Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have died by suicide while on remand in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
We publish this information as part of the Safety in Custody statistics available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/safety-in-custody-quarterly-update-to-september-2019
Please see the number of self-inflicted deaths of those on remand in each of the last five years below:
2019 – 23
2018 – 27
2017 – 21
2016 – 33
2015 – 36
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.
Every death in custody is a tragedy. We do all we can to prevent prisoners taking their own lives.
We have rolled out revised and improved “Introduction to Suicide and Self-harm Prevention” training for new and existing staff. Over 24,000 staff have received part training and over 12,000 have received training in all six modules.
We have increased the level of support for prisons to help staff implement and monitor any necessary changes and we continue to support prisoners at risk of suicide and self-harm through the multi-disciplinary Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) process.
Asked by: Lord Hylton (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what actions they are taking to reduce mental ill health among prisoners by providing facilities for (1) exercise, (2) education, and (3) work; and how those facilities have been affected by COVID-19 precautions.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Covid-19 pandemic and the necessary regime restrictions introduced in response to it have brought new and different challenges across the estate. Maintaining safety and the mental health and wellbeing of prisoners has remained a priority throughout. A range of products have been made available to support Governors in devising and implementing local safety and welfare plans designed to mitigate any risks. Governors are required to agree a health delivery plan which includes how mental health support will be delivered during COVID-19.
We have tailored guidance for supporting specific groups of people in prison whose wellbeing may be more impacted by the Covid-19 measures put in place, including older prison residents, those with learning difficulties and groups known to be at increased risk of self-harm, suicide, or violence.
We have piloted improvements to Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT), which is the multidisciplinary case management approach used in prisons when someone is thought to be at risk of self-harm or suicide. Following a pause, due to the implementation of Covid-19 measures, we are currently planning the resumption of the roll-out of revised ACCT across the prison estate.
In addition, video health conferencing has been rolled out across the estate to support the delivery of mental health services by enabling contact with community and hospital services. Governors are also considering how mental health services can support people with the potential increased anxiety or other mental illnesses related to Covid-19, as well as ‘lockdown’ experiences and restrictions.
A range of internal initiatives have been developed, including the development of weekly national wellbeing content through HMPPS Psychology Services and prison radio content focussed on wellbeing. We have also been working with education providers to support prisons in the adult estate. This has allowed us to enable learning to continue via in cell activity, distraction material and learning packs. Within the Youth Secure Estate the delivery of education remains a particular priority as we seek to mirror the position taken for vulnerable children in the community, where it is possible to do so.It is our desire to continue to provide ‘face to face’ classroom-based education, notwithstanding local variations and the impact of potential outbreaks amongst staff or children.
In relation to exercise, since the beginning of the pandemic prisons have been authorised to use external exercise yards for access to the open air and to deliver external physical education. All sites have also set out how they will provide prisoners with time out of cell, and the safe equivalent of association time.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork cases have been opened in each of the last five years.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) is used in prisons to support people at risk of suicide and self-harm. Due to a current technical issue with extracting previous ACCT data from the system we are unable to provide figures on how many ACCT documents were opened in each of the last five years. We are working to resolve this issue and will write to you once we have the data available.
The number of people managed by ACCT fluctuates daily, but data for 2020 has shown that an average of around 2,000 prisoners have been assessed as being at risk and are being supported through ACCT on any given day.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people in prison are currently managed under the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork care planning system.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) is used in prisons to support people at risk of suicide and self-harm. We cannot provide live data on the number of people managed by the ACCT process as quality assured data is only available up to March this year. The number of people managed by ACCT fluctuates daily, but data for 2020 has shown that on average of around 2,000 prisoners have been assessed as being at risk and are being supported through ACCT on any given day.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on the number of suicides involving (a) Secondary School, (b) Further Education and (c) Higher Education students; what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the incidence of suicides in education settings; and what steps his Department is taking on suicide prevention in education settings.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Departmental officials are in regular contact with counterparts at the Department for Education.
We have made no assessment of the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on incidences of suicides in educational settings. To help us get access to quicker data on suicide numbers, Public Health England is piloting a national surveillance system to monitor suspected suicide and self-harm, by collecting near real-time data from local systems. This will allow us to identify patters of risk and inform national and local responses. In November, the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health research group published a report which used real-time data to compare the average number of suicides pre- and -post-lockdown. The researchers found no evidence of a significant rise in suicides post-lockdown in a population of nine million people. This does not identify which suspected suicides took place in an educational setting.
