Source · Select Committees · Justice Committee
Recommendation 170
170
Deferred
Expand access to purposeful activities and training programmes for prisoners to reduce drug demand.
Conclusion
The MoJ must expand access to purposeful activities, including education, vocational training, accredited work programmes and constructive recreational opportunities to prevent prisoners turning to drugs as a result 61 of boredom. We ask that the MoJ provides the Committee with an update on its progress to increasing purposeful activity within prisons by April 2026. (Recommendation, Paragraph 48)
Government response summary AI-generated
The government primarily discusses the existing adjudications policy and plans to strengthen sanctions under the Earned Progression Model, including doubling the maximum additional days awarded for drug-related incidents. It does not detail specific plans to expand access to purposeful activities for prisoners.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
Purposeful activity plays an important role in the prevention of drug use and supporting recovery within prisons. The Government remains firmly committed, as set out in our manifesto, to improving this and ensuring prisons are recognised for doing so. Although some barriers limit prisons’ ability to deliver the right level of purposeful activity, operational priorities for the 2025/26 regime set out the expectation for prisons to improve both the availability and quality of purposeful activity. We have a range of work underway to improve the quality of and access to purposeful activity. This includes exploring how we use metrics and targets to drive the right focus on both quantity and quality, developing guidance for different functions of prisons on the content of their purposeful activity offer, exploring how to reward prisons who perform well on purposeful activity, and co-designing a good practice model for regime delivery and purposeful activity via a prototype evaluation. Through the Working Week Project, we are also exploring opportunities to enhance the quality and quantity of skills and work provision in custody. This project is being prototyped in five Category C prisons. As part of the work to increase levels of purposeful activity, it is important we strengthen access to treatment. MoJ and HMPPS continue to work in partnership with NHSE to promote and facilitate purposeful activity delivered by NHS Substance Misuse Teams, including psychosocial interventions. We are also enhancing access to recovery-related activity including mutual aid within prisons: mapping fellowship activity across the estate, establishing a dedicated forum for fellowships involved in prison work, and collaborating closely to identify and remove barriers to participation. The 2025/26 regime priorities set out that prison regimes should ensure that they drive overall improvement in health and wellbeing provision alongside promoting drug/alcohol treatment and recovery opportunities. We are also exploring opportunities to better capture data on healthcare attendance and ensuring that individual’s healthcare needs are appropriately prioritised. We will provide the Committee with an update on our progress on increasing purposeful activity by April 2026.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