HC Deb 13 February 2001 vol 363 c98W
Mr. Cox

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) men and (b) women were serving a life prison sentence for murder in England and Wales on 1 January. [149619]

Mr. Boateng

Provisional information for 31 December 2000 shows that there were 3,325 males and 124 females serving life sentences for murder in prisons in England and Wales at that time. Information on prison population is available in successive volumes of "Prison Statistics England and Wales" (Chapter 1 of the 1999 edition, CM 4805).