asked Her Majesty's Government:

What was the number of prisoners and of prison staff in the latest government data, and on or near the same date 10 years previously. [HL890]

There were 80,997 prisoners held in all prison establishments in England and Wales on 31 October 2007, the latest date for which figures are available. At the end of October 1997 the corresponding figure was 63,226.

There were 50,540 total staff in post in the public sector Prison Service (full-time equivalent of 48,906) at the end of October 2007, and 42,101 at the end of October 1997.

There were 4,588 total staff in post (4,445 FTE) as at 31 October 2007 in the 11 contracted prisons (information for one of the prisons was as at 31 May 2007, but this is not expected to differ greatly from the current position). Information for staff in post for contracted prisons is not available for 1997. There were only four contracted prisons in 1997, Altcourse, Doncaster, Parc, and Wolds.

The corresponding figures in Scotland and Northern Ireland are the responsibility of the Scottish Executive and the Northern Ireland Prison Service respectively.

The attention of the House is drawn to the publication, The Story of the Prison Population: 1995-2007, copies of which will be placed in the Libraries of this House and another place. It is hoped that this will provide additional context to the statistics supplied in the answer.

These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.