Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that (a) educational and (b) vocational training opportunities are not reduced in prisons; and whether he plans to use those training opportunities to help reduce prison overcrowding.

Education is key for reducing reoffending and research indicates that prison education reduces reoffending by 9 percentage points. In September 2023, we set out our plans to deliver an improved Prison Education Service that will support more prisoners to improve their literacy and numeracy and increase the number of prison leavers employed on release.

Over the past 12 months we have seen a sustained delivery in the number vocational courses undertaken by prisoners following increases to 95,000. To ensure the right education and vocational training opportunities are available across prisons we have:

• Introduced new Head of Education Skills and Work roles in every prison to provide tailored education plans to meet the needs of their jail.
• Enabled the first ever prisoner apprenticeships in catering and construction through ground-breaking partnerships with Greene King, Kier and Clipper, with talks underway to open up apprenticeships in other industries.
• Recruited Neurodiversity Support Managers in every prison to support offenders with neurodivergent needs in accessing education, skills and work opportunities within the prison.
• Launched a Future Skills programme to train up over 2,000 offenders over the next two years in vital industries such as scaffolding and electrics, before linking them up with employers in the local community and guaranteeing interviews on release.
• We are investing £16 million to test new ways of increasing workshop activity to get prisoners work-ready and improve labour supply.
• £1.8 million in the Literacy Innovation Fund which is delivering pilots in 15 prisons targeting those with low literacy levels.

I am pleased to say that we have seen positive outcomes in employment in support of our work to make best use of prison capacity. The proportion of prison leavers in employment six months after release has more than doubled in the two years to March 2023, from 14% to over 30%and between 2011/12 and 2021/22, the overall proven reoffending rate has decreased from 31.3% to 25.2%.