Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what budget has been allocated for the provision of libraries in prisons in England and Wales as (1) a total, and (2) a proportion of the overall prison service budget, in each of the last three years.

The Prison Service has always recognised the importance of reading and literature in the rehabilitative process, and the positive effects these have on prisoners. Every prison has a library, which is available to all prisoners to ensure they have access to books and other material for education and training purposes.

The table below shows the total allocated budget for prison library services for financial years 2011-12 to 2013-14 and the proportion in percentage terms of the direct expenditure on public sector prisons for the same periods.

Notes: 1. The figures show the amount allocated by NOMS to prison establishments for library services. The amount spent by the prisons may have been slightly different. 2. For most private sector prisons the library budget figures are not included as the allocation is subsumed within the main contract. For this reason public sector prisons’ direct expenditure (as provided in the annual prison costs’ publication) has been used as the comparator.