Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 19 September 2018 to Question 173602 on Parc Prison: Prison Officers, which organisation holds data on the number of Prison Custody Officers certified to work each private prison.

In privately managed prisons the responsibility for ensuring the availability of sufficiently trained and experienced staff to maintain safe and decent prisons lies with contractors. The figures we have provided on several occasions included the number of funded posts for fully certified staff in privately managed prisons.

Each privately managed prison has a full-time on-site Controller, Deputy Controller and Assistant Controller, all employed by HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) that hold regular review meetings with contractors against a range of performance indicators.

The performance of all providers continues to be robustly managed and we will not hesitate to take action if and when standards fall short.