Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners in women’s prisons have tested positive for covid-19 each month from March 2020 to December 2021.

A total of 1,096 prisoners in women’s prisons have tested positive for COVID-19 from March 2020 to November 2021. Data on the number of prisoners who tested positive for COVID-19 was published in the November edition of the HM Prison and Probation Service COVID-19 statistics monthly series. The data for December 2021 is due to be published on 14 January 2022.

The total number of prisoners in women’s prisons who have tested positive for COVID-19 each month between March 2020 and November 2021 is given in the following table.

Table 1: Number of prisoners tested positive for COVID-19 in the women's estate each month from March 2020 to November 2021.

Data Quality

Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. Much of the data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic has been done at pace, with recording practices evolving as we understand more about the requirements and conditions we are facing. In order to present the timeliest information, the data presented in this report have not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics.

Notes:

1). The data for the latest month are provisional due to the time lag between taking the test and recording of the results on the central data collection.

2). Values (c) are confidential to prevent disclosure of individuals.

The number of staff in women’s prisons who have tested positive for covid-19 each month between March 2020 and October 2021 is given in the following table.

Table 2: COVID-19 Positive test results for staff^1,2 working in Women's prisons, by directly/non-directly employed, March 2020 to October 2021³

Source: MoJ/HMPPS administrative systems and data collections

Data Quality: Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. Much of the data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic has been done at pace, with recording practices evolving as we understand more about the requirements and conditions we are facing.

Notes:

1). Counts the distinct staff who have tested positive for COVID-19. These are self-reported.

2). Where staff have multiple positive tests within a 90-day period, they are now assumed to be from the same infection and are therefore only counted once. This has resulted in a small number of positive tests being removed from the published figures.

3). October 2021 is the latest published data. The next set of data for the period to 30 January 2022 is due to be published in the Workforce Statistics Report on 17 February 2022.

~ denotes suppressed values of 2 or fewer, or other values (including zeroes) which would allow values of 2 or fewer to be derived by subtraction. Low numbers are suppressed to prevent disclosure in accordance with the Data Protection Act, 2018.