To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what estimate he has made of the number of people serving custodial sentences who were formerly children in care. (305621)

Information on the number of prisoners serving custodial sentences in England and Wales who were formerly in care is not held centrally.

However, a Social Exclusion Unit report ‘Reducing re-offending by ex-Prisoners’ published in 2002 reported that 27 per cent. of the prison population had been taken into care as a child against an average across the general population of 2 per cent.