Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what guidance his Department provides on the provision of nursing rooms in prisons for the use by breastfeeding mothers who attend domestic visits.

All prisons are expected to facilitate requests from nursing mothers to breastfeed their child during the course of a prison visit and must make every possible effort to accommodate these requests.

There is currently no central policy which sets out detailed arrangements for breastfeeding mothers who are visiting prisons and decisions on such matters are made locally. However, Prison Service Instruction 16/2011 (Providing Visits and Services to Visitors) requires prisons to take account of, inter alia, the needs of pregnant women and nursing mothers when leaving and returning to a prison establishment during a visit.

Information on the nursing facilities available at prisons across the prison estate is not centrally held and could be obtained only at disproportionate costs.