Prison Capacity Strategy

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Thursday 12 December.

“With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a Statement on the 10-year prison capacity strategy and annual prison capacity statement that the Government published yesterday. As the House will be aware, publishing these documents makes good on a pledge made to this House by the Lord Chancellor in July when she came before the House to set out the emergency measures that we were forced to take to prevent our prisons filling up entirely.

Let me begin by setting out some context on prison places. As right honourable and honourable Members will be aware, on 4 December, the National Audit Office published a scathing report, Increasing the Capacity of the Prison Estate to Meet Demand. That report is unequivocal in its criticism of the previous Government’s approach to the criminal justice system, including their failure to deliver on their commitment to build 20,000 additional prison places by the mid-2020s. Only 500 additional cells were added to the overall stock of prison places. While the previous Government continued to promise prison places, there were significant delays to projects—in some cases, they ran years behind schedule—and a failure to address rising demand has left the system thousands of places short of the capacity it requires.

The expected cost of the Ministry of Justice and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service’s prison expansion portfolio to build the 20,000 additional places is currently estimated to be £9.4 billion to £10.1 billion—at least £4.2 billion higher than the estimate in the 2021 spending review carried out by the previous Government. None of this was revealed by Ministers at the time; it came to light only when the Government were elected in July this year.

It is now clear that even the original mid-2020s commitment was not sufficient to keep pace with the expected demand on prison places, according to the last Government’s own projections. This put the viability of the entire system in jeopardy. Had we run out of prison places, police would not have been able to make arrests and courts could not have held trials. It could have led to a total breakdown of law and order in our country, with all the associated risks to public safety. That is why we were forced to take emergency action, releasing some prisoners earlier than they otherwise would have been—in most cases, by only a few weeks or months. That bought us precious breathing space but, if we do not act, our prisons will fill up again. We must therefore act, including by building more prison places as a matter of urgency.

Integral to our plan for change is ensuring that we have the prison places we need to lock up dangerous criminals and keep the public safe. The 10-year prison capacity strategy sets out how we will deliver that. The strategy is detailed, setting out our commitment to build the 14,000 places that the last Government failed to deliver as part of their 20,000 prison places programme, with the aim of getting that work completed by 2031. It further sets out what we will do: where, when and how we will build new prisons and expand existing ones through additional house blocks, refurbishments and temporary accommodation.

The strategy is also realistic. As the House knows, prison building is an extraordinarily complex and expensive undertaking. In particular, the planning process to get sites approved for development is complicated and time-consuming. That is why our delivery plans include contingency prison places, which will provide resilience in our building programme should a project become undeliverable or provide poor value for money and cannot be taken forward. We are also ambitious: the strategy sets out how we will work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to streamline the delivery of prison supply, including important reforms to the planning system and delivering on our commitment to recognise prisons as nationally important infrastructure. It is also this Government’s ambition to secure new land, so that we are always ready should further prison builds be required in the future.

We are committed to improving transparency, now and in the future. As such, when parliamentary time allows, we will legislate to make it a statutory requirement for the Government to publish an annual statement on prison capacity like the one we have published. That annual statement will set out prison population projections, the department’s plan for supply, and the current probation capacity position. It fulfils our transparency commitment for 2024 and, crucially, will hold us and future Governments to account on long-term planning, so that decisions on prison demand and supply are in balance and the public are no longer kept in the dark —as they have been—about the state of our nation’s prisons.

Finally, we are being honest with this House and the public about what must happen next. Building enough prison places is only one part of a much wider solution; as the Government have already made clear, we cannot simply build our way out of these problems. In the coming years, the prison population will continue to increase more quickly than we can build new prisons. That is why, in October, we launched the Independent Sentencing Review, chaired by the former Lord Chancellor, David Gauke, alongside a panel of experts including the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett. That review will take a bipartisan look at an issue that has been a political football for far too long, punted about by both sides.

