Richard Burgon MP, Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, commenting on a report from the Howard League for Penal Reform that shows 2016 has been the worst year on record for suicides in prisons in England and Wales, said:

“This report is tragic proof of what prison officers have been saying all along – that the Conservative Government is failing every test when it comes to prisons.

“There is a real cost to Tory cuts to our prisons and a real cost to Tory incompetence on managing the prison service. That’s a human cost, felt by prison staff, prison inmates and by society as a whole. Liz Truss needs to take this report seriously and sort this out now.“