Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Reform UK - Newark)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when her Department plans to publish the next Safety in custody statistics.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Safety in Custody statistics are published quarterly, with the next publication due on 31 July 2025. This will cover deaths in prison custody to June 2025, and self-harm and assaults in prison custody to March 2025.
The statistics will be available at the following link: Safety in custody statistics - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to keep children safe online.
Answered by Feryal Clark
Keeping children safe online is a priority for this government. Through the Online Safety Act, children already benefit from the protections of the illegal content duties, and later this month the child safety duties will come into force, providing additional protections. Once in force, services in-scope will be required to protect children from harmful content, including pornography, suicide and self-harm material.
Ofcom – the regulator of the Act – has robust enforcement powers to use should services not comply with their duties. The government continues to consider all options in pursuit of child online safety building on provisions in the Act.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many violent attacks on prison officers on prison estates have occurred in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Reducing the levels of violence in prisons is a key priority and we are working hard to make prisons as safe as possible.
In response to recent serious assaults on our brave and hardworking prison officers, we are mandating the use of Protective Body Armour in the highest risk units and this summer we will trial the use of tasers by specialist staff in adult male prisons.
To protect our staff from serious assaults, PAVA – a synthetic pepper spray – is available in the adult male closed estate and a limited rollout in three Youth Offender Institutions is planned to commence in the summer period, to be used as a last resort in response to an immediate threat of serious harm. We are also committed to removing wet shave razors, that can be used as weapons. Electric shavers are in 31 priority sites in the adult male closed estate and this rollout continues.
All new staff receive violence reduction training and prisoners who pose a raised risk of violence are supported through a case management approach to address the underlying causes of their violence. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 doubled the maximum penalty to two years’ imprisonment for those who assault prison officers.
We publish Safety in Custody statistics quarterly covering deaths, self-harm and assaults in prison custody in England and Wales. Statistics on assaults on staff can be found in Table 4 of the Safety in Custody summary tables to December 2024.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment she has made of the level of violence against prison officers in prisons.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
Reducing the levels of violence in prisons is a key priority and we are working hard to make prisons as safe as possible.
In response to recent serious assaults on our brave and hardworking prison officers, we are mandating the use of Protective Body Armour in the highest risk units and this summer we will trial the use of tasers by specialist staff in adult male prisons.
To protect our staff from serious assaults, PAVA – a synthetic pepper spray – is available in the adult male closed estate and a limited rollout in three Youth Offender Institutions is planned to commence in the summer period, to be used as a last resort in response to an immediate threat of serious harm. We are also committed to removing wet shave razors, that can be used as weapons. Electric shavers are in 31 priority sites in the adult male closed estate and this rollout continues.
All new staff receive violence reduction training and prisoners who pose a raised risk of violence are supported through a case management approach to address the underlying causes of their violence. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 doubled the maximum penalty to two years’ imprisonment for those who assault prison officers.
We publish Safety in Custody statistics quarterly covering deaths, self-harm and assaults in prison custody in England and Wales. Statistics on assaults on staff can be found in Table 4 of the Safety in Custody summary tables to December 2024.
Asked by: Tristan Osborne (Labour - Chatham and Aylesford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of updating the registration of Sex Offenders under the Sexual Offenders Act 2003 to include a private police record of (a) email address, (b) telephone numbers, (c) (i) registration and (ii) monitoring of any tablet and computer devices and (d) other information.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Crime and Policing Bill has already introduced a number of measures which will strengthen the management of sex offenders, including requiring registered sex offenders to provide notification in advance of changing their name and placing restrictions on certain offenders changing their name without seeking police authorisation.
In addition to the above measures, regulations will be made under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 which expand the notifiable information that must be provided by registered sex offenders. The additional notifiable information will include:
The changes to the notifiable information will allow the police to monitor registered sex offenders more closely and protect the public from the risk of sexual harm. We will continue to keep this area under review as we formulate our long term strategy to tackle violence against women and girls.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that safeguarding teams in schools follow up with young people who have self-harmed.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Department for Health and Social Care is primarily responsible for child mental health, including self-harm. Schools and colleges also have an important role to play in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their pupils. ‘Keeping children safe in education’, the department’s statutory guidance for schools and colleges, makes clear that schools should ensure they have clear systems and processes in place for identifying possible mental health problems, including routes to escalate concerns and clear referral and accountability systems.
