Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing additional funding to help reduce the number of suicides in high-frequency suicide locations (a) along the south coast and (b) in the UK.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Suicide Prevention Strategy 2023 for England is a five-year strategy which sets out the Government’s ambition for suicide prevention, together with over 100 actions that we think will deliver this. High frequency locations are a priority area, and we expect local commissioners to align with this.
The National Institute of Health Research is currently funding a £1.1 million research award to assess the effectiveness of surveillance technologies to prevent suicides at high-risk locations. The purpose of this study is to discern what technology is currently being used, how effective it is in preventing suicides, including understanding any unintended consequences of its use, and possible barriers to effectiveness.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many deaths have been recorded at HMP Wandsworth since 30 June 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Deaths recorded by prison are published as part of our Safety in Custody statistics, updated quarterly, and available in the Deaths Data Tool at the following link: Safety in custody: quarterly update to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Please note that deaths at Wandsworth are currently published from 30 June 2023 – end of December 2023. Figures to the end of March 2024 are not due for publication until April 2024 and cannot be released at this time.
Deaths in prison custody figures include all deaths of prisoners arising from incidents during prison custody. They include deaths of prisoners while released on temporary license (ROTL) for medical reasons but exclude other types of ROTL where the state has less direct responsibility.
In addition to deaths in prison custody which occur in hospitals, hospices or nursing homes, a small proportion will occur while in an ambulance on the way to hospital, while the prisoner is under escort.
Every death in custody is a tragedy and we continue to do all we can to improve the safety of prisoners.
We have implemented a revised version of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) case management approach across the prison estate. Revisions in ACCT v6 include a stronger emphasis on taking a person-centred approach; better multi-disciplinary team working; a consistent quality assurance process and an improved focus on identifying and addressing an individual’s risks, triggers and protective factors.
We are implementing a new safety training package for staff. It brings together related safety topics, including suicide and self-harm prevention and understanding risks, triggers and protective factors.
We fund Samaritans through a grant providing total funding of just under £2 million between 2022 and 2025. This is primarily for the delivery of the Listener scheme (through which selected prisoners are trained to provide support to fellow prisoners in emotional distress).
We have also worked with Samaritans to develop a postvention response to providing support in the period following a self-inflicted death in order to reduce the risk of further deaths. This has been successfully piloted and the renewed grant includes funding for this service to be maintained until March 2025.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the impact of extreme weather on suicide risk.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department has made no such assessment on the impact of extreme weather on suicide risk.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders who went on to commit a serious further offence were classified as (a) high risk, (b) medium risk and (c) low risk in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The table below sets out the total number of convictions, where an offender subject to probation supervision was charged with a serious further offence (SFO), which resulted subsequently in a conviction for an SFO, for all cases notified to what is now HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) between 1 January 2010 and 31 March 2022, listed by their highest classification of risk of serious harm during the period of supervision for the index sentence (though not necessarily the classification at the point they were charged with the SFO).
Year | Highest risk of serious harm during the index sentence | |||
| Very High / High | Medium | Low | Unknown |
2010 | 100 | 128 | 34 | 12 |
2011 | 93 | 129 | 25 | 23 |
2012 | 117 | 92 | 25 | 29 |
2013 | 107 | 104 | 25 | 27 |
2014 | 124 | 97 | 17 | 24 |
2015 | 116 | 130 | 21 | 30 |
2016 | 148 | 119 | 31 | 11 |
2017 | 191 | 139 | 36 | 19 |
2018 | 137 | 141 | 33 | 17 |
2019 | 165 | 129 | 21 | 17 |
2020 | 154 | 104 | 23 | 12 |
2021 | 162 | 92 | 13 | 9 |
2022 (Jan-Mar) | 37 | 23 | 10 | 3 |
1. Time period for conviction data relates to the date of SFO notification to HMPPS not the date of conviction.
2. Index sentence refers to the sentencing disposal imposed by the court which led to probation services supervision of the offender.
3.The risk of serious harm relates to the highest risk of harm assessed during the period of supervision on the index sentence, not at the time of the SFO.
4.The data concerning unknown risk of harm, may relate to cases where a formal risk assessment had not been completed during the index sentence, or was not captured at the point of notification, and has not been updated within the database.
5. The data includes cases where the SFO was committed within 28 days of the end of the supervision period.
6. Conviction data also includes cases where the offender committed suicide or died prior to the trial, where the judicial process concluded that they were responsible.
7. The data has been updated and may differ to any original publication due to data cleansing, re-categorising and re-grouping. Data in the annual SFO bulletin is shown in financial years not calendar years as above.
