Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to their Safety in custody quarterly: update to December 2020, published on 29 April, what steps they are taking to address self-harm in women’s prisons.

We recognise that the level of self-harm in the women’s estate is too high and are determined to reduce this. A task force was set up in April 2020 in response to our increasing concerns about the level of self-harm in the women’s estate. We know that many of the drivers and protective factors linked to women’s risk of self-harm in prisons have been affected by Covid-19 and the restricted regimes that have been put in place to control the spread of infection.

The task force worked to introduce a number of specific interventions to counteract the impact of Covid-19 on the women’s estate, including bespoke well-being checks, increased phone credit and more access to video calls with family and friends.

We have prioritised women’s prisons for the roll out of the revised version of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) multi-disciplinary case management system used in prisons to support people at risk of suicide and self-harm. We also introduced the Offender Management in Custody model in the female estate in April. This will provide each woman with a dedicated key worker or equivalent who will be able to better support them and identify concerns at an early stage so that women can receive the right support at the right time.

We have produced a range of products to support Governors in devising and implementing local safety and welfare plans designed to mitigate risks and promote wellbeing. We have developed new guidance for staff on understanding and supporting someone who is self-harming. We continue to make the Samaritans phone service available and are working with this charity to ensure that the Listener peer support scheme continues to function effectively.

Importantly, we have also invested £5m in alternatives to prison, including new women’s centres which help people address issues such as alcohol or drug addiction which leads them to crime.