Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many packages containing books were received by prisoners in each of the last four years; and what proportion of such packages contained contraband.

Following the introduction of the revised Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) national policy framework in November 2013, prisoners are not allowed to receive parcels sent to them. Prisoners are not allowed to receive parcels sent to them. Prisoners are able to order books from reputable suppliers which they can receive via the prison shop, or they can borrow books from the prison library. This limits the opportunity for contraband to be sent into the prison and reduces the operational resource required to search all packages received in the prison.

The number of packages received by prisoners, prior to the introduction of the revised IEP national policy framework, is not recorded centrally and could only be collated at disproportionate cost.