Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many pregnant women have been transported in prisoner transport vehicles in each of the last three years.
A total of 1,700 pregnant women moves took place between August 2016 and September 2019. This does not necessarily equate to the number of individuals transported, as the same prisoner may have been moved more than once. Pregnant women are moved in multi-purpose vehicles as opposed to cellular vehicles in all but exceptional circumstances. A breakdown of journeys is provided in the table below.
Year | Number of female moves |
2016 (August – December) | 249 |
2017 | 640 |
2018 | 533 |
2019 (January – September) | 278 |
Below is a table showing the number of instances where both women and men have been transported in the same vehicle.
Year | Number of instances OF failure to separate females |
2017 | 81 |
2018 | 5 |
2019 YTD | 9 |
The Prisoner Escort and Custody Services (PECS) contract is specifically designed for the movement of prisoners in cellular vehicles that meets MOJ standards. The contracts include a Contract Delivery Indicator which requires women to be separated from men for at least 97% of all journeys made. The current national performance is 99.89% of total journeys made.
Private providers continue to play an important role in the prison estate. HMPPS will continue to closely monitor the performance of all providers and we will not hesitate to take action where standards fall short.