Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many safer cells were built in prisons in England in each year since 2010; and how many existing prison cells were converted into safer cells in each such year.

Safer cells are designed to make an act of suicide or self-harm as difficult as possible. However, no cell is totally safe, and where a prisoner is accommodated in a safer cell, this forms only a part of the package of support measures that are put in place to manage the risk of self-harm or suicide.

Since 2010 all new prison accommodation has been built to safer cell standards. There is no central record of the number of cells that were converted into safer cells during this period.