Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his speech of 6 March 2018 to the Royal Society of Arts on prison reform, if he will list the 30 prisons which will receive the new technology; how many prison officers in each prison will be nominated to use that technology; what additional training will be provided to those prison officers; and what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of implementing that new technology.

The technology being introduced into prisons will allow for a much faster identification of threats to prison security, particularly the trafficking of drugs and other illicit items. It will allow the police to identify the criminal networks outside prisons involved in this activity.

We are unable to list the exact locations of the technology and the number of officers in each prison who will be nominated to use it as this is operationally sensitive. However the locations are being chosen based on the threat they face from serious organised crime.

I can confirm that all officers using the technology will attend a dedicated formal training course. The estimated full development and implementation costs of installing this technology is £250,000.