Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice of 1 March 2017, Official Report, column 101WH, on suicide and self-harm in prison (England), how much funding her Department plans to allocate to the Samaritans; and what the targeted support for prison staff and prisoners provided by that charity will consist of.

The total amount of our funding to the Samaritans for 2017-18 has yet to be finalised, although we have confirmed already that they will receive the same amount as this year (£500k) to support the Listeners scheme, through which volunteer prisoners are trained to provide support to other prisoners in emotional distress. Founded in 1991, this is a very successful scheme through which over 90,000 face-to-face support meetings were facilitated in 2016.

In addition to funding the Samaritans for the Listeners scheme, as part of plans to reduce levels of suicide and self-harm, we have agreed in principle to fund a number of other projects proposed by the Samaritans, and final decisions on the level of funding will be made by the end of the year. These additional projects include producing an online learning tool for prison staff, based on a similar product developed by the Samaritans for the rail industry, and piloting training for prisoners in building emotional resilience during their early days in custody, with the training to be delivered by released ex-Listeners.