Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers are employed in England and were employed in (a) 2010 and (b) April 2016.

Information on the number of prison officers employed in England as at March 2010 is contained in table 1 below:

Table 1: Band 3-5 Officers employed in England, 31 March 2010

Information on the number of prisons officers employed in England and Wales for 31 March 2016 and 2017 can be found in the workforce bulletin publications.

For data as at 31 March 2016, please see tables 3 and 10:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-offender-management-service-workforce-statistics-march-2016

For data as at 31 March 2107, please see tables 3 and 12:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-offender-management-service-workforce-quarterly-march-2017

The Government is committed to recruiting an extra 2,500 frontline officers by the end of 2018.