Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what training prison officers receive on violence against women and girls.

All newly recruited prison officers receive a minimum of ten weeks training which provides them with the skills required to be a competent prison officer. MOJ Learning & Development for HMPPS also offer additional specialist training for the HMPPS Women’s Estate which has a further week’s training.

Prison officers undertaking the specialist training within the Women’s Estate are trained on a variety of modules which include:

- Trauma

- Child protection and safeguarding

- Safety support skills

- Tackling violence against women and girls

All prison officers are required to complete an eLearning package in child safeguarding awareness. There is also a further domestic abuse eLearning package available for all staff.

Prison officers working in the Prison Offender Manager role are required to complete a child safeguarding, domestic abuse and adult safeguarding course.