Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many confiscations of mobile phones took place in prisons in (a) England and (b) Wales in each of the last three years.

The number of incidents where mobile phones were found in prisons in England and Wales, over the past three years:

We publish the number of incidents where mobile phones were found in prison in England and Wales in the HMPPS Annual Digest. The latest issue covers the 12 month period to March 2024.

It is important to consider, with incidents of mobile phone finds in prisons, that an increase in numbers may be as a result of more effective searching, rather than more items being present in prisons.

Data Sources and Quality

The figures in the table have been drawn from the HMPPS Incident Reporting System which, as with any large scale recording system, is subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

The figures in the table count the number of incidents where a mobile phone was found, rather than the number of mobile phones found. One incident can include multiple phones found.

Secure training centres Rainsbrook and Oakhill report separately as they are contracted establishments and therefore are not included in this dataset.

The figures are on a financial year basis, so the figures for 2023-24 are from 01 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.