Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to identify and support the children of prisoners.

The Government recently published the first official statistics to estimate the number of children affected by parental imprisonment using administrative government data. It is estimated that between 1 October 2021 and 1 October 2022 there were around 193,000 children with a parent in prison. We recognise the importance of being able to identify children with a parent in prison to make sure they receive the support they need, which is why our Family Support Workers help to re-establish family ties where appropriate, and help to facilitate visits from prisoners’ children.

The Ministry of Justice is working closely with the Department for Education to determine how we can do more to effectively identify these children and provide support for both them and for the parent in prison. The support will be informed by learnings from previous interventions and pilots, and engagement both with those with lived experience and organisations from the Voluntary, Charity and Social Enterprise sector.