§ Mr. AllenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the relationship between the budget of individual prisons and the number of educational and vocational qualifications obtained by their inmates. [94490]
§ Hilary BennFront 2001, the core budget for prison education has been ring-fenced and is administered jointly by the Home Office and the Department for Education and Skills, through the Prisoners' Learning and Skills Unit. At the time of ring-fencing, education budgets were historically based, but from 2002–03, part of the education budget has been linked to achievement of basic skills qualifications. We will develop further the links between funding and educational and vocational qualifications as we increase funding for prison education to £125 million by 2005–06. The recent review of prison education funding and procurement also identified opportunities for introducing other relevant achievement measures and we are considering these.