Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 26 March 2014, Official Report, column 284W, on Muslim prisoners, how many and what proportion of Muslim prisoners included in the figures listed for 2013 have converted to that religion since they arrived in prison; and if he will make a statement.

Information on the number of prisoners who convert to each religion (including Islam) whilst in prison is not held centrally. The data held centrally relates to prisoners' current declared religion, not any previously declared religion.

In order to provide data relating to offender conversions to Islam in prison, it would be necessary to manually examine the individual prison records of over 11,700 Muslims in prison as at 31 December 2013 - this could only be done at disproportionate cost.