Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many inmates in each prison in England and Wales have been found in possession of knives or other weapons in each year between 2011 and 2013.

Prisons deploy a comprehensive range of robust searching and security techniques to detect, deter and disrupt the supply of unauthorised items, including weapons, both at the point of entry to the prison or concealed within the prison.

The number of incidents recorded of knives or other weapons being confiscated by staff, and how many prisoners have been found in possession of knives or other weapons, in each prison in England and Wales in each year between 2011 and 2013 is recorded on a central incident reporting system, but not in a discrete category. In order to establish the number of recorded confiscations or possessions for the period in question would require the interrogation of over 30,000 individual electronic incident files. This could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.