Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of recent prison education funding changes on rehabilitation outcomes.

The Ministry of Justice is committed to supporting rehabilitation through high-quality education, skills and work activities. National funding for prison education has not been reduced. Inflationary pressures have affected the proportion of the overall budget that can be spent on the Core Education contracts, and this has led to reductions in the volume of delivery that prisons are able to commission. This represents just one element of the wider education, skills and work offer that prisoners are able to access and Governors retain the flexibility to commission provision that best meets the needs of their prison population.

We continue to monitor delivery closely through HMPPS contract management arrangements. In addition, a full evaluation of the new Prisoner Education Service is underway to assess the impact of education provision on prisoner progress and rehabilitation outcomes, and to inform future policy and commissioning decisions.