Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to Annual Report of the Independent Monitoring Board at HMP Wandsworth, published on 21 October 2021, whether the re-role of HMP Wandsworth to a reception prison has been completed.

HMP Wandsworth was originally a local prison and was re-designated as a reception and resettlement prison in September 2020 following the national roll-out of offender flows. The final stage will be the transition of Guildford and Staines Magistrates’ Courts and Guildford Crown Court from HMP High Down. The aim is for this to be completed by April 2022.

The prison has benefited from the installation of a modern state-of-the-art video conferencing centre to support it in serving the additional courts.