Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what were the 10 principal causes of death of those prisoners who died while in men's prisons in England and Wales in each of the last five years.

The Department publishes statistics concerning deaths in prison custody in England and Wales in the quarterly Safety in Custody statistics. A spreadsheet containing statistics on all deaths in custody up to December 2021 is available, in addition to quarterly bulletins outlining trends, at: Safety in custody: quarterly update to September 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Those statistics are broken down by whether the death was self-inflicted, from natural causes, or from other non-natural causes, or by homicide. They also show the number of ‘awaiting further information’ cases where the cause of death cannot yet be ascertained and remains under investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman or a coroner.