Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to reduce the costs of phone calls from prisons to reflect the tariffs in place for the rest of the UK.

The prisons PINphone system is not comparable to any other public payphone service, it requires significant investment to meet specific requirements and delivery into prisons and is reflected in the cost of calls. That said, HMPPS is keen to make calls as reasonable as is possible and is therefore working on a programme to extend the availability of in-cell telephony so that by March 2020 there are 50 public sector prisons with phones in cells with call rates reduced.