Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of effectiveness of her Department's programmes for supporting offenders in returning to employment in Surrey Heath constituency.

We know that finding employment after release reduces the chance of reoffending significantly, by up to nine percentage points. That is why the Government’s manifesto commits to break the cycle of reoffending by better supporting prisons to link up with employers to get more people with convictions into work.

We have launched regional Employment Councils, including for the region Kent, Surrey & Sussex. For the first time, they bring businesses together with probation and the Department of Work and Pensions to support offenders in the community.

In addition, Prison Employment Leads, Employment Hubs, ID and Banking Administrators and Employment Advisory Boards are in every resettlement prison, including at HMP Coldingley in Surrey Heath. They play a key role in getting offenders work-ready, matching them to jobs on release and linking prisons with local businesses.

The proportion of ex-offenders in employment within six months of release in Kent, Surrey and Sussex was 29.5% in the year to March 2024, an increase of 4.7 percentage points from the previous reporting year to March 2023.