Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 1 December 2014 to Question 216156, what body independently assesses the NOMS extremism programme; and if he will publish the most recent assessment of that programme.

We have a comprehensive range of measures to tackle extremism in prisons. All high security prisons have dedicated counter terrorism units who work in partnership with the Police and the security services to root out extremism.

The regular statistics reports and briefings NOMS provides to various partners on its performance, caseload and range of interventions constitute independent assessment. These reports with the exception of NOMS’ contribution to Home Office statistics (Operation of police powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 and subsequent legislation: arrests, outcomes and stops and searches, quarterly update), are classified for reasons of National Security. I am regularly briefed on NOMS’ work on extremism.