We remain committed to supporting children and young people’s mental health and implementing the core proposals of our Green Paper on improving children and young people’s mental health provision. Our £8 million Wellbeing for Education Return programme is providing schools and colleges with the knowledge and access to resources they need to support children and young people, teachers and parents.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department's guidance to schools on supporting students affected by self-harm; and what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on trends in the incidence of self-harm among students.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The Department for Education keeps its guidance to schools under review, including the statutory Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) guidance that all schools must have regard to. Amongst other things, it sets out the role all staff have to play to protect children. This includes being aware of the indicators, which may signal that children are at risk from, or are involved with serious violent crime. These may include signs of self-harm or a significant change in wellbeing. Staff should be aware of the associated risks and understand the measures in place to manage these. This also includes identifying where mental health concerns are also safeguarding concerns, and making appropriate referrals into early help support services and statutory support services as appropriate.
KCSIE was strengthened on 1 September 2020 and includes additional information for school staff to help them support children with their mental health.
The Department for Education works closely with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) on children’s mental health and safeguarding issues, and to understand the impact of COVID-19. Emerging evidence on self-harm is included in the children and young people section of the COVID-19 mental health and wellbeing surveillance report, which was published on 8 September 2020. The report is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-mental-health-and-wellbeing-surveillance-report/7-children-and-young-people.
DHSC expanded the scope of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy in 2017 to include addressing self-harm as an issue in its own right. They fund the Multicentre Study of Self-harm, which is the most in-depth analysis and monitoring of self-harming trends in England.
Children’s wellbeing and mental health is a central part of the Department for Education’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak and we have taken action to ensure schools and colleges are equipped to support children and young people.
We have worked hard to ensure that all pupils and learners were able to return to a full high-quality education programme in September. Our £1 billion COVID-19 catch-up package, with £650 million shared across schools over the 2020-21 academic year, is supporting education settings to put the right catch-up and pastoral support in place. We are also investing £8 million in the new Wellbeing for Education Return programme which is funding expert advisers who will be able to train and support schools and colleges in every area of England and can make links to available local authority provision.
To increase support further in the long term, we remain committed to our joint green paper delivery programme with the DHSC and NHS England. This includes introducing new mental health support teams linked to schools and colleges, providing training for senior mental health leads in schools and colleges, and testing approaches to faster access to NHS specialist support.
The NHS Long Term Plan also commits to developing integrated models of primary and community care to support people with complex needs, including self-harming.
From the 2019-20 financial year, we are investing £57 million in suicide prevention through the NHS Long Term Plan. This will see investment in all areas of the country by the 2023-24 financial year to support local suicide prevention plans and establish suicide bereavement support services. We have ensured that the suicide prevention funding for local areas includes addressing self-harm as a priority focus.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer of 12 June 2020 to Question 54072 on Prisons: Coronavirus, what recent assessment he has made of levels of (a) self-harm, (b) attempted suicide, (c) suicide, (d) violence between prisoners, (e) attacks on prison staff and (f) mental health crises in prisons during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Our most recently published Safety in Custody statistics which contains data on assaults and self-harm, cover the period up to the end of March 2020 and therefore do not cover the majority of the covid-19 outbreak.
These figures show that the number of self-harm incidents increased by 11% in the 12 months to March 2020, although have decreased in the past two quarters, including a 6% decrease in the latest quarter.
Assaults up to March 2020 are down 8% from the 12 months to March 2019, and we have seen reductions in this for the last four quarters. Similarly, assaults on staff have decreased by 5% in the year to March 2020.
In the 12 months to June 2020 self-inflicted deaths in prison custody decreased by 13% from the previous 12 months.
Figures for assaults and self-harm up to the end of June, and deaths to the end of October will be published on 29 October 2020
Safety has remained a priority throughout the pandemic, and we recognise the need to remain vigilant to the risks to prisoners and staff as impacts of the virus continue.
We are continuing to provide care and support to people at risk of self-harm or suicide through ACCT (Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork) case management and provide a range of distraction packs and in-cell activities. We are also working with the Samaritans to ensure that the Listener peer support scheme continues to function effectively.
