Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many BAME staff are employed at (a) grade 7, (b) grade 5 and (c) grade 3 in his Department.

In the MoJ (including HMPPS) on 31 March 2019, excluding staff on unpaid leave:

There were 2,424 Grade 7 and Grade 6 staff, of whom 1,989 had declared their ethnicity; of these 224 were BAME. This means that 11.3% of Grade 7 and Grade 6 staff with known ethnicity were BAME.

There were 230 Grade 5 staff, of whom 200 had declared their ethnicity; of these 11 were BAME. This means that 5.5% of Grade 5 staff with known ethnicity were BAME.

There were 54 Grade 3 staff, of whom 46 had declared their ethnicity; the number of these who were BAME was less than three.

This is based on staff voluntarily recording their ethnicity data on the HR system (SOP).