Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the (a) capacity and (b) occupancy is for each open prison for women in England and Wales.

HM Prison and Probation Service publishes a breakdown of all population and capacity figures by prison at the end of every month which are accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-figures-2018 with the most recent available being for June 2018.

The following table identifies all open prisons in the adult male prison estate with their respective operational capacity, population and occupancy as at Friday 29 June 2018.

*Hewell Grange is an open unit within a larger closed adult male prison.

The table below identifies the two open prisons in the Female prison estate with their respective capacity, population and occupancy figures, also as at 29 June 2018.

Open conditions are an important means of testing and furthering the rehabilitation of offenders, especially those who have spent many years in closed conditions.

We keep the prison population and capacity under careful review to ensure that there is always sufficient capacity. Decisions on the future size of the prison estate will reflect the current and projected prison population, including an assessment of the necessary margin to manage population fluctuations.