Our plan for easing restrictions in prisons, and re-introducing them where necessary, is set out in the National Framework for Prison Regimes and Services and is guided by public health advice, whilst ensuring we can keep staff and prisoners safe.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of the the report by Friends, Families and Travellers entitled Suicide Prevention in Gypsy and Traveller communities in England and its findings that (a) only five out of 79 local authority suicide prevention plans mention Gypsy and Traveller communities and (b) only two out of 79 local authority suicide prevention plans listed any action to address the high suicide rate in their local Gypsy and Traveller communities.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We have not made a formal assessment. We continue to explore ways of improving the quality and timeliness of suicide data to allow both national and local partners to continue to monitor rates, identify trends and develop effective prevention plans.
We know that there are certain groups that may be exposed to more risk factors for suicide, and we expect local agencies to work together to ensure that their plans are tailored to meet the needs of these groups. These groups include people from minority ethnic groups, such as Romany Gypsies or Irish Travellers.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the effect of his Department's decision not to extend the Loan Charge settlement deadline on the (a) mental health of and (b) risk of suicide in people subject to the Loan Charge.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Government announced in December 2019 that it would extend the Loan Charge deadline from 31 January 2020 to 30 September 2020, for individuals due to pay the Loan Charge to submit their 2018/19 Self Assessment returns and pay the tax due or agree a time to pay arrangement.
The Government takes concerns over the physical and mental wellbeing of taxpayers very seriously. These cases are complex and typically involve many different factors.
HMRC have signposted the extra help available to taxpayers in correspondence and on calls. Their staff are trained to detect signs of stress, and look out for indications that a taxpayer may need extra support; and where appropriate will transfer them to an Extra Support adviser who has additional skills, knowledge and tools to help them. Where appropriate, HMRC also refer taxpayers to expert outside organisations that can provide further independent advice and support.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the potential effect on reoffending rates of slower progression through indeterminate sentences by prisoners as a result of limited access to (a) legal support, (b) offender managers, (c) release on temporary license and (d) offending behaviour programmes during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
We are doing everything we can to minimise the impact of the pandemic across all responsibilities of our prisons, including on the progression of Indeterminate Sentence Prisoners (ISPs). Whilst some changes to prison regimes have been necessary due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no evidence that the progression of ISPs has been significantly impaired. Consequently, it would be entirely premature to posit any effect on reoffending rates or future public spending on prisons and probation or overcrowding within prisons. We recognise that anxieties regarding COVID-19 and the regime restrictions required for infection control may increase the risk of self-harm and violence for some prisoners, and we will continue to work to mitigate this risk as far as possible.
Despite necessary restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, legal visits have been prioritised to ensure that ISPs maintain meaningful contact with their legal representatives.
The Offender Management in Custody (OMiC) Model continues to make transformational improvements in the way we support and manage prisoners through their sentence plan. A joint prison and probation Exceptional Delivery Model (EDM) was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure key offender management tasks were completed in line with the regime level of the prison, whilst upholding the ethos of the OMiC Model.
As to be expected, most Release On Temporary Licence (ROTL) was suspended in March 2020 to help tackle the threat from Covid-19; however, we have been working with Public Health authorities to support prisons to re-introduce ROTL where it is safe and practicable to do so.
HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) is reviewing the reduced provision of offending behaviour programmes (OBPs), in order to prioritise access to such opportunities on those who present the highest risk of reoffending on release. When it comes to the parole reviews of ISPs, the Parole Board is presented with a wide range of evidence, not just completion of OBPs, in order to assess whether a prisoner’s risk has been reduced to the point where s/he might be safely release on licence.
The HMPPS Safety Team has produced a range of products to support Governors in devising and implementing local safety and welfare plans designed to mitigate risks during the pandemic of disorder, self-harm, suicide and violence. The Team has issued guidance on operating the key safety systems (such the case management models for self-harm and suicide and violence), whilst complying with infection control measures and in the context of staff shortfalls and/or the absence of trained staff. This guidance includes materials to support wellbeing at this particularly difficult time, including a range of in-cell activities.
Finally, I would like to be clear that our primary responsibility is to protect the public. We do not want to keep ISPs in custody any longer than is necessary, but we have a duty to ensure that they are progressed in a safe manner. It remains the case that prisoners serving indeterminate sentences will be released only when the independent Parole Board concludes that the risk to the public is capable of being safely managed in the community under probation supervision.