Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of issuing guidance to prisons on supporting children in custody in different pandemic scenarios.

The Youth Custody Service (part of HMPPS) works with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the Department for Education, and NHS England’s Health & Justice Children's Team to ensure a co-ordinated strategy for managing the health and wellbeing of children in custodial settings, and to ensure appropriate resources and guidance are developed to support the children and young people secure estate (CYPSE) in responding to any new or emerging threats, including a future pandemic.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the UKHSA with the support of the Youth Custody Service and other partners, commissioned a review into how to improve guidance and resources for secure children's settings on preventing and responding to infectious disease threats. Following this review, UKHSA has worked with partners on a co-ordinated strategy to ensure that these recommendations inform continuing work on preventing, preparing for and responding to infectious disease threats, and on pandemic preparedness in the CYPSE.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Youth Custody Services – the final report of the Youth Custody Service’s COVID-19 Research and Evaluation Programme, published in October 2022 – is an extensive piece of research across the secure estate, which captured and assessed the experience of dealing with the threat of COVID-19. The results have not only informed recovery planning, but also became part of the wider plan to prepare for any future pandemic. Establishments and providers have been given greater flexibility in learning from this report to enable them to meet the individual needs of children, by enabling holistic and tailored service delivery, that is evidence-based.