Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent advice he has received from Public Health England on (a) the effectiveness of the Covid-19: National Framework for Prison Regimes and Services for controlling outbreaks of new covid-19 variants in the prison estate and (b) the adequacy of the implementation of that Framework in custodial facilities where outbreak control teams have been put in place.

Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) initially developed the National Framework alongside advice from Public Health England and Wales and so that advice is embedded within it. We are in regular contact with these bodies to seek advice and feedback on the operational management of Covid-19. Inherent within this is a developing understanding of the evidence base behind the virus and how that impacts on operational delivery.

We support local management of Covid-19 outbreaks and incidents through the deployment of headquarters staff to each Outbreak Control Team meeting and daily reporting to national command. This means recommendations and issues arising locally can be considered promptly and that appropriate decisions and responses are acted upon. We continue to work very closely with public health authorities on minimising the spread of Covid-19 in prisons and our outbreak response, and we continue to close down outbreaks.