Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have escaped from (a) category A and (b) category B prisons since 2010; and which prisons did those escapes occur from.

Time series for escape and abscond data are published at: HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2021 to March 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). In the 13 years from April 2010 to March 2023 there were no escapes from category A prisons and 8 escapes from category B prisons. The prisons were HMP Pentonville, HMP Wandsworth, HMP Dovegate, HMP Peterborough and HMP Bedford. There have been no absconds from a category A or category B prison in this period.

In the 13 years prior to 2010, there were nearly 146 escapes from prisons – nearly ten times the number since 2010.