Prisons: Self-harm Among Women Prisoners

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 15th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, my noble and learned friend raises an important point. As I said, one of the factors in self-harm is, no doubt, being separated from one’s children. One would therefore want to know how many women in prison are mothers, and indeed how many children they have. Perhaps I can undertake to look into the particular point which my noble and learned friend has raised and write to him on it.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, given the stark 24% rise in self-harm by women in prison in the most recent Ministry of Justice statistics and the need for a whole-system approach to address substance misuse, stable housing and abusive partners, what measures are the Government advocating for the probation service to adopt to give sentencers the confidence to use community-based sentences? As we are coming out of lockdown, when will probation be able to offer women offenders on community sentences full access to face-to-face interventions and the support that is expected by the sentencers?