Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the levels of recruitment and retention of prison officers in England and Wales; and how many positions are vacant due to retirement, resignation or ill health.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We know that sufficient and skilled frontline staffing is fundamental to delivering safe, secure, and rehabilitative prisons. We remain committed to ensuring prisons are sufficiently resourced and that we retain and build levels of experience.
Substantive recruitment efforts will continue at all prisons where vacancies exist or are projected, with targeted interventions applied to those prisons with the most need. We closely monitor staffing levels across the estate, including at a regional level, and look to provide short-term tactical support where possible. Where establishments feel that their staffing levels will affect stability or regime, there are a number of ways they can maximise the use of their own resource and seek support from other establishments in the short term, through processes managed nationally at Agency level.
HMPPS has a retention strategy in place which is linked to wider activities around employee experience, employee lifecycle, and staff engagement at work. Alongside the strategy a retention toolkit has been introduced which identifies local, regional, and national interventions against the drivers of attrition, which are utilised by establishments to ensure that they are embedding individual Retention Plans.
HMPPS publishes the following data as part of the HMPPS Workforce quarterly statistics for prison officers. This includes:
The number of prison officers appointed to HMPPS annually, consisting of direct new recruits and existing staff who converted to a band 3 officer grade;
Resignation rates cover the rate for those who voluntarily resigned from the organisation;
Leaving rates covers the rate for all leavers and all reasons for leaving, including deaths, resignation, dismissals and redundancies; and,
Reasons for leaving for prison officers.
This data can be accessed via the following link: HM Prison and Probation Service workforce quarterly: HM Prison & Probation Service workforce quarterly: September 2025 - GOV.UK:. Table 1 below gives an overview of Band 3-5 prison officer joiners, leavers, leaving rate and resignation rate: 2019/20 to 2024/25:
Table 1: Band 3-5 prison officer joiners, leavers, leaving rate and resignation rate: 2019/20 to 2024/25
12 months to end of… | Number of joiners | Number of leavers | Leaving rate | Resignation rate |
Mar-20 | 2,317 | 2,852 | 12.2% | 8.0% |
Mar-21 | 2,410 | 2,116 | 9.2% | 5.4% |
Mar-22 | 3,845 | 3,386 | 14.5% | 10.9% |
Mar-23 | 4,314 | 3,331 | 14.6% | 9.7% |
Mar-24 | 4,821 | 3,170 | 13.2% | 8.5% |
Mar-25 | 2,416 | 3,047 | 12.5% | 8.3% |
Sep-25 | 1,971 | 2,622 | 10.9% | 7.0% |
HMPPS also publishes the difference between Staff in Post (SIP) and Target Staffing Figures (TSF) for Band 3 to 5 Prison Officers at establishment and national level in the Annex of the workforce quarterly publication (Table 4 of the Prison and Probation Officer Recruitment Annex, which can also be accessed via the link above). There was a difference of 1,225 FTE between the SIP and TSF for Band 3-5 prison officers in HMPPS at the end of September 2025. We are unable to attribute specific vacancies to reasons for leaving and as such, cannot calculate a breakdown of vacancies by reasons for leaving.
Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prison officers in England and Wales were recruited from (1) the Commonwealth, and (2) the European Union, in each of the last three years for which figures are available; and how many of these earn in excess of £41,700 a year.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice does not hold the requested data in a single central system. Information on nationality, new joiners, and salary is recorded across separate administrative systems, and linking these datasets accurately would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prison officers in England and Wales hold work visas which are due to expire in 2026; and what assessment they have made of the effect of this on the morale of staff and good order within the prison estate.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice holds data pertaining to employees who have limited leave to remain. This data includes all employees, past or present, for whom this would be the case, but there is no functionality to withdraw any ex-employees from the data other than manually checking every file. To provide an accurate response to the question would be of disproportionate cost.
We are clear that net migration, as a whole must, come down. We will of course provide support to those affected by the changes to Immigration Rules, and anyone with a Skilled Worker visa can be considered for an extension where possible.
We are working with Home Office colleagues to consider the impact of the reforms and options to ensure the safety and stability of our prisons. We know that sufficient and skilled frontline staffing is fundamental to delivering safe, secure, and rehabilitative prison regimes.