Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on what date he plans to enable legal practitioners to (a) attend Her Majesty’s Prisons and (b) take effective instructions from their clients.

Alongside the closure of courts, the Government suspended all but exceptional visits to prisons in March. This was to ensure the safety of both prisoners and our staff through the pandemic.

Despite the absence of physical visits, prisoners do maintain the right to access legal advice, and we have looked to ensure that prisoners have continued to have the tools to make contact with their legal representatives via telephone, video link or written correspondence.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic we have enhanced the capability of prison videoconferencing facilities, particularly to support priority court work such as sentencing hearings and prisoners approaching their parole hearing dates. We have made use of the additional 1,250 mobile phones issued to prisons without in-cell telephony in order to facilitate private conversations with legal advisors, alongside encouraging Governors to ensure prisoners can have conversations with their representatives in confidence.

We are also taking steps to increase the available capacity of video conferencing across the estate through increased operating hours to include longer hours during the weekdays, and at some locations on Saturdays. This will sit alongside renewed guidance to all governors on the importance of making sure that adequate time for legal advice is made available to prisoners where possible.

Alongside this work, we are increasing the physical number of video link outlets at some critical sites where capacity is limited, as well as to support specialist courts including Youth and women’s prisons, together with the re-purposing of some unused spaces within prisons for more video link capacity.

Over the coming weeks, we are also looking to resume face-to-face access, where possible, in line with the easing of Government restrictions and advice from Public Health England. Advice to governors will be published as part of the National Framework.