Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate his Department has made of the number of (a) suicides and (b) attempted suicides that have taken place in prisons in (i) 2019, (ii) 2020, (iii) 2021 and (iv) 2022.

The data on self-inflicted deaths is recorded in our published Safety in Custody Statistics.

The number and rates of self-inflicted deaths across the estate in the 12 months to March 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 is published in the Safety in Custody Summary table which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1153227/Safety-in-custody-summary-q4-2022-final-tables.xlsx.

We do not produce official statistics on suicides. Self-inflicted deaths are any death of a person who has apparently taken his or her own life irrespective of intent. This not only includes suicides but also accidental deaths as a result of the person’s own actions. This classification is used because it is not always known whether a person intended to take their own life.

We are unable to answer the question on attempted suicide as we do not record this data.