Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 4 December 2024 to Question 16525 on Guardianship and Parents: Prisoners, what recent progress her Department has made with the Ministry of Justice to effectively identify children of prisoners.

Officials at the Department for Education (DfE) and Ministry of Justice (MoJ) continue to work closely together to deliver on our manifesto commitment to identify children affected by parental imprisonment and ensure they get the support they need to thrive.

We recognise that our approach to identification must be a sensitive one and link to an informed, consistent and sustainable nationwide support offer.

Our departments have engaged a broad range of external stakeholders with a variety of expertise to help inform our policy development and will continue to do so as our work on this commitment progresses.

In April 2025 DfE and MoJ Ministers co-chaired a roundtable meeting and brought together those with lived experience of parental imprisonment, expertise on local authority family support, safeguarding, prisons, housing, social work, courts and schools.

A cross-government workshop in June 2025 gathered officials from a range of government departments.

Officials from both DfE and MoJ have also visited local authorities, met with children and their families in the community, with parents and social workers in prisons, and participated in several focus groups.