Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to implement the recommendations of the report by Lord Farmer, The importance of strengthening prisoners' family ties to prevent reoffending and reduce intergenerational crime, published in August 2017.

Families can play a significant role in supporting an offender; positive family relationships have been identified as a protective factor in the desistance from crime. The Government welcomes the recommendations identified by Lord Farmer to strengthen family ties to help offenders turn their lives around and protect public safety.

Work has already commenced on developing a strategy which will take forward recommendations from the review. We are already taking forward some key recommendations, including giving governors the budget and flexibility to spend their resources appropriately to help prisoners keep important family ties.

Alongside this, we plan to pilot new family and significant relationship performance measures which will provide crucial guidance to deliver more consistent services in areas such as visitations across the entire prisons estate.

We will continue to hold regular meetings with Lord Farmer to update him on implementation of his recommendations.

The Government will ensure that Parliament is fully appraised of progress on implementation and will set out its proposals for doing so in a letter to the Chair of the Justice Select Committee in due course.