Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what additional funding was allocated for the recruitment of additional prison officers his Department’s 2019-20 Main Estimate Memorandum.

Since October 2016 we have recruited over 4,700 additional prison officers with extra funding provided by the Treasury for 2,500 of these. While no further funding has been specifically provided for this purpose in 2019/20 by the Treasury, prison officer recruitment continues and is being funded from the Prison Service budget in 2019/20.