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Prisons and Probation

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her comments on our response to the Corston review. Over the next two years, £15 million will be dedicated to keeping vulnerable women out of prison. Furthermore, the number of women sent to prison in the past 12 months was lower than in the previous 12 months. The new prisons are not for women prisoners or juvenile offenders. They will be built to the highest modern standards. The idea is to have some common parts of the prison in addition to the separate units. I am afraid that I am not briefed to be able to answer the noble Baroness’s question on possible pandemics, and I do not want to get it wrong. No doubt the Prison Service has its own plan to deal with any such eventuality.