The aim of the review is to ensure that we are never again left in a position where we have more prisoners than places available. It will help us to ensure that there is always a prison place for dangerous offenders; that prisons help offenders turn their lives around and bring down reoffending rates, meaning fewer victims; and that the range of punishments for use outside of prison is expanded. The review will make its recommendations in the spring. The Government look forward to responding as quickly as possible so that we can begin to implement any necessary policy changes urgently.

When this Government took office just five months ago, we inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse. Instead of dithering and delaying, we have taken the difficult decisions necessary to stop the criminal justice system from grinding to a halt altogether, which could have led to a total collapse of law and order in our country. However, this is not an overnight fix, and the journey ahead of us is long. This 10-year prison capacity strategy and annual statement, along with the Independent Sentencing Review, are critical steps on that journey. The last Government left our prisons in crisis, putting the public at risk of harm. We will fix our prisons for good, keeping the public safe and restoring their confidence in the criminal justice system. I commend this Statement to the House”.

19:00

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, we are concerned here with the Statement made and also with the Written Statement delivered the day before by the Secretary of State for Justice. Both refer to the 10-year prison capacity strategy; indeed, it is described by the present Government as “their” 10-year prison capacity strategy.

What we have heard and what we have read might be described as good and original. Unfortunately, what is good is not original and what is original is not good. The first apparent innovation that we are referred to is the annual statement on prison capacity. In the Written Statement on 11 December, the Secretary of State for Justice referred to the

“first Annual Statement on prison capacity”,

describing it as fulfilling a “transparency commitment for 2024” and a necessary step in “our plan”.

The Oral Statement given by the Secretary of State’s junior Minister in the Commons repeated news of this innovation: that the Government were to publish an annual statement on prison capacity, which would be a “critical” step. It is all about transparency, clarity and public confidence. But let us wait: 16 October 2023 was before the election. We had a Conservative Government and a Conservative Secretary of State for Justice, the right honourable Alex Chalk. What had he to say in the other place? He said:

“To ensure public confidence, a new annual statement of prison capacity will be laid before both Houses. It will include a clear statement of current prison capacity, future demand, the range of system costs that will be incurred under different scenarios and our forward pipeline of prison build. That will bring greater transparency to the plans and will set out the progress that is being made”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/10/23; col. 59.]


I do not believe the Minister or his officials will require the column reference as the Statement made by the then Secretary of State for Justice is, in effect, repeated verbatim in this novel and innovative Statement that we have received in the last few days.

There is a difference. The right honourable Alex Chalk referred to a new annual statement “of” prison capacity. The new Government repeatedly refer to a new annual statement “on” prison capacity. Are we to infer that the innovation lies in the change of preposition? I can discern no further distinction between the two. What we are in receipt of is the cut and paste of the Conservative Government’s policy announced more than a year ago.

Then there is a second innovation in this new prisons programme, as reflected in the policy paper. We are told of new prisons in Yorkshire, Leicestershire and Buckinghamshire. The Secretary of State for Justice referred in her Statement on 11 December to “rapid deployment cells”. In the foreword to the prison capacity strategy document itself, the now Secretary of State for Justice tells us that this document is our 10-year prison capacity strategy.

“It sets out how this Government will build the 14,000 prison places … It is a detailed plan setting out where these places will be built … As such, it is a realistic but ambitious plan for prison building—a far sight from the empty rhetoric and disappointing reality of my predecessors’ previous efforts”.


Paragraph 8 of the document, under the heading “New prisons”, says:

“We will deliver … new places through new prisons”.

It explains that these are to include new prisons in Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, and Lancashire; and there will be “rapid deployment cells”, which are defined as “modular self-contained units”.

More innovation—but let us wait a moment. The construction of the rapid deployment cells at His Majesty’s Prison Millsike was announced by the then Secretary of State for Justice, the right honourable Alex Chalk, on 12 February 2024. With respect to the new prisons programme, His Majesty’s Prison Five Wells and His Majesty’s Prison Fosse Way opened before the election.