The department supports mental health leads in schools to embed effective approaches that help to identify issues such as self-harm and provides appropriate support along with a range of guidance and practical resources.
If staff have a mental health concern about a child which is also considered to be a safeguarding concern, they should follow their child protection policy and speak to their Designated Safeguarding Lead or a deputy immediately.
Designated Safeguarding Leads act as a source of support, advice and expertise for all staff and are the point of contact with local safeguarding partners. They liaise with school mental health leads and, where available, with mental health support teams where safeguarding concerns are linked to mental health issues. They also work with parents and carers to safeguard and promote the welfare of children to ensure support is in place at every stage.
The government will also provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school by expanding Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs), so every child and young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate.
By April 2026, we estimate that 60% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England will be covered by an MHST, up from 52% in April 2025.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made on the suicide prevention strategy; and what steps he is taking to help reduce suicide rates.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There has been significant work and progress across the Government, the National Health Service, the police, the voluntary sector, academia, and wider partners to deliver the strategy.
As part of our mission to build an NHS that is fit for the future and that is there when people need it, the Government will recruit 8,500 mental health workers specially trained to support people at risk of suicide, to help ease pressure on busy mental health services.
The Government also continues to fund the Multicentre Study of Self-harm, whose work is vital in informing the development of policy, and of clinical practice.
The Online Safety Act puts new duties on social media companies and search services to help protect children and adults from harmful content online.
Between August 2023 and March 2025, £10 million was made available to voluntary, community, and social enterprises in England through the national 2023 to 2025 Suicide Prevention Grant Fund. The Department is now evaluating the impact of the fund, and learning from the evaluation will help to inform the delivery of the Government’s mission to reduce the lives lost to suicide.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps with Cabinet colleagues to introduce restrictions on purchasing sodium nitrate in quantities that pose a significant risk to (a) self harm and (b) life.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to implementing our suicide prevention strategy for England, which sets out priority areas and key actions to address the risk factors contributing to suicide and self-harm. Tackling methods of suicide and self-harm is one of these priority areas.
The Government continues to take steps to reduce access to, and awareness of, sodium nitrate. The Department leads a Concerning Methods Working Group, which develops and delivers rapid targeted actions to collectively reduce public access to, and awareness of, emerging methods of suicide, including the use of sodium nitrate. The group involves representatives from Government departments, including the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology and the Home Office, as well as representatives from the voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector, police, academics, and the National Health Service. This substance has been a particular focus of the actions implemented since the group was established and continues to be a priority in discussions about further action to be taken.
The group has worked with manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers to reduce access to this substance, where people may be intending to use it for suicide.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether she plans to review legislation on (a) aiding and (b) abetting suicide through the (i) online promotion and (ii) sale of lethal substances.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
It is already an offence to do an act capable of encouraging or assisting suicide under section 2(1) of the Suicide Act 1961 where that act is intended to encourage or assist suicide or attempted suicide.
The Government has no plans to review that offence. There are also a number of criminal offences relating to the supply of regulated poisons to the public under the Poisons Act 1972. In addition, the Online Safety Act 2023 requires in-scope services to have proportionate systems and processes in place to prevent users from encountering illegal content via their service. This includes the online sale and promotion of lethal substances and illegal suicide and self-harm content.
Asked by: Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative - Chingford and Woodford Green)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to improve (a) awareness and (b) understanding of (i) gambling-related suicide and (ii) other gambling-related harm at all levels of the justice system.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Vice Chamberlain (HM Household) (Whip, House of Commons)
In the Ministry of Justice, general training on wellbeing and resilience is available to all Civil Servants and we provide guidance to employees on suicide and self-harm. In previous Mental Health Awareness Weeks, specific events on ‘gambling addiction and mental health’ were available to all staff.
Within His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), National Debt Awareness week was observed in 2024, with several live events concerning gambling-related harms. Further materials such as the "Reach Out Save Lives" initiative, and bite-sized learning modules like the ‘HMPPS Problem Gambling: Prevalence and Practice’ course, are available to all staff. There is also the ‘Addiction to Gambling long-read’ which collates peer-reviewed literature on the matter and serves as operational guidance on working with those in prison and probation who experience gambling-related harms.
Support for prisoners who are experiencing gambling-related harm is provided by the NHS.
As an organisation, we take an evidence-based approach to ensure the Ministry of Justice is able to provide targeted support to respond to environmental factors. At this time, we are not planning any specific events training for the workforce related to gambling-related harm.