Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisons in England and Wales use history of service in the armed services as a criterion for the placement of prisoners within their accommodation.

All prisoners, including former service personnel are individually assessed to ensure categorisation to a prison providing an appropriate level of security. HMPPS is committed to ensuring, where practicable, that prisoners are accommodated as close as possible to their resettlement communities and families.

There are areas of good practice with former service personnel voluntarily being placed in prisons, such as at HMP Parc and HMP Berwyn, where new prisoners are helped to settle in to the early stages of their sentence through their location on the induction wing. However, there will be former service personnel with differing sentence lengths and offence type who may not necessarily be suitable for co-location with their peers.