Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisons in the North West the expanded pilot for the use of medication to manage problematic sexual arousal for sex offenders will operate in; what criteria he will use to select those prisons; and how many offenders will participate.

As the Deputy Prime Minister announced on 16 September, the innovative feasibility pilot of Medication to Manage Problematic Sexual Arousal for sex offenders will be expanded to two new regions – the North West and North East of England. This will extend the service across to twenty prisons in three regions, up from the current four in the South West pilot.

Work is underway to establish these pilot services, which will include utilising learnings from the South West, to inform the appropriate prisons to begin the rollout in the North West. This will be based on relevant factors such as prison population composition and existing treatment pathways in place. This will allow us to expand the number of offenders eligible to receive this intervention, subject to clinical need, and determine which specific prisons will be part of the rollout.