Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to paragraph 52 of his Department's Education and Employment Strategy 2018, Cm 9621, published in May 2018, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that prison governors have adequate resources to commission careers advice services.

We are empowering governors to make decisions about their own prisons – ultimately, they are best placed to do this. We will devolve the entire establishment-level budget to prison governors from 1 April 2019. We will merge previously separate budgets for education, Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG), and libraries into a single budget.

Governors will treat this as a single ‘pot’ and decide how much to spend on which services. They will be able to make local decisions on how much of their budget they want to spend commissioning careers advice. This will allow governors to shape a coherent IAG service, reflecting the particular needs of their establishment.

In the meantime, the experienced Offender Learning and Skills Service providers, the DWP work coaches and the Community Rehabilitation Companies will continue to provide a range of employment support services for prisoners.