Written question asked by Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UK Independence Party) on Thursday, 20 June 2019, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 4 July 2019. It was answered by Lord Keen of Elie (Conservative) on Thursday, 4 July 2019 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

Prisoners

Question: To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the current size of the (1) general population, and (2) prison population of England and Wales; and what proportion of each of those populations were Muslim in (a) 1989, (b) 1999, (c) 2009, and (d) 2018.

Answer

Staffing figures for prison chaplains in public sector prisons from 1989 until 2009 are not available, as figures were not collated centrally during this period.

The table below shows the number of Christian (which includes Anglican, Free Church, Roman Catholic, Orthodox) and Muslim Chaplains (full-time equivalent) employed at public prison establishments by religion of the post from the most recently collated figures.

Date	31 March 2009	31 March 2018
Christian	151	157
Muslim	45	61

The Department does not hold data on the general population.

With regard to the proportion of the prison population who identify as Muslim, we are unable to access data from 1989 and 1999 without incurring disproportionate costs.

The figures for 2009 and 2018 are available and are presented in the table below:

Date	30 June 2009	30 June 2018
Total prison population	83,319	82,773
Total prisoners recorded as Muslim	9,932	12,894

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: HL16559
Session: 2017-19
Related items: HMP Belmarsh
Tuesday, 30 July 2019
Written questions
House of Lords
Grouped for answer: Yes
Subjects: Prisoners Muslims
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.parliament.uk

Prisoners

Secondary information

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