Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many civil servants in his Department have a criminal conviction.

The information requested is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.

New appointments to Defra undergo pre-employment criminal record checks. Where a conviction is flagged, appointment is dependent on a role-specific risk assessment. Convictions for the following offences result in the individual automatically failing pre-employment checks and not being appointed: life sentences, arson, sexual offences and hate and terror offences.

Defra has participated in the Going Forward into Employment Scheme for Ex-Offenders and has appointed to posts via this scheme. We can confirm that the numbers appointed under this scheme are currently less than 10. However, exact numbers may enable individuals to be identifiable and the privacy and confidentiality of this information requires us to ensure individuals are properly protected.