Diana Johnson
Main Page: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)Department Debates - View all Diana Johnson's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(9 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Chris Grayling
If I may, I will correct my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right that crime is falling. The number of first-time entrants into the criminal justice system is dropping as well. The challenge for us is that the level of reoffending has barely changed. That is the next frontier. That is why we are reforming the way we support and rehabilitate offenders, why there is a greater focus on education in the youth estate, and why there is mentoring and support for those who get short sentences. That is the way to take crime reduction to the next level.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
By exactly how many prison officers is the prison system short?
Chris Grayling
I expect to recruit about 80 to 100 temporary staff, and of course we have a recruitment process all the time. Like any big organisation with tens of thousands of employees, we have a constant process of people moving on and people being recruited and trained. As I outlined earlier, we need some 80 to 100 officers, but I want to build up a much larger reserve so that if we get fluctuations in future we have a pool of people we can draw on, in the same way as the health service and education system do.