Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish his Department’s plan for the HMPPS Race Action Programme.

We are committed to actively tackling the impact of race disparities in the Criminal Justice System. As part of this commitment, in December 2020 HMPPS launched the Race Action Programme (RAP), which builds on the MoJ Race Action Plan. The RAP will increase the diversity of our workforce, address the risk of bias in our policies and tackle disparity in outcomes for prisoners, people on probation and children in our system. This will also help to reduce reoffending and enhance rehabilitative practices.

The programme has worked to establish a network of stakeholders, internally and externally, to ensure all interventions are sustainable. A range of initiatives have successfully been implemented across HMPPS which has included: a successful pilot of enhanced training for staff to improve the quality of pre-sentencing reports on ethnic minority individuals; the launch of a Race Allyship charter to build a community of staff who proactively support ethnic minority individuals; introducing a series of inclusive policy consultations sessions with expert third sector organisations; and piloting healing events to create safe spaces for staff to manage and overcome racial trauma.

HMPPS are also leading an External Advice and Scrutiny Panel (EASP) which includes a wide range of expert stakeholders to review, assure, and challenge our plans and implementation accordingly. The RAP Strategic Case has also been shared with external and internal stakeholders setting out the background for the programme, including an evidence summary and the deliverables and outcomes of the five priority projects. It also outlines our approach to evaluation and a summary of the headline benefits. There are no current plans for official publication of this document, however, all key stakeholders will continue to be updated on the progress of the programme throughout the Programme lifecycle.