A third of the Ministry of Justice's (MoJ) 80,000 staff could see their jobs at risk under plans to cut £2bn from the department's annual budget, a union has warned.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has expressed fears that £2bn of the MoJ's £9bn budget will be axed within the first two years of the next spending review, which will be announced on 20 October.

The union fears that 15,000 of the MoJ's 80,000 staff could be at risk of losing their jobs under the cuts, which it says are  the equivalent of the entire budget for prisons.