Sadiq Khan MP, Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, commenting on today’s Prisons and Probation Ombudsman reports on deaths in custody, said:

“The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman is right to call on the Government to update its approach to suicide and self-harm in prisons. We should all be worried that over recent years the numbers of people dying in prisons has reached record levels. While prisons are about punishment they are also about reform, but higher and higher levels of self-inflicted injuries don’t suggest an environment in which successful rehabilitation is likely to take place.”