Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the National Audit Office report, Improving Outcomes for Women in the Criminal Justice System, what assessment his Department has made of the Female Offenders Strategy's aim of having fewer women in custody when estimating how many more prison places may be required.

We launched the Female Offender Strategy in 2018 with the aim of steering women away from crime and since then, the number of women entering the criminal justice system has fallen by 30%. We're investing millions of pounds over the next 3 years into community services like women centres, drug rehabilitation and accommodation support so fewer women end up in prison.

The new facilities for women are an important step in taking forward the Female Offender Strategy aim to better conditions for women in custody that support effective rehabilitation. We must ensure that those women who need to be in custody are held in appropriate, decent and safe accommodation. This is why the design of our new accommodation will be trauma-informed and gender-specific, with the expectancy of improved outcomes for women.

The new smaller communities of accommodation are specifically designed to be trauma-informed with visible aspects such as windows without bars, smaller units, better layouts, bigger association spaces being included, whereas dark, narrow corridors, blind corners and communal showers may trigger responses linked to sexual assault or abuse experience.