Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I suspect that you, Mr Speaker, would stop me if we started a debate on the state of the public finances in 2010 and the difficult decisions that had to be taken as a result of the situation we inherited. The reality is that since October 2016 we have been recruiting more prison officers, we are ahead of what we said we would do and we are continuing to recruit prison officers. That is really important to ensure that prisons operate as they should.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

4. What recent assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of suicide in prisons; and what steps he is taking to reduce that level.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

Any death from suicide in prison is a tragedy. We have managed to reduce the number of suicides in prison—it nearly halved between 2016 and 2017—and most of that progress is due to a new protocol that identifies the individual needs of prisoners and their times of maximum vulnerability.

[Mr Cunningham]

How many additional staff who are trained to deal with medical illness have been brought in?

[Rory Stewart]

Nearly 15,600 of our staff have received additional training—that is the figure produced by my colleague. The ACCT—assessment, care in custody and teamwork—process, which is the new protocol for suicide reduction, focuses on the evidence for when prisoners are most vulnerable, for example their first night in custody, and how to ensure that we deal with them. But we still need to reduce the number of suicides further.