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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average amount of time is a prisoner spends on education or work-related activities at Feltham Young Offenders Institution.

Andrew Selous

HMP&YOI Feltham is a split site which holds both young people (under 18’s) and young adults (18-20 year olds). The two cohorts are managed distinctly and there are separate education contracts and different providers for each.

The Youth Justice Board oversees the management of the education contract for young people at Feltham. Prior to August 2015, education providers were only required to deliver 15 hours of education. In August 2015, we increased the requirement for education providers in public sector Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) to 27 hours of education a week, which is supplemented by 3 hours of physical exercise.

Whist the majority of education time is protected, it is expected that young people will miss some lessons to attend appointments such as court appearances, medical appointments and legal visits.

The following table provides the average number of classroom based education hours, alternative activities hours and physical education hours per week accessed by young people at Feltham YOI since 16 August 2015.

(1) Alternative activities include interventions relating to offending behaviour, focus groups, Release on Temporary licence etc.

(2) Data is from 9 October only.

This table does not include outreach education provision which is provided to young people who are not able to engage with class room based education.

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and the Youth Justice Board are working with education providers to address delivery challenges and increase the number of education hours received by young people.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many responses to his Department’s consultation on the closure of Hammersmith Court were (a) in favour of and (b) against the closure.

Andrew Selous

The number of responses received on the proposal to close Hammersmith County Court (formally West London County Court) were (a) two in favour and (b) 14 against.

The consultation response is available online at www.gov.uk/moj.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many hostage incidents in which a (a) prison officer and (b) prisoner was taken hostage have taken place in each prison establishment since January 2010.

Andrew Selous

Violence in prisons has increased in recent years. These figures demonstrate that the Prime Minister and the Justice Secretary are right and out prisons badly need reform.

We are already trialling the use of body worn cameras in prisons, training sniffer dogs to detect new psychoactive substances and have made it an offence to smuggle new psychoactive substances into prison. However, ultimately the only way to reduce violence in our prisons is to give governors and those who work in prisons the tools necessary to more effectively rehabilitate offenders.

Hostage incidents are rare occurrences. The table attached provides details of hostage incidents, broken down by establishment and victim type.

Note: These figures have been drawn from the NOMS Incident Reporting System. Care is taken when processing and analysing the returns but the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although the figures are shown to the last case the figures may not be accurate to that level.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many concerted indiscipline incidents of each type have occurred in each prison establishment in each month since May 2005.

Andrew Selous

Violence in prisons has increased in recent years. The nature of offenders currently in custody and the widespread availability of new psychoactive substances have both contributed to making prisons less safe. There is no single, simple solution to the problems we face but we are making progress.

We have launched a two year Violence Reduction project to help us to gain a better understanding of the causes and characteristics of violence. We are also trialling the use of body worn cameras in prisons, training sniffer dogs to detect new psychoactive substances and have made it an offence to smuggle new psychoactive substances into prison. However, ultimately the only way to reduce violence in our prisons is to give governors and those who work in prisons the tools necessary to more effectively reform and rehabilitate offenders.

Many Concerted indiscipline incidents vary widely in nature and duration and many of these incidents are relatively minor and of short duration and cause little disruption to the prison regime.

Note: The figures included in the table attached, have been drawn from the NOMS Incident Reporting System. Care is taken when processing and analysing the returns but the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Although the figures are shown to the last case the figures may not be accurate to that level.