Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners are held in HM Prison Belmarsh awaiting categorisation.

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) policy on prisoner categorisation is set out in three Prison Service Instructions. Policy requires that all prisoners are assigned a security category on a range of factors including the basis of an assessment of the likelihood that they will try to escape and the risk of harm to the public in the event that they succeed in escaping. Once they are categorised, prisoners are allocated to a prison with that or higher category.

The risk assessment that informs the categorisation decision takes into account the nature of an individual’s index offence, length of sentence, history of offending and previous intelligence relating to escape.

The numbers of prisoners awaiting categorisation changes regularly at prisons with a local function as new prisoners are received and assessments are completed. It is possible for categorisation assessments to build up quickly at prisons with 50 to 100 prisoner movements through reception daily. Belmarsh currently has 25 prisoners awaiting categorisation.