Prisons Lady Hermon To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on housing prisoners from England and Wales in Northern Ireland. Paul Goggins 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. Lady Hermon To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what percentage of prison places in Northern Ireland were occupied in each of the past five years, broken down by prison establishment. Paul Goggins 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.| | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------