 230 | |
Other | 23 | 25 | 48 | 32 | 12 | 44 | |
White | 460 | 270 | 730 | 518 | 308 | 826 | |
White: Gypsy/Roma/Irish Traveller | 29 | 14 | 43 | 20 | 23 | 43 | |
Unknown | 17 | 3 | 20 | 5 | 1 | 6 | |
Religion | Christian | 533 | 258 | 791 | 531 | 253 | 784 |
Muslim | 522 | 211 | 733 | 550 | 227 | 777 | |
No Religion | 219 | 103 | 322 | 241 | 123 | 364 | |
Other | 57 | 27 | 84 | 55 | 39 | 94 | |
Unknown | - | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
Grand Total | 1,331 | 600 | 1,931 | 1,379 | 643 | 2,022 | |
Please note that the 2025 figures represent data to 30 November this year. Figures include each time a prisoner is impacted by a PAVA incident. This means each time PAVA is drawn and used/drawn not used, multiple prisoners may be counted. In addition, the same prisoner may be counted more than once if involved in multiple incidents.
Figures provided have been drawn from HMPPS Management Information which has not passed through the quality assurance processes usually associated with official statistics published on gov.uk and may contain incomplete or, on rare occasions, inaccurate data.
Pelargonic acid vanillylamide incapacitant (PAVA) spray is made available to protect staff and prisoners in the event of serious violence, or where there is an imminent risk of serious violence. Clear guidance has been issued to staff, to ensure it is used only where appropriate. Our hardworking prison officers are brave public servants doing exceptionally difficult jobs, this Government will do everything we can to keep them safe.
Asked by: Laurence Turner (Labour - Birmingham Northfield)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many assaults by prisoners on (a) prison officers and (b) other prison staff were recorded at HMP Hewell in each of the last five years.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Please see the attached table showing the number of incidents of assault on (a) prison officers and (b) other prison staff at HMP Hewell in each of the last five years, and accompanying notes.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what action his department is taking to ensure prison estate maintenance providers are accountable for their performance.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The value and performance of the Department’s private-sector service providers is reviewed through routine contract and performance management and, in addition, ministers meet regularly with each provider’s Chief Executive Officers to hold them personally to account for their performance.
Asked by: Lord Rennard (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what sanctions are provided for in the Public Office (Accountability) Bill in response to serious wrongdoing by police officers.
Answered by Baroness Levitt - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill creates four new criminal offences:
Failing to comply with the duty of candour and assistance;
Misleading the public;
Seriously improper acts; and
Breach of duty to prevent death or serious injury.
Police officers may be prosecuted for any or all of these.
The offences of failing to comply with the duty of candour and assistance and misleading the public have a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
The seriously improper acts offence has a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment. The breach of duty to prevent death or serious injury offence has a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prison-based staff are (1) trained, and (2) equipped, to use tasers.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
On 21 September, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that 500 prison-based staff would be trained and equipped to use Taser devices, as part of a wider effort to enhance safety across the prison estate, and currently we have 20 trained national specialist officers.
Delivering this capability is a significant undertaking: work to train and equip these officers is in progress.
Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to reduce the supply of illegal drugs into prisons, including through improved searching, staff screening and security technology.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Prisons in England and Wales have a range of specialist staff and equipment to tackle the smuggling of contraband into prisons, including drugs. This includes X-ray body scanners, airport-style Enhanced Gate Security, X-ray baggage scanners, detection dogs, and other specialist equipment. In addition, local security strategies allow for routine and random rub-down searches of prison officers and other staff upon entry to, or within, prisons.
This year we are investing over £40 million in physical security measures across 34 prisons, including £10 million on anti-drone measures, such as window replacements, external window grilles and specialist netting across 15 priority prisons.
All HMPPS prison staff are subject to rigorous pre-employment security vetting checks. These checks enable the organisation to assess whether candidates pose a risk to the safety and security of HMPPS information, assets, staff, and offenders, and whether they demonstrate the standards and core values expected of everyone working within HMPPS.
While the vast majority of prison staff act with integrity, HMPPS recognises the risk of corruption and is committed to tackling it at all levels. HMPPS’s Counter Corruption Unit works proactively with prisons and police to deter and disrupt staff wrongdoing.
Prison security must be dynamic and be able to respond to shifting risks as they manifest. We regularly review our security countermeasures capabilities and will not hesitate to adjust our approach as needed and use all the tools at our disposal.
Asked by: Laurence Turner (Labour - Birmingham Northfield)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the employee (a) vacancy and (b) turnover rates were at HMP Hewell in each of the last five years by (i) prison staff and (ii) prison officers.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The latest published workforce statistics for HM Prison & Probation Service cover the period up to 30 September 2025 and contain figures for the last five years for working days lost, average staff and average working days lost for each public sector prison and for different grades, but not by prison and grade combined. The published figures are for the 12 months to 31 March each year and latest figures are for the 12 months to 30 September 2025. These figures for HMP Hewell, split by band 3-5 prison officers and other prison staff, are given in the table below.
Working days lost to sickness absence, for HMP Hewell, by band 3-5 prison officers and other staff – for 12 months to 31 March 2021 to 2025 and for 12 months to 30 September 2025.
(Full Time Equivalent)
12 months to given date | Band 3-5 prison officers1 | Other prison staff | All staff at HMP Hewell |
31-Mar-21 | 4,344 | 2,189 | 6,532 |
31-Mar-22 | 4,392 | 2,677 | 7,069 |
31-Mar-23 | 3,706 | 2,158 | 5,864 |
31-Mar-24 | 3,801 | 2,266 | 6,067 |
31-Mar-25 | 4,701 | 2,103 | 6,803 |
30-Sep-252 | 5,073 | 2,736 | 7,809 |
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Notes
A comparison between target staffing levels and staff in post can be found in the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/691da96221ef5aaa6543ef83/annex-prison-and-probation-officer-recruitment-Sep-2025_final.ods.
Internal management information has long been used for workforce planning to monitor vacancies and other resource monitoring purposes. However, target staffing and parallel staff in post data has only been produced for the purpose of official statistics for the last few years. As a result, the full historic time series is not available in a consistent format for the grade breakdowns requested.
Turnover rates1 at HMP Hewell for (i) band 3-5 officers2 and (ii) all other prison staff, in the 12 months to 31 March 2021-2025 and in the 12 months to 30 September 2025
12 months to given date | Band 3-5 prison officers (%) | Other prison staff (%) | All staff at HMP Hewell (%) |
31-Mar-21 | 13.6 | 11.9 | 12.9 |
31-Mar-22 | 14.4 | 9.8 | 12.6 |
31-Mar-23 | 15.0 | 11.7 | 14.0 |
31-Mar-24 | 14.2 | 8.0 | 11.6 |
31-Mar-25 | 13.8 | 10.4 | 12.4 |
30-Sep-25 | 14.6 | 8.9 | 12.2 |
Notes:
1. Turnover rates include all reasons for leaving and include both permanent and temporary staff.
2. Band 3-5 officers include: Bands 3-4 / Prison Officer (incl. specialists), Band 4 / Supervising Officer and Band 5 / Custodial Managers
3. As with all HR databases, extracts are taken at a fixed point in time and is dependent on staff completing the details correctly. The database itself is dynamic and where updates to the database are made late, subsequent to the taking of the extract, or are incorrect then these updates will not be reflected in figures produced by the extract. For this reason, HR data are unlikely to be precisely accurate and may not match local data.
Figures relating to the most recent 12 months are provisional, and may be subject to change in the future.