§ Mr. DafisTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish figures showing the current percentage of prison inmates in England and Wales who are known to have learning difficulties.
§ Mr. Peter Lloyd[holding answer 26 October 1992]: Records of the number of prisoners with learning difficulties are not held centrally. In the White Paper, "Custody, Care and Justice"—Cm 1647—the Government stressed that the first priority for education programmes in prison must be to identify and provide help for those prisoners who have difficulty reading or writing and who are unable to do simple arithmetic. The national prison survey undertaken in 1991 indicated that 43 per cent. of prisoners had left school before the age of 16, prisoners had higher truancy rates than the general population, and 43 per cent. of prisoners had no qualification when they came into prison.