Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of violence and self-harm in prisons in the West Midlands.

We keep levels of safety at all prison establishments under constant review, using data for assaults, self-harm incidents and self-inflicted deaths, HMIP inspection reports and the outputs of internal assurance reviews of safety, supplemented by ongoing operational intelligence. Published statistics for a range of measures of safety, including data for individual prisons, can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-custody-quarterly-update-to-december-2017.

The levels of violence, suicide and self-harm in our prisons are far too high and we are taking urgent action to address these problems.

Assaults on our hardworking staff will never be tolerated. We are ensuring that prison officers have the tools they need to do the job, rolling out body-worn cameras, police-style handcuffs and restraints, and trialling PAVA incapacitant spray.

Our recruitment drive is vital to ensuring prisons are safe, secure and decent so they can successfully rehabilitate offenders, and 90 per cent of our additional 3,111 prison officers are due to be in post by the summer.