To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many (a) prison staff and (b) sub-contractors have been (i) arrested and (ii) dismissed for bringing mobile telephones or drugs into prisons in the last 12 months.

Information relating to public sector prison staff who have been arrested is not held centrally. However, for the 12-month period from February 2011 to January 2012 a total of 19 public sector prison staff were dismissed for the disciplinary reason of either “Trafficking” or having a “Criminal Conviction”, of which three have been recorded with a sub-charge relating to “Trafficking of Mobile Phones”, “Trafficking of Mobile Phones/Drugs” or “Possession/Supply of Drugs”. The reasons for dismissal in the remaining 16 cases have not been recorded centrally, but we will seek to obtain the information from individual case files and I will write to the hon. Member with the outcome of these inquiries when they have been completed.

Information on sub-contractors is not held centrally.

In contracted sector prisons there have been three arrests and three dismissals for bringing mobile telephones or drugs into prisons in the last 12 months.