The answer I gave on 7 September 2011 following Lord Rambotham's question about what action Her Majesty's Government are taking to speed up the ending of slopping out in prisons in England and Wales (Official Report, col. 280) contained two inaccuracies, which I would like to correct.

Only nine prisons in England and Wales have cells without integral sanitation facilities. This constitutes a total of 1,973 prison places or less than 3 per cent of the overall capacity.

Prisoners have access to wing recess facilities during the day, but during lock-up they can access the facilities only via an electronic unlock system. Those wishing to use the facilities can access them several times during the evening for a specific period. The number of times and the duration vary from prison to prison. By way of example, at HMP Albany during evening lock-up, prisoners are able to use the electronic unlock system to gain access to sanitation facilities on three occasions for a period of up to nine minutes on each visit (total up to 27 minutes).

A bucket with a lid is issued to each prisoner in case of an emergency, and I emphasise that it is very much an emergency measure and they are rarely used. Should the electronic unlock system break down, every effort is made to repair the system as quickly as possible and, where resources allow, alternative measures are put in place to enable prisoners to access the wing facilities. At Albany, when technical difficulties have arisen in the past, additional staff have been brought in to ensure prisoners could be manually unlocked to use the facilities.

Therefore prisoners do not have to use the bucket when there are technical difficulties with the unlock system. The bucket remains an emergency measure only.

Should prisoners use the bucket, they are required to empty it themselves either on their next visit to the facilities during evening lock-up or the following day.

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