Prisons could run out of room despite cell spaces pledge, Justice Secretary warns

The justice secretary has said even under the plans to open 14,000 more prison places, they could still run out of space over the next few years

Prisons could run out of room despite the government's pledge to open 14,000 new prison spaces, the Justice Secretary has warned.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Shabana Mahmood said that even with the planned expansion "we are still going to run out of prison places".

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will set out details of its 10-year plan to tackle the overcrowding crisis in prisons in England and Wales on Wednesday, which will include building four new prisons by 2031.

Almost half of the new cells will be at newly built prisons, with £2.3 billion towards the cost over the next two years.

The remaining places will be found by measures including building new wings at existing jails, or by refurbishing cells currently out of action, and an extra £500 million will go towards “vital building maintenance”, the department said on Wednesday.

Prisons will also be deemed sites of “national importance” amid efforts to prevent lengthy planning delays, and new land will be bought for future prisons.

Ms Mahmood said: "The last government pretended they could send people away for longer and longer without building the prisons they promised.

"This strategy reveals that their prison building plans were years delayed and nearly £5 billion over budget. They left our prisons in crisis, on the edge of collapse.

"Part of our plan for change, this capacity strategy, alongside an independent review of sentencing policy, will keep our streets safe and ensure no government runs out of prison places again."

However, speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Ms Mahmood warned that "we simply cannot build our way out of this problem".

Ms Mahmood said that "even with the new supply that we are building, we are still going to run out of prison places because the demand into the system is much higher than the building that is being planned".

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme being broadcast on Wednesday, Ms Mahmood said that "demand is still rising faster than any supply could possibly catch up with".

Government estimates, published last week, indicated more than 100,000 prisoners could be held in jails in England and Wales by 2029.

Whitehall’s spending watchdog had previously warned that government plans to boost prison capacity could fall short by thousands of cell spaces within two years, and cost the taxpayer billions of pounds more than anticipated.

Since September, thousands of inmates have been freed early in a bid to cut jail overcrowding, by temporarily reducing the proportion of sentences which some prisoners must serve behind bars in England and Wales, from 50% to 40%.

But prisons are still expected to reach critical capacity again by July.

MoJ figures show there were 86,089 adult prisoners behind bars in England and Wales on Monday.

The so-called operational capacity for English and Welsh men's and women's prisons is 88,822, indicating there is now cell space for 2,733 criminals.

Pavan Dhaliwal, chief executive of charity Revolving Doors, said: "We cannot simply build our way out of this crisis, increasing prison capacity and improving the condition of the estate is necessary but must come hand in hand with the commitment to exploring alternatives to custody which the government is examining via its sentencing review."

The Law Society of England and Wales repeated calls for the plans to be matched by investment in legal aid, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts, and urged a focus on the "rehabilitation for prisoners to reduce reoffending rates and tackle the courts backlogs to help bring down the remand population".

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