Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress he has made on implementing the key findings from the 2016 Farmer Review on cutting the cycle of re-offending.

The report of Lord Farmer’s review, The Importance of Strengthening Prisoners Family Ties to Prevent Reoffending and Reduce Intergenerational Crime, commissioned in 2016, was published on 10 August 2017. It made 19 recommendations designed both to improve and to standardise the provision of family services across the prison estate in England and Wales.

All of the recommendations have been actioned and all but one linked to new training already embedded as part of our core business.

The changes we have implemented include the introduction of a secure social video calling service in all prisons; a Families Performance Metric for prisons; and additional HMPPS funding to strengthen prisons’ communication with prisoners’ families