Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to HMP Wandsworth restricting prisoner’s postal services to Moonpig and Funky Pigeon, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of restrictions on postal services on prisoner’s families finances during the cost of living crisis.

HMP Wandsworth does not currently restrict postal services to Moonpig and Funky Pigeon. Any decisions to apply restrictions to communications are made locally by assessing the level of risk against what is a proportionate and necessary response to that risk.

HMP Wandsworth has seen an increased ingress of illegal substances through the postal system – this unfortunately is a developing area of conveyance in several of our prison establishments, notably Synthetic Cannabinoid Receptor Antagonists (SCRA) commonly known as ‘Spice’. HMP Wandsworth ensures all mail that does not test as positive for Spice is issued to prisoners.

To address this, prisons that identify SCRA as an issue have implemented several countermeasures which in some cases include the use of photocopying domestic mail and greetings cards in line with the national policy.

An assessment has not been made of the impact of restrictions on postal services on prisoner’s families.