Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to page 24 of the Government response to the First Report from the Women and Equalities Committee, Session 2015-16, on Transgender Equality, cm 9301, published in July 2016, and page 3 of the Review on the care and management of transgender offenders, published in November 2016, what the timescale is for the introduction of a new NOMS-wide instruction on the management of transgender offenders.

The National Offender Management Service’s instruction ‘The Care and Management of Transgender Offenders’ was released, alongside a wider Review completed by the Ministry of Justice and official statistics on Wednesday 9 November 2016. This is a NOMS-wide policy which covers prisoners serving custodial sentences and those offenders subject to statutory supervision in the community. The Instruction comes into operation on the 1 January 2017.