There have been no discussions between my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary about this issue.
The National Offender Management Unit for England and Wales did make an initial informal inquiry of the Director of the Northern Ireland Prison Service as to the availability of Maze prison. He advised that Maze was no longer part of the NIPS estate, but belonged to the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister and no further approaches were made to NIPS.
As the prison population and the available accommodation vary on a daily basis, an average annual percentage figure would be unrepresentative. To provide a more accurate picture, statistics from establishments have been selected for the weeks beginning April and October of each year for the last five years.
These figures do not however fully reflect the level of cell-sharing, as some areas of accommodation are reserved for specific categories of prisoners such as females or life sentence prisoners.
Establishment Week beginning Maghaberry Magilligan Hydebank 1 April 2002 73 91 82 7 October 2002 92 91 95 7 April 2003 105 96 104 6 October 2003 104 99 98 1 April 2004 91 101 99 2 October 2004 94 94 99 7 April 2005 106 88 78 5 October 2005 109 86 100 3 April 2006 110 88 95 2 October 2006 110 86 95 Note: The figures in the table are a percentage of the available certified normal accommodation.