Jess Phillips – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jess Phillips on 2015-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what guidance or direction his Department has given on the amount of time that inmates at Foston Hall Prison, Derbyshire, should spend outside their cells; and what monitoring of such time his Department carries out.

Caroline Dinenage

At Foston Hall, prisoners are expected to spend 6.25 hours a day out of their cells in order to take part in work, training or education opportunities thatsupport their rehabilitation. This daily activity structure was implemented on 31 August 2015 andis monitored at local, regional and national levels.

In addition to the activity structure, as with all prisons in England and Wales, there is a statutory requirement to give prisoners 30 minutes in the open air on a daily basis. There is also an agreement with National Offender Management Commissioners which applies to all prisons in their Service Level Agreements, that prisoners should receive 2.5 hours per week PE. These national requirements are also in place at Foston Hall