Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people (a) attempted and (b) succeeded in taking their own lives in each prison in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

The Government publishes quarterly statistics on deaths in prison custody and a more detailed annual breakdown, and both are available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-custody-quarterly-update-to-june-2018

The number of self-harm incidents in each prison can be seen in table 1.13 of Self-Harm in Prison Custody 2004 to 2017, and the number of self-inflicted deaths in each prison is in table 1.16 in Deaths in Prison Custody 1978 to 2017.

It should be noted that the statistics refer to self-harm (defined as “any act where a prisoner deliberately harms themselves, irrespective of the method, intent or severity of any injury”), and not to attempted suicide. Although incidents of self-harm may include attempts at suicide, it is hard to determine intent accurately enough for them to be recorded as such. For similar reasons the term “self-inflicted deaths” is used to include any death of a person who has apparently taken their own life, irrespective of intent. This includes not only suicides but also accidental deaths as a result of the person’s own actions.

The Government takes very seriously its responsibility to keep prisoners safe, and we are committed to reducing the number of self-inflicted deaths and the incidence of self-harm across the estate. This is why we have established a prison safety programme through which we are taking forward a comprehensive set of actions to improve safety in custody. They include:

• investing in over 4,300 additional staff in order to deliver consistent, purposeful regimes;

• improving staff knowledge and understanding of the factors known to increase risk of self-harm, to help them to identify and respond appropriately to prisoners at risk. Our revised introduction to suicide and self-harm prevention training has already reached over 24,000 staff;

• renewing our partnership with Samaritans by confirming a further three years’ funding for their valuable Listeners Scheme, and working with them to share learning from the ‘Coping with Life in Prisons’ project, a successful pilot initiative in which Samaritans-trained ex-prisoners delivered emotional resilience training to groups of newly-arrived prisoners; and

improving the multi-disciplinary ACCT case management process for those identified as at risk of self-harm or suicide.