Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lester of Herne Hill on 2014-03-31.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their reasons for reducing the access to books of prisoners serving sentences in England and Wales.

Lord Faulks

We have not made any policy changes specifically about the availability of books in prisons.

We have always recognised the importance of reading and literature in the rehabilitative process, and the positive effects these have on prisoners’ welfare. Every prison has a library, to which every prisoner has access. Prisoners may hold up to 12 books in their cell at any one time, and additional books can be stored locally at the prison. The National Offender Management Service also works closely with the Shannon Trust to support schemes such as ‘Toe by Toe’, which includes peer mentoring to improve reading levels.

There have always been controls on the sending of parcels into prisons, and allowing parcels to be sent in unrestricted would be operationally unmanageable and would lead to a significant risk of drugs and other illicit items being smuggled into prisons.