Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the rate of self-harm was among prisoners in (a) women's prisons and (b) men's prisons in each of the last three years.

The Department publishes statistics on deaths, self-harm and assaults in prison custody in England and Wales in the quarterly Safety in Custody statistics. A spreadsheet containing statistics on all instances of self-harm broken down by category is available, in addition to quarterly bulletins outlining trends at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/safety-in-custody-statistics.

Last year, we implemented a revised version of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) multi-disciplinary case management approach to support prisoners at risk of suicide or self-harm. We continue to make the Samaritans phone service available and are working with the Samaritans to ensure that the Listener peer support scheme continues to function effectively.

We are also implementing a new safety training package for staff, which addresses related issues, including suicide and self-harm prevention, understanding risks, triggers and protective factors, and communication skills.