Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of X-ray scanners deployed to prevent illegal items entering prisons; and whether he plans to roll these out to all prisons.

We have invested £100m to combat crime in prisons, including reducing the conveyance of illicit items such as drugs and mobile phones.

Since 2020, we have installed an additional 75 x-ray body scanners, bringing the total to 97 and providing coverage to the entire closed male estate. As of April 2022, there have been approximately 20,000 positive indications recorded.

A full evaluation of our security investments is underway and will be published in 2023. Further deployment of x-ray body scanners across the prison estate will be informed by the results of this evaluation.