8. Data Sources and Quality. We have drawn these figures from administrative IT systems which, as with some large-scale recording systems, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Figures are published based on the date of SFO notification (charge) received by HMPPS. The lag between the date of publication and the conviction figures is to allow time for most cases to complete the criminal justice process. Figures for 2022/23 will be published in October 2024.
Serious further offences are incredibly rare, with fewer than 0.5% of offenders supervised by the Probation Service going on to commit serious further offences but each one is investigated fully so we can take action where necessary. We have also injected extra funding of more than £155 million a year into the Probation Service to deliver tougher supervision, reduce caseloads and recruit thousands more staff to keep the public safer.
Asked by: Lord Woodley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prisoners serving an imprisonment for public protection sentence (1) took their own life, or (2) died from other causes, in 2023.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Every death in custody is a tragedy and we continue to do all we can to improve the safety of prisoners
We have implemented a revised version of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) case management approach across the prison estate which is used to support people at risk of suicide or self-harm in prison. Revisions in ACCT v6 include: a stronger emphasis on taking a person-centred approach; better multi-disciplinary team working; a consistent quality assurance process and an improved focus on identifying and addressing an individual’s risks, triggers and protective factors.
To support the implementation of ACCT v6 we are developing and introducing a new safety training package for staff (called Safety Support Skills training). It brings together related safety topics, including suicide and self-harm prevention, understanding risks, triggers and protective factors, and encourages a joined-up approach to prison safety.
We have also worked with Samaritans to develop a postvention response to providing support in the period following a self-inflicted death in order to reduce the risk of further deaths. This has been implemented across the adult male estate, and the roll out of an adapted version of the approach in the women’s estate will shortly be completed. Our grant to Samaritans includes funding for this service to be maintained until March 2025.
In 2023, 17 prisoners serving an imprisonment for public protection sentence died in custody, 9 of these were classified as self-inflicted deaths.
(1) Deaths in prison custody figures include all deaths of prisoners arising from incidents during prison custody. They include deaths of prisoners while released on temporary license (ROTL) for medical reasons but exclude other types of ROTL where the state has less direct responsibility.
(2) An indeterminate sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) was introduced in 2005. It was intended for high risk prisoners considered ‘dangerous’ but whose offence did not merit a life sentence. The number of prisoners held on this sentence increased initially and the increase was offset by reductions elsewhere
(3) Figures include incidents at HMPPS run Immigration Removal Centres and during contracted out escorts. Figures do not include incidents at Medway STC
(4) The self-inflicted deaths category includes a wider range of deaths than suicides. When comparing figures with other sources it is important to determine whether the narrower suicide or broader self-inflicted deaths approach is in use.
Data Sources and Quality
These figures are derived from the HMPPS Deaths in Prison Custody database. As classification of deaths may change following inquest or as new information emerges, numbers may change from time to time.
Please note that all deaths in prison custody are subject to a coroner’s inquest. It is the responsibility of the coroner to determine the cause of death. The HMPPS system for classifying deaths provides a provisional classification for administrative and statistical purposes. The final classification is only determined at inquest. Figures dependent on classification of deaths should therefore be treated as provisional.
It remains a priority for this Government that all those serving the IPP sentence receive the support they need to progress towards safe release from custody or, where they are being supervised on licence in the community, towards having their licence terminated altogether. In that respect, the Lord Chancellor, announced on 28 November 2023, this Government is taking changes forward in the Victims and Prisoners Bill to reform legislation relating to the termination of the licence for IPP offenders by making amendments to section 31A of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997.
The new measure, subject to the views of Parliament, will:
a. reduce the qualifying period which triggers the duty of the Secretary of State to refer an IPP licence to the Parole Board for termination from ten years to three years;
b. include a clear statutory presumption that the IPP licence will be terminated by the Parole Board at the end of the three-year qualifying period;
c. introduce a provision that will automatically terminate the IPP licence two years after the three-year qualifying period, in cases where the Parole Board has not terminated the licence, so long as the offender is not recalled in that period; and
d. introduce a power to amend the qualifying period by Statutory Instrument;
The Government was particularly persuaded by the Justice Select Committee’s (JSC) recommendation to reduce the qualifying licence period from 10 years to five years – a recommendation in their IPP inquiry report published on 28 September 2022. We are going further: reducing the period to three years. These amendments will restore greater proportionality to IPP sentences by reducing the qualifying period to three years and providing a clear pathway to a definitive end to the licence and, therefore, the sentence.
The safety workstream will actively support Prisons to deliver improvements to safety of those serving an IPP sentence. We plan to;
• Continue to raise staff awareness of the heightened risk of self-harm, suicide and violence of IPP prisoners.
• Monitor, analyse and share any changing or emerging trends in published IPP prisoner data to inform and update guidance where appropriate
• Share internal and external learning, initiatives and communications to inform and enable prisons to support IPP prisoners at risk of self-harm, suicide and violence.
