To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what procedure is in place for recording and storing prisoners' personal property (a) in the prisoner's possession upon arrival in prison and (b) sent to prisoners during their custody. (216187)

Guidance on prisoners' in-possession property is contained in PSO 1250 (a copy of which is in the Library). All property either accompanying a prisoner into prison or sent to them during their custody must be searched in reception and recorded on the appropriate property record card.

The amount of property that a prisoner may retain in their possession is limited by the policy on volumetric control which restricts prisoners to that which can be fitted into two standard size volumetric control boxes.

It is for prison governors to decide locally what items prisoners are allowed to retain in their possession bearing in mind what they consider appropriate for their local circumstances and to fit in with their locally devised Incentive and Earned Privileges scheme. Any surplus property will either be stored locally in the prison or sent to the HM Prison Service National Distribution Centre at Branston until 28 days before the prisoner is due to be released when the holding prison should request that the property be sent to them in preparation for discharge.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many items of prisoners' (a) clothing and (b) other property were stored by each prison in England and Wales between 1 April 2007 and 31 March 2008; how many such items were reported (i) lost, (ii) damaged and (iii) stolen during that year; and what sum of compensation has been paid by the Prison Service for the loss, damage or theft of personal property in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available. (216188)

The Prison Service does not keep a central record of the amount of prisoners' clothing and property that is stored by each prison and to provide this information would involve both the individual scrutiny of a substantial amount of documents at each prison and a large data collecting exercise—this could be done only at disproportionate cost.

The Prison Service also does not keep a central record of the number of items that prisoners report lost, damaged or stolen; again, such information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

A breakdown of the compensation the Prison Service has paid over the last 10 years to prisoners for damaged or lost property is set out in the following tables. In capturing the information the Prison Service does not distinguish between prisoners' lost or stolen property.