Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of enabling support workers to call into prisons that have in-cell telephones to maintain relationships and progress with the prisoners they work with (a) during the period of the covid-19 restricted prisons regime and (b) in general.

Information relating to the proportion of prisoners’ telephone contact to supports workers could only be obtained at disproportionate cost as this would require contacting and collating information from each prison establishment across the prison estate.

We understand the importance of these support services in ensuring the well-being of prisoners, and their rehabilitation and temporary measures are in place for prisoners to maintain contact with their families via the PIN phone system. However, these handsets are unable to accept incoming calls, including those from authorised support workers.