Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have made any assessment of the proportion of people held in prisons with significant difficulties with literacy.

The literacy and numeracy skills of all prisoners are assessed on entry to custody. Data on education participation in prison are published annually as official statistics in the Prison Education Statistics and Accredited Programmes in Custody publication. In 2022-23, prisoners took a total of 58,907 English initial assessments. 65 per cent of those prisoners in 2022-23 were at Entry Levels 1-3 in English (i.e., below the lowest GCSE grade).

All prisons now have a reading strategy, and we have published a national Reading Framework to support prisons in maintaining their strategy. HMPPS has introduced a Literacy Innovation Fund, to pilot two specialist reading and literacy projects across fifteen prisons, to offer education to prisoners at the lowest reading level. Literacy provision is a significant element of the core education offer, with all prisons offering functional skills qualifications in Literacy from Entry Level to Level 2.