To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the cost to the Prison Service was of providing satellite television services in prisons in 2007-08.

The Prison Service accounting system does not record expenditure to the level of detail required to answer this question. The Prison Service would incur a disproportionate cost to obtain this information.

Satellite television is not available to prisoners' in-cell but can be made available in association areas at the discretion of the Governor. A number of establishments have been upgraded for digital television in line with the Government's digital switchover programme. The cost of the digital switchover to date, and the costs of the TV sets used in cells, has been met from the revenue generated by the £1 per week TV rental charge paid by prisoners.