Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many incidents of self-harm were recorded at each high-security institution in each year from 2010.

The Government publishes quarterly statistics on violence, self-harm and deaths in prison custody, and a more detailed annual breakdown, and both are available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-custody-quarterly-update-to-june-2018.

The number of assaults in each prison can be seen in table 3.15 of Assaults in prison custody 2000 to 2017; the number of self-harm incidents in each prison is in table 2.13 of Self-harm in prison custody 2004 to 2017; and the number of homicides in each prison can be found in the Deaths data tool. I regret that the number of incidents involving staff with less than three years’ experience could be found only at disproportionate cost.

The Government is taking unprecedented action to improve safety in prisons custody. This includes:

• investing in over 4,300 additional staff since October 2015;

• investing an extra £70 million to improve safety, security and decency, and equipping officers with PAVA incapacitant spray and body-worn cameras to help prevent serious harm to staff and prisoners when dealing with violent incidents;

• tackling the drugs that we know are fuelling much of the violence in custody - introducing new x-ray scanners, drug-detection dogs and dedicated search teams;

• introducing new suicide and self-harm prevention training, which has already reached over 24,000 staff;

• improving support for prisoners in their early days and weeks and rolling out a ‘key worker’ scheme which ensures each prisoner has dedicated support from a particular prison officer;

• funding the Samaritans service for a further three years’ for their valuable Listeners Scheme; and

improving the ACCT case management process for those identified as at risk of self-harm or suicide.