The UK has consistently urged the Azerbaijani authorities, including ahead of COP29, to ensure that those in detention are afforded a fair trial and are provided safe conditions, in accordance with Azerbaijan's international obligations and commitments. We are in touch with the UK delegation visiting Azerbaijan for COP29 to ensure a smooth visit to the country, however we have not received a formal request for UK Government support to visit Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan.

On 28 March, following a Maundy Thursday service and meal in the prison chapel at HMP Lewes, two people who were present collapsed and were taken to hospital. After others who had attended the service also reported feeling unwell, the 32 prisoners and six staff who had attended were checked by paramedics. In total, six people required hospital treatment. The police are conducting an investigation into the incident. His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service is continuing to engage with them and to obtain regular updates on the investigation.

Data on how many serving prisoners are subject to serious crime prevention orders is not currently held and would only be available at disproportionate costs.

All prisons have systems in place for the day-to-day management of regime delivery. Each prison has a regime management plan that clearly sets out the full range of prisoner activities and services delivered within the prison, morning and afternoon, from Monday to Friday.

All types of education, including distance learning, are factored into a prison’s regime management plan as part of the purposeful activity that prisoners undertake.

Apprenticeships are one of our initiatives to drive up skills, qualifications and employment across the estate, filling key gaps in the economy, and ultimately reducing reoffending.

In September 2022, the Government changed legislation to allow serving prisoners to undertake apprenticeships. Since then, my officials have been working closely with their counterparts in the Department for Education to engage employers in key skills sectors such as hospitality and construction to sponsor and support apprentice placements.

In England, all appropriately risk-assessed prisoners in the open estate and certain women’s prisons can undertake apprenticeships in the community, as long as they are eligible for ROTL and within a year of release. Apprenticeships are now being tested in the closed Category C estate, offering the chance for high quality training leading to sustainable employment outcomes.

As skills and education are devolved in Wales, the Welsh Government is responsible for provision of education and training in Welsh prisons.

HMPPS published the revised Crime in Prison Referral Agreement in October 2022. The agreement aims to ensure that all acts of criminality that occur in prison are properly addressed within the criminal justice system, particularly in circumstances that indicate that a criminal prosecution is appropriate, or where a statutory obligation exists.

It is not possible to identify the number of charges or convictions for unlawfully bringing a mobile phone into prison in each of the last 5 years as this information is not held centrally. Detailed information may be held on local administrative records, but to be able to identify these cases we would have to access and review all potentially relevant records which would be of disproportionate cost.

The vast majority of prison staff are hardworking and dedicated. A minority of staff engage in corrupt activity which is often as a result of conditioning and manipulation by prisoners.

HM Prison & Probation Service has a zero-tolerance policy on corruption, and take appropriate action to the small number of staff and prisoners who break the rules. Our £100 million Security Investment Programme, aimed at reducing crime in prisons, including reducing the number of staff being manipulated and conditioned by prisoners, is ongoing. This includes increased resource to pursue corruption, as well as established a new ‘Prevent’ function, aimed at building staff resilience against corruption.

The Counter Corruption Unit data setup is based on corrupt staff and whilst prisoner details are recorded, we are not able to access this without checking individual records. It would be at a disproportionate cost to check individual records to provide an answer to this question.

Data on the identified needs of offenders serving custodial sentences is captured in the Offender Assessment System (OASys). In June 2023, of the prisoner serving a custodial sentence of less than 12 months:

• 11,600 (60%) had a drug misuse need
• 7,500 (39%) had an alcohol misuse need

Mental health prevalence is most closely captured in OASys as current psychological problems (including depression) or psychiatric problems. Of those serving a custodial sentence of less than 12 months:

• 6,400 (32%) were found to have a significant level or some level of psychiatric problems
• 13,700 (70%) were found to have a significant level or some level of psychological problems

We do not hold specific data on those homeless before arrest.

The MoJ does not hold data on the number of adults in custody who had previously been in care by sentence length.

We do not hold data on the number or proportion of adults in custody that were excluded from school.

We are unable to provide the data requested as, whilst we do hold data on the number of staff dismissed or prosecuted, this data is not held in one central place but is instead split across several datasets. We have investigated the link between these datasets but we cannot be certain that the data can be matched accurately.

Dismissal due to inappropriate relationship with a prisoner/ex-prisoner is a very rare occurrence given we have over 20,000 prison officers in employment.

Over the last few years we have continued to increase in capacity and deliver our counter-corruption strategy. Through the £100 million Security Investment Programme announced in August 2019, over 100 new staff were recruited into the Counter Corruption Unit. This includes regional 'Prevent' teams, dedicated to building staff resilience through training, awareness raising and individual support.

The removal of Foreign National Offenders is a Government priority. We removed 16,676 foreign national offenders between January 2019 and September 2023. Published figures show that FNO returns have increased in the latest 12-month period (ending September 2023) by 19% when compared to previous 12-month period (3,577 compared to 3,011).

We have recently announced measures to further increase removals including the extension of the Early Removal Scheme window to 18 months; working closely with Home Office to facilitate timely removals and using diplomatic pressure to conclude bilateral Prison Transfer Agreements with specific countries.

The requested information can be found in the attached spreadsheet.

