Prisons: Construction

Mr. Garnier
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many additional prison officers and custody officers at each rank within (a) the Prison Service and (b) the private sector will be employed to supervise the new prisoner places announced as being available by 2012; how many of those places will be for (a) single and (b) multiple occupation; and how many occupants per multiple occupied cell this represents.

Mr. Sutcliffe
Staff numbers are dependent on the type. Decisions on the number of additional prison and location of prisons and whether they are financed publicly or privately. As the prison regimes are also still under consideration, decisions on the number of additional prison custody officers required, whether publicly or privately employed, have not yet been made. The number of additional staff required for each site will largely be dependent on the type of prisoners.

Nearly all new places to be provided by 2012 will be built as single occupancy cells although, at certain sites, there will be cells built to hold two prisoners. The final configurations have not yet been confirmed for all sites.