What Greater Manchester's prisoners will eat on Christmas Day including turkey, scones and cheese and crackers

Prisoners in Greater Manchester will be able to choose from a range of items for Christmas dinner including roast turkey and tikka masala. 

A Freedom of Information request made to the Ministry of Justice has revealed what’s on the Christmas Day menu in Manchester’s prisons.

Strangeways

Perhaps Manchester’s most infamous prison, HMP Manchester, or Strangeways as it’s more commonly known, has held some of Britain’s most infamous criminals, from Ian Brady to Harold Shipman.

This year for Christmas dinner, inmates can choose from roast turkey, tandoori chicken leg, or a vegetarian wellington. The turkey is served with stuffing, roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, seasonal vegetables, pigs in blankets and gravy. The halal chicken leg is served with Bombay potatoes, boiled rice and chapati bread.

For their Christmas evening meal, prisoners can choose from a tuna, chicken, or chickpea wrap, served with scones and jam, with cheese and crackers.

HMP Forest Bank

The male prison in Pendlebury, housing ‘Category B’ convicts, will offer no turkey on Christmas Day. Instead, prisoners can pick from roast ham and stuffing, halal chicken leg or steamed fish. Vegetarians can pick between vegetable stroganoff and nut roast. Mashed potato, carrots, boiled rice and gravy are accompaniments, alongside ‘apple’ — whether apple sauce or a whole apple is unclear.

For tea, prisoners can choose between pasties, a burger, a salad, and chips with peas and gravy.

HMP Buckley Hall

This Category C male prison in Rochdale houses around 450 prisoners, in a mixture of single and shared cells. 

For Christmas lunch, the prison will offer a turkey breast with all the trimmings — pigs in blankets, stuffing, roast and mashed potatoes, carrots, and sprouts. Alternatives include vegan wellington and Tandoori chicken breast. Desert is a Christmas pudding with white sauce and satsumas.

HMP Hindley

HMP Hindley is a prison and young offenders’ institution in Bickershaw, a village near Wigan. It holds around 700 male inmates. The prison, which was originally a borstal, was the only to provide a Christmas breakfast menu. 

As well as cereal and milk, baked beans and hash browns, prisoners can expect a halal, non-halal, or vegetarian sausage, with a boiled egg.

For lunch, turkey with the trimmings is on the menu, alongside halal tikka masala with rice, smoked haddock fish cake, and Quorn meat free roast. Christmas pudding or vegan apple cake are the choices for dessert.

Prisoners will also be given an ‘Xmas Pack,’ containing things like a pot noodle, mince pie, and can of pop.

What has the Ministry of Justice said? 

Explaining the menus, the MoJ said: “Meals in prisons over Christmas and New Year are paid for from within the existing budget and at no extra cost to the taxpayer. Prison rules require that prisoners are provided with three meals a day that are varied and nutritious and that meet the religious, cultural, and medical needs of all.”