Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of occasions when due to the loss or theft of keys, a prison has had to be relocked since May 2010; and what the cost to the public purse was of such incidents.

Security is paramount within prisons and it is important that the risk of any potential key compromise is addressed as quickly as possible in order to protect the public. When a key/lock incident is reported an immediate investigation is undertaken to assess the risk and unless it is clear that security has not been compromised, then locking mechanisms and keys will be replaced and/or other necessary remedial action will be taken.

Since May 2010 there have been eight incidents that have necessitated partial or full relocking due to loss of keys, which resulted in costs of £514,584*. Between 2005 and May 2010 there were 16 relocks, which resulted in costs of £1,504,275.

* Note: not included in this figure is a relock at Birmingham in October 2011 that was funded by G4S, the private contractor that operates the prison. The cost was £499,000.

The figures quoted have been drawn from live administrative databases and may subsequently be amended. Due care is taken during processing and analysis, but the detail is subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.