Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to respond to recent reports on conditions at HMP Liverpool.

The conditions which inspectors found at Liverpool were unacceptable and effective measures should have been taken to deal with issues at a much earlier stage. A comprehensive action plan was published on the 19 January which sets out our plans on how we will address issues which the inspectorate has raised. This can be found via the following link: https://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/contacts/hmps/prison-finder/hmp-liverpool-action-plan.pdf

There is much still to do. However, we have now reduced operational capacity at HMP Liverpool compared with the inspection period, a new Governor has been appointed, and backlogs of maintenance tasks are being addressed, including repairing and replacing windows.