The prison population data published in the most recent Offender Management Statistics Quarterly publication are based on the prison population ‘as at 31 December 2023’. Any request for data ahead of this relates to data intended for future publication. In this case, the requested data (‘as at 5 February 2024’) relates to data intended for publication as part of the next Offender Management Statistics Quarterly release (scheduled for publication on 25 April 2024), and so is not available at this time.

The removal of Foreign National Offenders is a Government priority. We removed 16,676 foreign national offenders between January 2019 and September 2023. Published figures show that FNO returns have increased in the latest 12-month period (ending September 2023) by 19% when compared to previous 12-month period (3,577 compared to 3,011).

We have recently announced measures to further increase removals including the extension of the Early Removal Scheme window to 18 months; working closely with Home Office to facilitate timely removals and using diplomatic pressure to conclude bilateral Prison Transfer Agreements with specific countries.

The requested information can be found in the attached spreadsheet.

The prison population data published in the most recent Offender Management Statistics Quarterly publication are based on the prison population ‘as at 31 December 2023’. Any request for data ahead of this relates to data intended for future publication. In this case, the requested data (‘as at 5 February 2024’) relates to data intended for publication as part of the next Offender Management Statistics Quarterly release (scheduled for publication on 25 April 2024), and so is not available at this time.

The information requested about how many foreign national offenders (FNO)s removed from the UK with more than 12 months remaining on their sentence under the Early Removal Scheme in 2023 is currently not available from published statistics.

Information on the number of FNOs that were returned from the UK under the Early Removal Scheme is available from Table FNO_09 in Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The latest data is published to June 2022.

The information requested about how many foreign national offenders (FNOs) were removed from the UK following convictions for (a) sexual offences, (b) homicide and (c) assault is not available from published statistics.

The Home Office does publish information on a quarterly bases on FNO returns and this can be found at Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Our priority will always be to keep the British public safe. That is why foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them. Between January 2019 and September 2023, more than 16,000 FNOs have been removed from the UK.

The number of band 3-5 prisons officers who were recommended for dismissal for having an inappropriate relationship with a prisoner/ex-prisoner is given in table 1 below. It is not recorded centrally whether the relationship was intimate or not.

Inappropriate relationships with prisoner(s) can result in conviction of criminal offence(s). This data does not include summary dismissals as a result of staff being convicted of criminal offences.

Dismissal due to inappropriate relationship with a prisoner/ex-prisoner is a very rare occurrence given public sector prisons have over 20,000 prison officers in employment.

Over the last few years we have continued to increase in capacity and deliver our counter-corruption strategy. Through the £100m Security Investment Programme announced in August 2019, over 100 new staff were recruited into the Counter Corruption Unit. This includes regional 'Prevent' teams, dedicated to building staff resilience through training, awareness raising and individual support.

The Ministry of Justice works closely with NHS England to ensure that all prisoners who need it have access to high-quality substance misuse treatment. All prisoners receive a comprehensive health screening within their first week to identify drug misuse and related health needs, and agree a plan for recovery-focused treatment. To support and encourage more prisoners to make progress in recovery, we are rolling out a range of interventions, including increasing the number of Incentivised Substance-Free Living wings, recruiting dedicated staff in prisons to focus on tackling drugs, and supporting prisoners to access community treatment pre-release.

The Ministry of Justice does not hold substance misuse healthcare data on prisoners, which is managed by the Department of Health and Social care through the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS).

The data requested are in the tables attached.

The data requested are in the tables attached.

As higher education is predominantly undertaken outside the core education contracts, the available figures are those we receive from the Open University (OU) on prisoners attending its courses. The OU reports that on 5 January 2024, 1761 prisoners were undertaking its courses. In addition, a number of prisoners are undertaking Level 4 courses with other providers, and H M Prison & Probation Service funds the Prisoners Education Trust, which provides access modules for prisoners and distance learning courses.

The requested information can be found in the attached spreadsheet.

The removal of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) is a Government priority with all FNOs sentenced to custody being referred to the Home Office for consideration of deportation. Both departments are working closely to maximise removals from prison including:

• Expanding the Early Removal Scheme to 18 months so we get them out of the country early so they are no longer a cost to taxpayers;
• Deploying more Home Office caseworkers to speed up and increase removals from this country, and look at measures to remove foreign nationals accused of less serious crimes more quickly;
• Continuing to sign strike new prisoner transfer deals like the one agreed with Albania.

The Govt has made good progress from removing from prison and the community and published figures show that overall FNO returns have increased in the latest 12-month period (ending September 2023) by 19% when compared to previous 12-month period (3,577 compared to 3,011).   We removed 16,676 foreign national offenders since January 2019 to September 2023.

Until 2018-19, education provision in prisons was the responsibility of the Department for Education. Figures for subsequent years, with the exception of 2020-21, are shown in the table below.

During much of the Covid pandemic in 2020-21, prison regimes were restricted, and education delivered remotely. As collection of data was suspended for a period, figures for 2020-21 are not available. The return to classroom learning in 2021-22 enabled data collection to resume, but the effect of the regime restrictions can be seen in the statistics for that year. As of 9 May 2022, all Covid-19 related regime restrictions were removed.

Note: Data sourced from the CURIOUS data collection system.