Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prisoners were transferred to open conditions in each of the last 10 years.

The table below sets out the requested data for 2021 and 2022 in relation to Inter Prison Transfers (IPTs) to open conditions under the Generation 4 Prisoner Escort & Custody Services (PECS) contract, which came into effect in August 2020.

The previous contract was structured in a different way, and there is no means of obtaining comparable data for earlier years.

Open conditions are an important means of furthering the rehabilitation of offenders, especially those who have spent many years in closed conditions.

Those held in open jails must abide by stringent conditions and we do not hesitate to move them back to tougher, closed jails if they breach the rules.