Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners in England and Wales have died from drug overdoses in each of the last three years.

The number of deaths in prison custody from drug overdoses for the last 3 years is published in the Safety in Custody statistical bulletin which is available at http://www.gov.uk/government/collections/safety-in-custody-statistics.

Table 1.12 of the Deaths in Prison Custody 1978-2013 shows self-inflicted deaths by method.

We are working hard to manage the levels of self-harm in prison and are carefully investigating the rise in self-inflicted deaths.

We are applying strenuous efforts to learn from each one and providing further resources and support to prisons to help support their safer custody work.