Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison cell searches have taken place in each month since May 2010.

The National Offender Management Service’s policy on cell searching requires all prisons within the High Security Estate to have in place a routine programme for searching all cells at an agreed frequency. All other establishments are required to have in place a programme of searching based on a risk-assessment of local security needs. In addition, cell searches may be conducted at any time on an intelligence-led basis or on reasonable suspicion that an item of contraband is secreted within a cell.

Records of cell searches conducted in prisons are not held centrally. To provide the information requested would involve requesting and collating information held locally at all prisons which could only be done at disproportionate cost.