Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of prison staff who were absent from work as a result of inability to access fuel for travel to work during the week commencing 27 September 2021.

The information requested is not available. Fuel shortage is not an absence reason recorded centrally by the department. As a contingency, we remained in close contact with senior leaders across Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) in the period where there were difficulties getting fuel to petrol stations. No groups reported staff having difficulty in reporting to work, or any subsequent regime or probation delivery difficulties as a result. There were no reports of people on probation encountering problems travelling to their appointments in the community as a result of these shortages.