Since 1 June 2025, no claims submitted by prisoners against HMP Manchester or HMP Belmarsh have referred to a breach of the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Since his appointment in September, HMP Pentonville and HMP Manchester are not prisons the Secretary of State for Justice has visited although he has been to HMP Belmarsh and HMP Gartree. Ministers visit prisons regularly and in recent months this has included both HMP Manchester and HMP Pentonville.

At HMP Manchester, a project to install grills and restrictors on all windows, and to install netting around all buildings, is in the design and development phase. As the prison is a listed building, full planning permission is required. The project is expected to be fully delivered by mid-2026. Maintenance teams at HMP Manchester have completed a full CCTV survey. Work to upgrade wiring and replace faulty cameras, as well as filling gaps in coverage, is projected to complete by April 2025.

Similarly, at HMP Long Lartin, a project to install grills and restrictors on all windows, and to install netting around all buildings, has been commissioned, and is expected to be fully delivered by mid-2026. A local review of the condition of all windows across the site is also being completed, and funding is being sought to begin the work in 2025-26. The local maintenance team has commissioned a full CCTV survey: this will inform a programme of rapid improvement works.

In addition, major projects to upgrade security systems at both Manchester and Long Lartin form part of the 2025-26 custodial capital maintenance programme. This includes upgrading CCTV and Perimeter Intruder Detection Systems. The timescale for completing this work is dependent on completion of the design and contract stages.

HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) and HM Inspectorate of Probation for England and Wales are independent inspectorates which provide scrutiny of the conditions for, and treatment of prisoners and offenders. They report their findings for prisons, Young Offender Institutions, and effectiveness of the work of probation, and youth offending services across England and Wales to the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS).

In response to the report, HMPPS/the Ministry of Justice are required to draft a robust and timely action plan to address the priority and key concerns. Action plans provide specific steps and actions to address the priority and key concerns, which are clear, outcome focussed, measurable, achievable, and relevant with the owner and timescale of each step clearly identified. Action plans are sent to HMIP and published on the GOV.UK website. Progress against the implementation and delivery of the action plans will also be monitored and reported on.

Actions plans are active for both HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin in line with this process, which seek to address the concerns of the Inspectorate.

Since her appointment, the Secretary of State for Justice has made a range of Ministerial Visits across the UK. She is due to visit HMP Manchester in the coming months but will not be giving a running commentary on her diary.

The Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending visited HMP Manchester on 24 October, in advance of our published response to the UN on 6 November. He will be visiting Long Lartin in the coming months. Details of Ministerial meetings are published on the gov.uk website.

Since her appointment, the Secretary of State has made a range of Ministerial Visits across the UK. She is due to visit HMP Manchester in the coming months but will not be giving a running commentary on her diary. Lord Timpson, Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending, visited the prison on 24 October, in advance of our published response to the UN on 6 November.

In response to the UN, the Lord Chancellor instructed the Prison Service to make a number of significant improvements to the site. As such, the Department has published a new action plan to radically improve safety, security and conditions at HMP Manchester. This includes installing a new CCTV system, enhanced staff training and the introduction of netting across the site to combat drones and clamp down on the contraband which fuels violence behind bars.

We are determined to drive improvement at HMP Manchester and Lord Timpson met with the Executive Director on 13 January 2025, to understand the progress made since the inspection. He also receives regular updates on progress at HMP Manchester from his officials.

The Government is tackling the crisis it inherited from the previous Government who left our criminal justice system on the point of collapse.

The number of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) in HMP Buckley, HMP Hindley, HMP Forest Bank and HMP Manchester, as at 30 June 2024, are set out in the table below.

Please note:

(1) Figures for the IPP population include both unreleased and recalled IPP prisoners.

(2) The figures in this table have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

This Government believes it is right that these sentences were abolished and is determined to make further progress towards a safe and sustainable release for those serving the IPP sentence, but not in a way that impacts public protection.

Each of the prisons mentioned has a number of Prison Court Video link end points which enable prisoners to take part in court hearings digitally. The cost of installing these end points to the respective prisons was approximately (a) £165,000, (b) £135,000 and (c) £135,000.

The budget allocation for National Tactical Response Group (NTRG) is shown below. These figures include pay and non-pay items (including training materials, operational incident consumables and vehicle costs). It is not possible to retrieve the 2010 data information within the time available.

NTRG staff work from one of two centres, and are deployed to establishments as the need arises. The deployment of NTRG staff to establishments is managed centrally and subject to operational considerations and priorities. The decision to deploy our specialist resources can be taken as a precautionary measure, however it is usually in response to an ongoing incident or disorder.

Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust has provided healthcare in HMP Manchester since April 2015.

The Mental Health Inreach Team (MHIT) provides a specialist, comprehensive mental health service for prisoners at HMP Manchester.

MHIT staff use the Care Programme Approach to mental health assessment and care planning when working with prisoners. This includes liaising with any family and carers, services outside the prison, including community mental health services in the prisoner's home location and the National Probation Service and Criminal Justice Liaison Team, to ensure that continuity of planning and care occurs as people move in and out of prison.

There are no current plans to change the ownership of HMP Manchester.

Prisons employ a range of measures to detect, disrupt and deter the trafficking of drugs into prisons. This is particularly the case at HMP Manchester which is a High Security prison. Over the last 5 years there have been 53 recorded attempts to smuggle drugs into Manchester by post-all were in letters.

In common with many other prisons, HMP Manchester does not allow books to be sent direct to prisoners in packages because of the ease with which illicit items may be concealed. As such there have been no recorded incidents of drugs been sent in packages of books over the last 5 years. Prisoners may order books through the prison from approved suppliers and can borrow books from the prison library.

Prison library providers ensure that the range of reading and reference material available in each library reflects the needs and diverse nature of the prisoners held. They enable prisoners to receive, subject to the constraints of operating within a custodial environment, a service equivalent to that provided for library users in the community.

The prison library at HMP Manchester holds books on a number of specialist subjects and will consider requests for others where there is a particular need.