To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list (a) the average sickness rates and (b) the average long-term sickness rates, namely over one year, for each prison in the United Kingdom for each of the two years before Fresh Start was implemented and the subsequent years.

The number of lost days due to sickness absence in prison establishments in England and Wales for the year ending March 1990 averaged about 13 days per officer. I will write to the hon. Member shortly with the breakdown by establishment. Information on long and short-term sickness rates and sickness rates in earlier years is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.