Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the cost per prisoner was of operating HMP Wakefield in (a) the 2019-20 financial year and (b) the 2020 financial year to date.

The cost per prisoner at HMP Wakefield in 2019/20 was £35,538 in direct unit costs and £52,402 in overall unit costs (this figure includes apportionment of overheads etc.). The direct cost per prisoner for 2020/21 on year to date is £21,094. The 2020/21 figure is to the end of October only.

We’ve invested in our prisons to make them safer and more effective at delivering the rehabilitation that will cut reoffending and crime.

Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) routinely publishes direct and overall resource expenditure for each private and public sector prison in England and Wales on an annual basis after the end of each financial year. The information can be accessed in the Prison and Probation Performance Statistics pages for each relevant financial year on the website https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-performance-statistics-2019-to-2020