Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of the adult population were held in prison on 1 January;  whether they have carried out any comparison with other European countries; and, if so, what European countries they have benchmarked those figures against.

The adult prison population in England and Wales as of 31 December 2023 was 87,227. It is not possible to robustly estimate the proportion of the adult population of England and Wales this represented at that time, because population estimates beyond mid-2023 have not yet been published by the Office for National Statistics.

The Department and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service routinely monitor, and seek to learn from prison systems in other jurisdictions. This can include, among other areas, monitoring prison population data. We do not specifically benchmark our population data against any other jurisdictions.