Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the UK's comparative international position for custodian sentences given to female offenders as a proportion of all sentences in each of the last five years.

We are aware of independent assessments of female prison population internationally, such as the World Female Imprisonment List published by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research at Birkbeck, University of London.

We are committed to doing all we can to address the issues around female offending so we can better protect the public and deliver more effective rehabilitation. That is why we plan to set out a strategy for female offenders, to improve outcomes and services for women in both the community and custody, including how we can do more in the community so custody is only used when absolutely necessary.