Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what support is available to help ex-offenders reintegrate into communities in high deprivation areas.

Effective resettlement of prison leavers is crucial to reduce reoffending. This includes making sure someone has a home, family links where appropriate, access to healthcare, a job or education, and timely access to benefits where needed.

Community probation practitioners coordinate each individual’s rehabilitation, taking an individualised approach to ensure all prison leavers are connected with the right local support. They work closely with pre-release teams and local services, including through prison-based and commissioned rehabilitative services, to enable effective reintegration back into the community.

To support this, the Government is committed to ensuring robust pre-release plans are in place, identifying and putting support in place to address individuals’ needs before release.

This support includes HMPPS’s Community Accommodation Service Tier 3, which provides up to 12 weeks of temporary housing for those at risk of homelessness on release, offering a stable base to support reintegration. Additionally, we’ve launched regional Employment Councils that bring together businesses, probation, and the Department for Work and Pensions to help prison leavers into work - a key factor in reducing reoffending by up to nine percentage points.