On 14 July 2020 revised European Prison Rules were published, which reiterated that regime restriction cannot be justified by lack of resources/staff absence rates; and for the first time, specified the non-disciplinary circumstances under which prisoners can be separated from others, stating that “for any reason, prisoners who are separated shall be offered at least two hours of meaningful human contact a day”. We highlighted that these human rights issues were something which needed to be borne in mind in any future prison inspections.