Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people in the prison population are deemed to have a learning difficulty.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The data we hold is for public sector prisons in England only (education in Wales is a devolved responsibility) and is limited to prisoners who have undertaken an assessment of educational standard prior to enrolment on an education course, rather than the population as a whole. It can be found via the following link:
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people in England and Wales are on remand awaiting trial.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the untried remand population in custody in the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) publication. This data can be found in Population Table 1_Q_2 of OMSQ: Offender management statistics quarterly: July to September 2025 - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many life sentences have been handed out to people under the age of 16 in the last five years.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Between year ending September 2021 and year ending September 2025, 10 defendants aged under 16 have been given a life sentence. This is a further breakdown of published sentencing outcomes data released routinely as part of the Accredited Official Statistics series Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly which is available here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that child sex offenders are separated in prisons.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Safety in prisons is a key priority. We are working hard to make prisons as safe as possible for those who live and work in them. Safe prisons are vital to enable prisoners to engage in rehabilitative activities that reduce re-offending. Staff are trained to identify where a prisoner may be at risk, and to be able to take appropriate action in response.
A number of reception prisons have specific units for people convicted of sexual offences. In addition to this, a number of other prisons have particular arrangements for vulnerable prisoners – a category which includes, but is not limited to, people convicted of sex offences.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of people being held in prisons in England and Wales have not been found guilty in a court.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the untried remand population in custody in the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) publication. This data can be found in Population Table 1_Q_2 of OMSQ: Offender management statistics quarterly: July to September 2025 - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people with a learning disability have (i) entered and (ii) exited the prison population in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The information requested is not held within the Ministry of Justice.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners were released without accommodation in each of the last five years.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The information requested can be found in Table 3 of the “Housed on Release from Custody Tables” in the Offender Accommodation Outcomes statistical publication at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-accommodation-outcomes-update-to-march-2025.
We are committed to ensuring that robust pre-release plans are created for those leaving custody, so that accommodation needs are identified early and the right support is put in place. Dedicated Pre-Release Teams in prisons work closely with individuals to identify immediate needs, co-ordinate referrals to relevant services, and support continuity between custody and the community.
In the National Plan to End Homelessness, the Government has committed to reduce the proportion of people released homeless from prison by 50% by the end of this parliament. 50 prison-based Strategic Housing Specialists across England and Wales work with probation teams and Local Authorities to enable a multi-agency approach to securing housing before release, including by establishing pre-release accommodation panels with appropriate local authorities. We are also investing in integrating digital community accommodation services to make it easier to identify and match individuals to the right housing-related support at the right time.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were convicted of arson in the last 12 months.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Ministry of Justice publishes data on convictions for a wide range of offences including arson in England and Wales within the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been wrongfully convicted of a crime in the last ten years.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We have interpreted this question as relating to successful appeals against verdicts, heard at the Crown Court and the Court of Appeal.
The Ministry of Justice publishes quarterly data on successful appeals against magistrates’ courts verdicts heard at the Crown Court in the Criminal Courts Statistics release. Data started being published from 2016. As a result, the dataset covers the past nine years. This can be found in column E of Table_C11 in the statistical tables: Criminal court statistics - GOV.UK.
Figures for the number of successful appeals against convictions in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) are published annually in the Royal Courts of Justice tables within Civil Justice Statistics Quarterly. This can be found in column B of table 2.2: Royal_Courts_of_Justice_Annual_Tables_2024.ods.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of people in prison for knife relate crime, broken down by age.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
Statistics of this nature could not be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.