Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many tents prisons have provided to people leaving prison in (a) 2022-23 and (b) 2023-24 to date.

There is no official policy to issue tents as part of releasing people from prison, therefore the Ministry of Justice does not collect data on the number of tents issued. As such no information can be provided.

Our Prisons Strategy White Paper set out our plans to reduce reoffending, including improving prison leavers’ access to accommodation. This includes delivering our transitional accommodation service, known as Community Accommodation Service – Tier 3 (CAS-3), which provides up to 84 nights of basic temporary accommodation for prison leavers who would otherwise be homeless.

CAS-3 launched in five initial probation regions in July 2021. The service was expanded to Wales in June 2022, with expansion to the remaining six probation regions in England by the end of the year, to support the thousands of offenders who leave prison homeless.

Between 01 July 2021 and 31 March 2023 5,796 individuals, who would have otherwise been homeless, were accepted on to CAS-3.