Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the ethnic background is of prisoners who have (a) tested positive for covid-19 and (b) died due to covid-19.

The Ministry of Justice is following Public Health England (PHE) advice on the shielding of vulnerable staff members and service-users. We are currently considering the risk posed to staff and service-users from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds as part of our steadfast commitment to safety, as well as our duty of care to our staff and those in our custody.

We do collect data on the ethnic background of prisoners who have a) tested positive for COVID-19 and (b) died due to COVID-19. We also collect data on prison and probation staff who have died due to COVID-19, though this does not include contractors other than employees of private prisons.

The Ministry of Justice recognises the need to capture ethnicity data and has built this into elements of the current reporting requirements. While we do collect self-reported test results from staff members, we are still in the process of linking this data to our HR records in order to assess it by protected characteristics, including ethnicity. The Ministry of Justice will continue to review COVID-19 data collection and how it can be built on and refined in line with General Data Protection Regulation and data protection legislation.

The data in the table below is correct as of 5pm on Tuesday, 12 May.

*Agency staff information not available.