Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Government's paper, Deaths of offenders in the community, published on 26 October 2017, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the incidents of deaths classified as self-inflicted of people under the supervision of community rehabilitation companies.

In 2016/17 there were 233 self-inflicted deaths of offenders in the community. This represents a decrease of 9% on the previous year.

Probation services are now supporting an additional 40,000 offenders each year after release from custody. Probation staff work hand-in-hand with other agencies – including local authorities and health services, and in higher-risk cases the Police – to help ensure offenders with mental health or substance misuse issues have the right level of support. We have developed a joint protocol with the Department of Health setting out how probation, health and treatment services should work together to provide treatment and support to offenders. We will be trialling the protocol in test-bed areas in England later this year.