Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which prisons have used prison officers on detached duty in 2023; and how many (a) officers were deployed to each prison and (b) times those officers were deployed.

During 2023, 21 prisons received Band 3 officers on National Detached Duty. The table attached shows the average number of detached duty staff deployed at each site in each month.

It is not possible, without incurring disproportionate cost, to provide the remaining information requested, as this would require a detailed examination of individual records.

We are doing more than ever to attract and retain the best staff, including boosting salaries and launching our first-ever nationwide advertising campaign. These efforts are working - we have over 4,800 FTE additional officers between March 2017 and December 2023, and retention rates for prison staff are improving.

We have committed to recruiting up to 5,000 additional prison officers across public and private prisons by the mid-2020s.