Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 19 February 2024 to Question 13379 on Secure Training Centres and Young Offender Institutions: Safety, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the trend in the number of safeguarding referrals issued within the youth secure estate for people aged 18 or over.

To support the system-wide response to the adult prison capacity challenges, in November 2022, Ministers decided that the youth estate should continue to hold young adults until before their 19^th birthday. This was a temporary change, and it is anticipated that we will be able to end this by January 2025. We have committed to a thorough review of how the interim policy arrangements are operating in practice, to be completed by the summer 2024.

The interim policy of retaining more young people who reach the age of 18 in the youth estate was introduced in November 2022. The increase in safeguarding referrals for this age group reflects their greater numbers in the estate.