Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the cost to the public purse was of Welsh female prisoners held in English prisons in the most recent period for which figures are available.

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) does not separate annual costs of imprisoning Welsh women prisoners held in England prisons. NOMS does not analyse cost by prisoner nationality and costs recorded on the NOMS central accounting system do not allow identification of costs attributable to individual prisoners.

However, the Department routinely publishes average costs for each prisoner and prison place based on actual net resource expenditure for each private and public sector prison.. This includes the women’s custodial estate and is available in summary form for the whole of the prison estate in England and Wales, on an annual basis after the end of each financial year.

The most recently published figures for financial year 2013-14 is published alongside the NOMS Annual Report and Accounts and available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-and-probation-trusts-performance-statistics-201314

You may wish to note detailed costs of custody for women prisoners can be found at the above link within the file named: costs per place and cost for each prisoner 2013-14 - supplementary information. A copy of this is also placed in the House library.

The Department is committed to delivering prison capacity changes designed to modernise the prison estate and, where possible, reduce prison costs, whilst maintaining a high quality service.

From the financial years 2009-10 to 2013-14 there was a real terms reduction of 17% in the overall average cost for each prisoner, with a reduction of 5% achieved during the last financial year 2013-14.