Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much funding was allocated to reading programmes on the secure estate in each of the last 10 financial years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
All prisons screen prisoners on arrival for reading ability and offer a curriculum with reading as part of the Entry Level, Level 1 and Level 2 English courses.
Courses delivered under the Prison Education Framework (PEF) include both accredited and non-accredited courses, commissioned by the Governor. To support and promote local reading strategies, prisons have procured additional reading services through the Prison Education Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). These provide further screening and assessment and deliver tailored support to prisoners with learning disabilities or difficulties, or prisoners who are speakers of other languages with English needs. The Prison Education DPS has been used since 2020 to deliver 96 call-off contracts for reading and literacy support in 85 prisons. These contracts have a combined value of £5.97 million.
It is not possible to provide information on how many prisons have offered courses in reading programmes in each of the last ten financial years, or how many teachers were employed over that period. In 2025, 1554 teachers were employed in public sector prisons in England.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many teachers have been employed in prisons in each of the last 10 financial years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
All prisons screen prisoners on arrival for reading ability and offer a curriculum with reading as part of the Entry Level, Level 1 and Level 2 English courses.
Courses delivered under the Prison Education Framework (PEF) include both accredited and non-accredited courses, commissioned by the Governor. To support and promote local reading strategies, prisons have procured additional reading services through the Prison Education Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). These provide further screening and assessment and deliver tailored support to prisoners with learning disabilities or difficulties, or prisoners who are speakers of other languages with English needs. The Prison Education DPS has been used since 2020 to deliver 96 call-off contracts for reading and literacy support in 85 prisons. These contracts have a combined value of £5.97 million.
It is not possible to provide information on how many prisons have offered courses in reading programmes in each of the last ten financial years, or how many teachers were employed over that period. In 2025, 1554 teachers were employed in public sector prisons in England.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisons have a reading (a) strategy and (b) programme.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
All prisons screen prisoners on arrival for reading ability and offer a curriculum with reading as part of the Entry Level, Level 1 and Level 2 English courses.
Courses delivered under the Prison Education Framework (PEF) include both accredited and non-accredited courses, commissioned by the Governor. To support and promote local reading strategies, prisons have procured additional reading services through the Prison Education Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). These provide further screening and assessment and deliver tailored support to prisoners with learning disabilities or difficulties, or prisoners who are speakers of other languages with English needs. The Prison Education DPS has been used since 2020 to deliver 96 call-off contracts for reading and literacy support in 85 prisons. These contracts have a combined value of £5.97 million.
It is not possible to provide information on how many prisons have offered courses in reading programmes in each of the last ten financial years, or how many teachers were employed over that period. In 2025, 1554 teachers were employed in public sector prisons in England.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) offender-on-offender and (b) offender-on-staff assaults have taken place on the secure estate in each of the last 10 financial years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The number of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and assaults on staff for the financial year are shown in the summary tables of the Safety in Custody publication to March 2024: Safety in custody: quarterly update to March 2024 - GOV.UK Specifically, table 4 in the summary tables for this release gives these figures.
Please note that:
Figures from April 2018 onwards exclude incidents occurring within the youth estate, so figures for 2018 are not comparable with the years before or after, due to youth estate incidents being included in part of the year, from January to April 2018. The youth estate includes incidents occurring within Cookham Wood, Werrington and Wetherby, as well as the youth wing at Feltham and Parc. Prior to April 2018 these figures were collected via manual returns, so it is not possible to split out all youth estate incidents up to March 2018. Figures for incidents occurring within the youth estate are published within the ‘Safety in the children and young people secure estate’ statistics bulletin via the following link - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/safety-in-the-youth-secure-estate-bulletin.
Prisoner-on-prisoner assaults are a subset of all assault incidents.
Assaults on staff are a subset of all assault incidents. Some assault incidents may be recorded as both a prisoner-on-prisoner assault and an assault on staff, so the sum of the two categories may exceed the total number of assaults.
The figures for assaults on staff include all incidents where a member of staff was assaulted, which can include a small number of incidents where the assault was by someone other than a prisoner.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of offenders on the secure estate undertook (a) unpaid work, (b) education and (c) vocational training in each of the last 10 financial years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We set out management information relating to three relevant elements of purposeful activity below. However, this data was only developed as a measure from 2021/2022 so we are unable to provide it for the last 10 years. The percentages include prisoners who complete at least one session per week (part-time activity).
The measures don’t apply to privately managed prisons who use different data recording systems. They also exclude from scope those prisoners on remand, those aged over 65, those who were in healthcare or segregation for more than five days in the week, prisoners in more than one prison in the week and/or those only in prison for less than a week.
Category | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 |
Industries | 14% | 19% | 21% |
Education | 13% | 20% | 21% |
Services | 32% | 33% | 34% |
There is nothing we refer to as ‘unpaid work’ in prison but prisoners work in various roles across the prison both in industry (for example in textiles workshops) and in services (for example working in the kitchens or laundry). ‘Education’ covers both functional skills and vocational training (we do not separate them)
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders have left prison without an identified (a) employment, (b) education and (c) training outcome in each of the last 10 financial years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Ministry of Justice does not hold this information.
While we do publish employment on release outcomes, this does not extend over the past 10 financial years. Our employment outcomes data report employment status at six weeks following release and six months following release and cover the period back to 2019-20.
The data, which include the unemployed and unavailable for work groups, can be found at the following link: Offender Employment Outcome Statistics - GOV.UK.
For education, although we do not hold information on the number of prisoners leaving prison without an identified education or training outcome. We have previously published information on prison education and accredited programme attainment dating back to 2019-20. This can be accessed at the following link: Prison Education and Accredited Programme Statistics - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many incidents of assault on unpaid work staff have been reported in each of the last 10 financial years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Community Rehabilitation Companies previously held responsibility for unpaid work, until being unified back into the National Probation Service on 26 June 2021. HM Prisons and Probation Service does not hold incident reporting information prior to this date. The data below is taken from the accident reporting platform for the financial years 2021-2025.
It is important to us that all our staff on the frontline are safe and we will do whatever it takes to protect our hardworking staff. Detailed risk assessments are carried out and probation staff are trained at handling incidents and de-escalation. Anyone who assaults a member of staff could have criminal charges brought against them.
Date Range | Physical Assault | Non-Physical Assault |
1/6/21 – 31/3/22 | 21 | 102 |
1/4/22 – 31/3/23 | 22 | 303 |
1/4/23 – 31/3/24 | 36 | 318 |
1/4/24 – 31/3/25 | 30 | 366 |
1/4/25 – 24/4/25 | 0 | 22 |
Note: Physical Assaults includes any incident where contact is made. Non-Physical Assaults includes verbal or written abuse and intimidating behaviour.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a target for the number of offenders on the secure estate who have employment roles.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We know that finding employment after release reduces the chance of reoffending significantly, by up to nine percentage points. Undertaking work in custody provides offenders with opportunity to develop key skills that will increase their chance of gaining employment on release and build links with real employers, reducing their risk of reoffending.
The Government has committed to break the cycle of reoffending by improving offenders’ access to purposeful activity and to better support prisons to link up with employers and the voluntary sector to get more people with convictions into work.
Whilst we do set targets for employment post-release, there are currently no plans to set targets for employment in prisons. However, HMPPS have introduced the National Regime Model, creating a national infrastructure for planning, reviewing and measuring purposeful activity for the first time.
Every prison must now deliver a minimum of 60 minutes time in open air per day, 120 minutes time out of cell per day, and one quality key work session per month, and must also set out and be accountable to HMPPS on how they are improving their regime offer year on year.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether her Department has made an estimate of the value added by unpaid work projects on the secure estate.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
While there is not anything specifically named ‘unpaid work’ in prisons, and we therefore cannot provide information on how much has been spent on it, convicted prisoners are expected to work and there are various jobs across prison workshops, kitchens, laundries and other services like wing cleaning, for which prisoners are paid. Prison industries can be commercial, employer-led spaces or can make products for the internal prison market that we would otherwise have to buy (such as cell furniture, prisoner clothing), saving the taxpayer money.
There are also payback punishments in prisons, which act as a means for enabling prisoners to make amends to their prison community for their misbehaviour.
Asked by: Ben Goldsborough (Labour - South Norfolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders entering the secure estate had an (a) English and (b) mathematics functional skills level (a) below and (b) above entry-level 3 in each of the last 10 financial years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The functional skills level of prisoners recorded from initial English and maths assessments are published as part of the annual Prison Education and Accredited Programmes Statistics at Prison Education and Accredited Programme Statistics - GOV.UK. The Ministry of Justice holds this data from 2019. Before this, prison education was the responsibility of the Department for Education.