• Develop and pilot a IPP safety toolkit, based on positive practice, to support prisons to improve their approach to IPP prisoners and encourage local innovation.
Asked by: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders were subsequently convicted of murder by index sentence in each financial year between 2010-11 and 2015-16.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Serious Further Offences (SFOs) are rare. Fewer than 0.5% of offenders under statutory supervision are convicted of SFOs. Nonetheless, every single SFO is taken extremely seriously, and in all cases a review is carried out to identify any improvements that need to be made in the management of future cases.
We have increased funding for the Probation Service by an additional £155m a year to recruit staff, bring down caseloads and deliver better supervision of offenders in the community.
We have exceeded our recruitment targets for the last three years. As a result, over 4,000 trainee probation officers joined the Probation sService between 2020/21 and 2022/23, which we anticipate will start to reduce the number of cases held by a probation officer at any one time, with all the benefits which that brings in terms of the quality of risk assessment and risk management.
The table below sets out the total number of convictions where an offender subject to probation supervision was charged with a SFO which resulted in a conviction for murder, for all cases notified to HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2014.
Index Sentence | 2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 |
Community Supervision | 31 | 42 | 30 | 28 |
Determinate Prison Sentence | 17 | 24 | 21 | 27 |
Life Licence | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
IPP | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Total | 50 | 67 | 51 | 59 |
1. Time period for conviction data relates to the date of SFO notification to HMPPS not the date of conviction.
2. Index sentence refers to the sentencing disposal imposed by the court which led to probation services supervision of the offender.
3. The data only includes convictions for serious further offences of murder that have been notified to the national SFO Team, HMPPS.
4. The data includes cases where the SFO was committed within 28 days of the end of the supervision period.
5. Conviction data also includes cases where the offender committed suicide or died prior to the trial, where the judicial process concluded that they were responsible.
6. The data for has been updated and may differ to any original publication due to data cleansing, re-categorising and re-grouping.
7. Data Sources and Quality. We have drawn these figures from administrative IT systems which, as with some large-scale recording systems, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
The number of convictions where an offender subject to probation supervision was charged with a serious further offence which resulted in a conviction for murder, for all cases notified to HMPPS between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2016 are published at the following link: Serious_Further_Offences_2023.ods (live.com).
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of including suicides as reportable incidents under the RIDDOR process.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) are made under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and apply to all sectors and workplaces in Great Britain.
Under RIDDOR, at Regulation 6, requires the responsible person to report:
A suicide would not meet the criteria for reporting under RIDDOR as it is not a death resulting from a work related accident or occupational exposure. An ‘accident’ is defined under RIDDOR as an unforeseen and unintentional incident.
Suicides will be considered in an Inquest conducted by a Coroner or Procurator Fiscal (in Scotland) who will make the decision whether the death was ‘suicide’. The Coroner/Procurator Fiscal can refer cases to the HSE, or other public body, if they consider there is an ongoing risk to others.
Asked by: Baroness Gohir (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the numbers of asylum seekers who have (1) self-harmed, (2) attempted suicide, or (3) died by suicide, who are currently either living or lived in initial and dispersed asylum accommodation provided by the Home Office via contracts.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Home Office operates a Safeguarding Hub to support vulnerable individuals. Both the Home Office and its accommodation providers have robust processes in place to ensure that where someone is at risk, they are referred to the appropriate statutory agencies of police, NHS, and social services to promote appropriate safeguarding interventions.
As well as making safeguarding referrals to the appropriate statutory agencies other actions include attendance at child/adult protection meetings with police and social workers and liaising with both external and internal partners to share information. The statutory agencies retain responsibility for all decisions on intervention activity.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Research briefing by the House of Commons Library, Suicide statistics, published on 2 December 2022, whether his Department has made a comparative assessment of the reasons for the trends in level of suicide rates (a) decreasing between 1982 to 2007 and (b) increasing since 2007.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department has made no such formal assessment. The factors that lead a person to take their own life are very often complex and we continue to work with our National Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisory Group, including academics, to identify and share information and learning about existing and emerging suicide risk factors.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what work is being done in prisons to identify victims of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome; and what steps they are taking to introduce appropriate management and treatment regimes for those prisoners identified.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
All people in prison receive an early health assessment through a reception screening process. Every person receives a first and second stage health assessment, which incorporates a mental health screening in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines. This screening includes questions and actions relating to their risk of self-harm and/or suicide, learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental disorders.
For women who are pregnant and in prison, a full health assessment is undertaken. Any risks, such as alcohol dependency which could lead to foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), should be monitored and managed by the healthcare team, including midwife support. Currently there is no specific treatment for FASD, but where a baby is at risk of FASD, this will form part of the birth plan with the hospital.