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Written question asked by Nick Timothy (Conservative) on Wednesday, 17 June 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 23 June 2026 (named day). It was answered by Jake Richards (Labour) on Wednesday, 24 June 2026 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

Prisoners: Telephones

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, in respect of prisoners making international calls from prisons in the past six months, a) which countries were called and b) how many times was each country called.

Answer

In the past six months, a total of 900,960 international call attempts were made from prisoners to over 150 different countries. Any telephone calls made by prisoners, including international calls, are paid for by the prisoner themselves. All calls are logged and recorded, with an exemption for calls with legal representatives. As these figures represent call attempts made, they do not distinguish between successful and unsuccessful connections.

Furthermore, not all call attempts recorded as being made to the USA were necessarily intended for the recipients in the USA, as this may be used as a routing point for calls to other international destinations.

A full breakdown of all the countries that received a call attempt from UK prisoners, and the total number of call attempts made to each country in the last six months can be found in the attached document.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
11020
Session
2026-27
Attachment
Data
Subjects
Prisoners Prisons Telephones
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk