(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe have seen the King’s college figures, and we do not agree with them. The fact of the matter is that we have published full impact assessments, and we stand by them.
More than half of male prisoners and almost three quarters of female prisoners have no qualifications at all. What efforts are being made, through the training of prison officers, to raise awareness of the importance and availability of prison education in our prisons?
We have recently re-let the offender learning and skills contracts, which are funded through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. That is about £157 million worth of education which is being put into skilling-up offenders, not least so that they can then take part in our work in prisons strategy and we can get much more effective and economic use of prisoner time in prison—with enormous benefits for them on release.