HC Deb 24 January 2000 vol 343 cc16-7W
Mr. McLoughlin

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 13 January 2000,Official Report, columns 217–18W, on prisoner statistics, if he will reformulate the table provided on Sudbury prison to show the number of prisoners serving a life sentence. [105662]

Mr. Boateng

The information requested, updated to December 1999, is given in the table.

Total population and life sentence population at Her Majesty's Prison Sudbury 1989–99
Date Life sentence prisoners Life sentence prisoners as a percentage of the total population Total population
1989
30 June 69 12.8 537
31 December 67 12.9 518
1990
30 June 77 14.7 524
31 December 75 16.2 464
1991
30 June 50 9.4 534
31 December 42 9.6 436
1992
30 June 37 8.2 450
31 December 43 10.7 402
1993
30 June 50 11.0 455
31 December 71 17.5 406
1994
30 June 79 17.9 441
31 December 80 20.0 401
1995
30 June 81 20.9 387
31 December 81 21.5 377
1996
30 June 76 16.0 474
31 December 64 14.0 456
1997
30 June 62 12.3 504
31 December 62 13.4 462
1998
30 June 62 12.6 493
31 December 72 14.8 488
1999
30 June 75 15.0 499
31 December 91 18.7 486

Mr. Flynn

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in his projection of prison numbers for the next five years, what proportion of prisoners will be (a) female, (b) offenders in respect of cannabis, (c) class A drug offenders and (d) housed in hospital wings. [105928]

Mr. Boateng

The Research Development and Statistics Directorate of the Home Office provided revised projections of the prison population in England and Wales in October 1999. A summary of the projection is included in the October 1999 "Prison Population Brief" which is available on the Internet at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index.htm.

Projections are provided according to various alternative scenarios. The middle variant projection assumes that Crown Court custody rates increase at 0.6 per cent. for males and 1.1 per cent. per annum for females, but sentence

Long-term projections projected through to 2007, England and Wales
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Higher variant:
Total population 67,800 71,500 72,900 73,700 75,100 76,900 78,600 80,300
Female population 3,700 4,100 4,500 4,600 4,700 4,800 4,900 5,000
Females as a percentage of total population 5.5 5.7 6.2 6.2 6.3 6.2 6.2 6.2
Middle variant:
Total population 67,300 69,900 70,700 71,200 71,800 72,500 73,500 74,400
Female population 3,700 4,000 4,200 4,200 4,300 4,300 4,400 4,500
Females as a percentage of total population 5.5 5.7 5.9 5.9 6.0 5.9 6.0 6.0