Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to answer Questions 61068 to 61087 tabled on 21 October 2021.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Responses for 61068 to 61087 were tabled on 22 October 2021 and were due for answer on 1 November 2021. Responses to these PQs were provided on 1 November.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his Department's press release, £100 million crackdown on crime in prison, published on 13 August 2019, how much of the £100 million for improving prison security has been spent on the installation of 74 x-ray scanners as announced by his Department on 14 October 2021.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
£6m has been spent on the installation of 74 x-ray body scanners. This sum is comprised of hardware, installation and commissioning costs combined with construction works required in prisons to accommodate the hardware. Some additional associated spend linked to MOJ project and programme resourcing has been incurred but has not been included as is not directly attributed to specific projects.
The remaining investment is for the implementation of measures across a number of priority sites to operate ‘airport style’ gate security, drugs trace detection, mobile phone blocking, an expanded counter corruption investigation team and a new ‘corruption prevention’ function and multi-agency investigations into high harm Serious and Organised Criminals.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of women prisoners in England and Wales are in prison as a result of non-violent offences.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The most recent data indicates that 36% of the female prison population are held for offences of violence against the person. However, of the remaining 64%, there may be other offenders held for offences where violence has occurred but because there is no set guidance on which other types of offences should be classed as ‘violent’/’non-violent’, it is difficult to provide an exact total proportion.
Offender management statistics quarterly: January to March 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the turnover of prison staff in (a) Band 2 and (b) Bands 3 to 5.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
To help stem attrition in Operational Band 2-5’s grades Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service has created a retention strategy which is linked to wider activities around employee experience, employee lifecycle and staff engagement at work. As part of this strategy, we are looking at leaver trend data, undertaking in-depth exit interviews and using this feedback to establish the drivers of attrition in Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. Local, Regional or National Interventions are then agreed to ensure that we are embedding retention plans in establishments. This work consists of reviewing existing data, policy, process and benefit arrangements for staff and establishing how best to optimise them in order to retain employees and stabilise the workforce.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many children were remanded in custody for their own protection, in each year of the last 10 years.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
There is no centrally held data on the number of children remanded for their own protection and the requested information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of frontline prison staffing levels in the context of current prison population projections.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
As prison capacity expands, total staffing requirements are increasing. The department carefully monitors resourcing levels to ensure that we can manage current staffing levels and make accurate predictions around future needs. Work is ongoing to define the workforce need in association with the new prisons and expansion projects.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of cells across the (a) youth estate and (b) prison estate have access to technology capable of delivering in-cell education.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
In-cell technology is available in three prisons and one young offender institution. We are currently deploying in-cell technology into a further 11 prisons – including the remaining three young offender institutions.
The technology provides access to digital services and includes educational, mental health content and more.
We plan to make the education providers ‘virtual campus’ system available on the in-cell equipment in due course.
Access to digital education continues to be available to prisoners in other areas of the prison.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) prisons and (b) young offenders institutions have been served with an Urgent Notification in each year since 2000.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Urgent Notification (UN) process was launched in 2017. Since then, the UN was invoked seven times across Her Majesty’s Prisons and Young Offenders’ Institution:
2018
- HMP Nottingham – invoked on 17 January.
- HMP Exeter – invoked on 30 May.
- HMP Birmingham – invoked on 20 August.
- HMP Bedford – invoked on 13 September.
2019
- HMP Bristol – invoked on 13 June.
- HMP/YOI Feltham A – invoked on 24 July.
2021
- HMP/YOI Chelmsford – invoked on 27 August.
The vast majority of the establishments have made crucial improvements in the areas of concerns highlighted by the Inspectorates. Some of this is noted by the Inspectorates in their follow up visits at the establishments.
The safety and wellbeing of all children and prisoners under our care is paramount so they can turn their lives around. Any concerns raised by the Inspectorates during their visits are taken seriously.
More information on the establishments that were issued with an Urgent Notification can be found on the gov.uk website here.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many women are held in prisons in England and Wales for the non-payment of fines.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
As of 30 June 2021, 6 women were held in prisons in England and Wales for non-payment of fines.
Asked by: David Lammy (Labour - Tottenham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the report by the Prison and Probation Ombudsman entitled Investigation into baby death at HMP Bronzefield HMP identifies key failings, published on 22 September 2021, what steps his Department plans to take in response to the finding that every pregnancy in prison is high risk.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The death of ‘Baby A’ was a tragedy and we have taken a range of actions to prevent this from happening again in partnership with Health.
On 20 September the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) published a new policy on pregnancy, Mother and Baby Units and maternal separation from children up to the age of two in women’s prisons, which contains a range of reforms for improving the care of pregnant women, including reforms that address the learning from Baby A.
As part of our reforms, we have increased central data collection on self-declared pregnancies in women’s prisons. We will be publishing annual snapshots in the HMPPS Annual Digest. The first publication on 29 July, which covers the period July 2020 - April 2021, showed that on average there were 26 women in prison self-declared as pregnant each week. At present, there is no central collection that breaks this data down into those sentenced and those held on remand, however this is collected locally by individual prisons to ensure care is appropriate.
Women in prison should have access to the same range and quality of healthcare services compared to that which they would find in the community, including midwifery, obstetric and health visiting services. For information on the commissioning of clinical services for pregnant women in prison please refer to NHS England and NHS Improvement, the responsible authority.