Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by Simon Burns (Conservative). It was answered by Elizabeth Truss (Conservative) on Tuesday, 25 April 2017 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

Prison Staffing

Question: What assessment she has made of the effect of increasing the number of prison staff on the (a) safety of prison officers and (b) capacity of prison staff to spend more time directly engaging with and supervising prisoners.

Answer: I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns), whose 30 years in the House have been a joy to behold—although I have been here for only seven of them. We recently visited Chelmsford prison together, and I saw at first hand his commitment not only to his constituents but to the cause of improving prisons in this country. Chelmsford prison is one of the 10 prisons we selected for the early recruitment of prison officers. We said that 400 prison officers would be recruited by the end of March. I can confirm that they are now in training or in post in those prisons, including Chelmsford.

Secondary information