To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many women (a) are being held in UK prisons and (b) were being held in each year since 2000. (141412)

I have been asked to reply.

Figures showing the numbers of female prisoners in all prison establishments in England and Wales between 2000 and 2006, as at 30 June each year, and for April 2007, can be found in the following table.

The figures between 2000 and 2005 were taken from table 8.1 of the Offender Management Caseload Statistics 2005, a copy of which is held in the House of Commons Library. The figures for June 2006 and for April 2007 were taken from the published Population in Custody monthly tables.

The Scottish Executive and the Northern Ireland Prison Service are able to give the figures for prison establishments in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible data entry and processing errors.