Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Prisons Strategy White Paper, published on 7 December 2021, if he will make it is policy for the new prison level data to be published with information broken down by ethnicity.

We are committed to the publication and monitoring of data on protected characteristics within in the criminal justice system. As set out in the Prisons Strategy White Paper, in December 2021, we are introducing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for prisons, which will drive improvement by measuring progress with annually published performance ratings for each prison. This prison level data will be published in due course.

The Ministry of Justice has two statistical publications that include details on ethnicity to demonstrate this commitment. The Offender Management Statistics (OMS) is published on a quarterly basis. This provides regular data on protected characteristics within the prison population. Additionally, the HMPPS Offender Equalities Annual Report is published on an annual basis, includes data on ethnicity within the prison population and covers a larger reporting period.

Prisons have also been provided with a monitoring tool which shows the distribution of prisoner protected characteristics across a range of components of prison life. These include prisoners placed on the incentives scheme, as well as adjudications and complaints.