Prisons: Mother and Baby Units
(asked on 10th July 2025) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, in the context of children under the age of two who are separated from their mothers in prison, if she will publish (a) a list of types of setting in which those children are looked after and (b) the (i) number and (ii) proportion of children looked after by setting type.
Data on the number of babies accommodated in Mother and Baby Units (MBUs) in England is published at Table 10.1 of the HMPPS Annual Digest 2023-2024:
The Annual Digest 2024 - 2025 is scheduled for publication at the end of July. Owing to our obligations under the Code of Practice for Statistics, we are unable to provide the latest data as this time, as they are intended for future publication.
Women who are pregnant, or who have children up to and around the age of 18 months, can apply for a place in an MBU. MBUs normally accommodate babies up until the age of 18 months, though in exceptional circumstances a child may remain beyond 18 months.
Data is not held on the number of mothers in prison who are separated from children under the age of two, or on the care arrangements for those children. While applications for MBU placements are recorded, there is no central record of children who are not placed in MBUs or the reasons for separation.
Care decisions are made by local authorities in accordance with their safeguarding responsibilities under the Children Act 1989 and the statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023.
We recognise that parental imprisonment is an adverse childhood experience. We are working closely with the Department for Education to determine how we identify these children effectively, and the best way to provide support for affected children and their parent in prison.