Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, how many stab proof vests have been issued to frontline officers following the announcement by the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice about prison staff safety on 21 September 2025.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The volume of body armour required for all prison officers in the Long-Term and High-Security Estate represents a significant undertaking. Our priority is to ensure that we continue to provide the most appropriate and effective protective equipment as swiftly as possible. We are currently preparing for further procurement and delivery. This work is progressing at pace, and we expect to begin implementation across the estate during 2026.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the announcement by the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice about prison staff safety on 21 September 2025, how many of the 5,000 stab proof vests for staff working in high security prisons have been issued.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The volume of body armour required for all prison officers in the Long-Term and High-Security Estate represents a significant undertaking. Our priority is to ensure that we continue to provide the most appropriate and effective protective equipment as swiftly as possible. We are currently preparing for further procurement and delivery. This work is progressing at pace, and we expect to begin implementation across the estate during 2026.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the announcement by the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice about prison staff safety on 21 September 2025, how many prison officers are trained to use tasers.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
On 21 September, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that 500 prison-based staff would be trained and equipped to use Taser devices as part of a wider effort to enhance safety across the prison estate. We currently have 25 specially trained officers who work within the Operational Response and Resilience Teams. At present, no frontline officers are trained in the use of Tasers.
Delivering this capability is a significant undertaking: work to train and equip additional officers is in progress.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prison-based staff are (1) trained, and (2) equipped, to use tasers.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
On 21 September, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that 500 prison-based staff would be trained and equipped to use Taser devices, as part of a wider effort to enhance safety across the prison estate, and currently we have 20 trained national specialist officers.
Delivering this capability is a significant undertaking: work to train and equip these officers is in progress.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the risk of mistakes, errors and potential miscarriages of justice through the use of the single justice procedure.
Answered by Baroness Levitt - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Single Justice Procedure (SJP) was designed to deal with straightforward, uncontested, non-imprisonable offences in a proportionate and efficient way. Cases are decided by a single magistrate with the support of a legal adviser, in private rather than in open court.
Whilst safeguards are in place, this Government acknowledges that errors have occurred within the SJP. In 2024, it became apparent that certain train operators had been incorrectly using the procedure to prosecute for offences under the Regulation of Railways Act 1889, which are ineligible for prosecution through the SJP. Such instances highlight the importance of robust safeguards to protect fairness.
That is why we launched a consultation on the oversight and regulation of private prosecutors, which included a dedicated chapter on the SJP. The consultation explored measures to strengthen prosecutor accountability and ensure consistent standards in addition to how defendant submissions are handled in the SJP. The consultation closed on 8 May, and our proposals will be outlined in the Government’s response which we will publish in due course.
We are continuing to monitor risks and remain committed to enhancing safeguards in the SJP to maintain public confidence and fairness in the justice system. This includes ongoing engagement with stakeholders, reviewing operational practices and exploring further improvements to transparency.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether there is capability in the Prison and Probation Service incident reporting system to categorise a prison incident as faith or ideology related; and if not, how the Prison and Probation Service collects data on prison incidents that are motivated by faith or ideology at a local and national level.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service does not hold a central record of whether prison incidents are motivated by faith or ideology. If a prison identifies that an incident was motivated by such a factor, this will be managed locally. Terrorist offenders are managed through a specialist, multi-agency process, which assesses offenders in terms of their individual risk.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase mandatory random drug testing in prisons in England and Wales, and to expand the range of drugs tested for.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government is committed to tackling drug use in prisons, which threatens prison safety and security, undermines our work to rehabilitate prisoners and drives reoffending. We therefore need to have a multi-pronged approach that tackles the supply of drugs, drives down demand and supports recovery – drug testing plays an important role in delivering this.
Random mandatory drug testing (rMDT) forms one part of our wider approach to tackling drug use in prisons. In custody, we also conduct more targeted testing, such as suspicion-based testing, when staff have reason to believe an individual has used drugs illicitly, as well as voluntary testing, which forms part of our approach on our Incentivised Substance Free Living Units, where prisoners sign a compact to remain drug free, receive access to improved conditions compared to a standard wing and are regularly tested. In probation settings, we are expanding our drug testing powers through the Sentencing Bill, meaning that any offender on licence can be tested.
We test for a wide range of substances and keep this under regular review to ensure we identify emerging trends to keep both staff and prisoners safe. Our new drug testing contract supports this by giving us greater flexibility to identify areas for improvement in our drug testing capabilities, ensuring we can keep pace with changing patterns of drug use and target support where it is most needed.
In recent years, levels of rMDT have fallen short across the estate because of staffing constraints, and as a result, volumes have not been sufficient nor consistently high enough to produce publishable data – though results are still used as part of adjudication proceedings. There has been some encouraging progress made in recent months to increase levels, and we will continue to keep performance under close review.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government which prisons have been visited by (1) the Director General Chief Executive, and (2) the Chief Operating Officer, of the Prison and Probation Service in the past 12 months, including the date on which those visits took place.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The table attached provides details of prison visits undertaken by the Director General Chief Executive (DGCEO), the Director General of Operations (DGOps) and the Chief Operating Officer for Prisons (COO Prisons) of HM Prison & Probation Service during the past 12 months.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in implementing the recommendations of the review of prison officer training.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) remains committed to improving prison officer training and will be implementing the recommendations from the Independent Review of Prison Officer Training.
The Department has made progress in relation to recommendations of the Independent Review, including reviewing and improving uniform policy and leveraging technology to support and recognise learner performance, whilst also looking at opportunities to improve prison learning facilities. Furthermore, efforts are underway to automate onboarding processes for new prison officers using new technologies.
Meanwhile, the Enable Programme in HMPPS is leading a full redesign of prison officer training, aiming to strengthen the training offer through more robust, evidence-based approach. The new 12-month model will support the development of the knowledge, skills, behaviours and confidence needed for the modern prison officer role.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prison risk drone assessments have been carried out to date; where those assessments have taken place; and what assessment they have made of the results of that work, and the impact of those assessments on disrupting the influx of drugs into prisons.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We are working hard to deter, detect and disrupt the use of illegal drones that deliver contraband, in order to create a safe and stable rehabilitative environment in our prisons. Our approach is multi-faceted and includes legislative measures and physical security countermeasures, as well as work across Government and with international partners.
As part of this work, we conduct drone vulnerability assessments across the prison estate to understand and mitigate risk. For operational security reasons, we cannot disclose further details surrounding these assessments.