Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of offenders on the secure estate undertook (a) unpaid work, (b) education and (c) vocational training in each of the last 10 financial years.

We set out management information relating to three relevant elements of purposeful activity below. However, this data was only developed as a measure from 2021/2022 so we are unable to provide it for the last 10 years. The percentages include prisoners who complete at least one session per week (part-time activity).

The measures don’t apply to privately managed prisons who use different data recording systems. They also exclude from scope those prisoners on remand, those aged over 65, those who were in healthcare or segregation for more than five days in the week, prisoners in more than one prison in the week and/or those only in prison for less than a week.

There is nothing we refer to as ‘unpaid work’ in prison but prisoners work in various roles across the prison both in industry (for example in textiles workshops) and in services (for example working in the kitchens or laundry). ‘Education’ covers both functional skills and vocational training (we do not separate them)