Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much funding his Department planned to allocate to the Community Prisons for Women; how much savings have been accrued as a result of the cancellation of those prisons; to which programmes those savings have been allocated; and how much of those savings have been allocated to the rehabilitation and support of female offenders.

We had been developing a business case for the community prisons for women before moving to a community based approach and had not finalised a cost for these prisons. The evidence base on reoffending has continued to evolve and change. We continue to work with the model set out in Baroness Corston’s report, A review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System (2007). We believe that the steps we have outlined in the female offender strategy, including £5m of cross government funding over two years and the plan to work with local and national partners to pilot at least five residential women’s centres across England and Wales, is the right way to approach this but it remains only a first step on a journey.

The publication of the female offender strategy on 27 June is the start of a new and significant programme of work to deliver better outcomes for female offenders at all points of the justice system. It sets out our vision to see fewer women in custody, especially on short-term sentences, and a greater proportion of women managed in the community successfully. This will take some years to deliver and we will have the opportunity to revisit funding issues as we take work forward.

I remain committed to delivering these key reforms, which includes the female offender strategy, and ensuring there is sufficient funding for female offenders.