Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on resources available to help enable covid-19 recovery in (a) prisons and (b) probation services in England and Wales.

Covid-19 continues to present a unique set of challenges that we must address to maintain services in custody and the community. We are targeting and pacing out interventions that will allow us to respond as the pandemic evolves, supporting areas most in need.

The 2020 Spending Review provided £246 million for the justice system’s continued recovery from Covid-19, including funding of £43 million to ensure the continued safety of prisons and to support the probation service during the recovery process. For quarter one of financial year 2021/22 £11m has been allocated to HMPPS for safety measures, with a further £22m assigned to probation as well as another £10m to HMPPS. The funding supports additional staffing to facilitate ongoing COVID mitigations, the extension of prisoner related services (PINphones, foodpacks, retail) and central co-ordination, assurance and surveillance. More widely we invested an extra £155 million into the probation service last year and are maintaining it this financial year.

Discussions regarding funding for quarter two are ongoing.