The construction of His Majesty’s Prison Grendon in Buckinghamshire was approved by the Conservative Government before the election. The plan for a third prison in Buckinghamshire was approved in January 2024. Construction of the new prison next to His Majesty’s Prison Gartree in Leicestershire was approved at about the same time.

The so-called “innovation” of the new prison programme is yet another case of cut and paste. There is reference to “empty rhetoric”, but whose? If the Minister were to submit this paper to his tutor, it would be marked in bold red, “Wretched plagiarism”, and down-marked again for failure to acknowledge his sources. It is a third-class effort.

There is one example of innovation by the present Secretary of State for Justice and her department. We know that something like 73,000 cases are pending in the Crown Courts. We know that, on any day, 10% to 30% of Crown Courts are shut. The number of prisoners on remand is still set to increase. Only recently, the Lady Chief Justice called for an additional 6,500 judicial sitting days in order that, in the face of such increase, the Crown Court could operate at maximum capacity.

What innovation did this Government bring to bear? They agreed not to 6,500 additional sitting days but to 500. Then, I believe today, there has been a suggestion that a further 2,000 sitting days will be found. Whether they are freed up in light of the move for an increase in magistrates’ sentencing powers from six months to 12 months or otherwise is not clear. But that still leaves a further 4,000 judicial sitting dates which are not going to be utilised in the face of this backlog.

Yet, at the same time, there seems to be consideration of such innovations as judges sitting with magistrates and not with juries. Will the noble Lord please enlighten us as to why the Chief Justice’s suggestion, nay request, for 6,500 additional sitting days that are available has not been met.

I have the highest regard for the Minister and his commitment to prison and sentencing reform, but over a long and successful business career he will have been face to face with a lot of cobblers. This 10-year strategy is simply a cut and paste of existing policy projects, and we need more from this Government than empty rhetoric.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble and learned Lord about the need to address the remand prisoner situation with more sitting days, but on other parts of what he said, I hope he is wrong. If there is that much continuity between the policies of the previous Government and this Government, we are not going to get out of the difficulties that we face.

There is no doubt about the appalling state of our prison system which the Government have inherited. They took over a system which was supposed to provide 20,000 extra prison places while coping with massive overcrowding, a shortage of experienced staff and a penal philosophy which called for even longer sentences. There is a desperate shortage of the resources needed to reduce reoffending, either by programmes during custody or by supporting ex-prisoners on the difficult route to leading a better life and keeping the law.

We do not want to see this Government repeat the failures of their predecessor. Given his practical and personal experience in resettling and employing ex-offenders, we believe that the Prisons Minister understands the problems and is personally committed to changing the way we address them. But the Statement does not really inspire confidence and nor does the strategy. It rests on two assumptions, the first of which is that the increase in prison places will be achieved. I have to say that I am doubtful about that on the basis of experience, and even if achieved, it is recognised that it is not enough. That will not solve the problem. We cannot build our way out of this situation.

The other key assumption is that the sentencing review—which we welcome—will reduce the pressure for yet more places to be provided, even on the numbers the Government have given. That depends on whether there is political leadership to implement the radical ideas the commission will have to come up with if it is going to change the situation. We want to know whether that leadership is there. The public and media debate has to be taken forward. Tough talk leads to bad decisions. Excessive use of custody, which is hugely expensive, ensures that neither the prisons nor the probation system can devote the effort to the rehabilitation needed to cut crime.

It is time to be straight with the public. It is time to tell them that the Government are spending their taxes on a system which we know leads to prisoners reoffending. We know it leads to more prisoners and less rehabilitation, as well as to more reoffending, and it has got to change. When a crime is committed, victims and the public want the offender to be caught, tried, made to face the consequences of the hurt and damage they have caused and set up to lead a better life in the hope that they will not repeat their offences either towards the victims or towards anybody else.

In some cases, prison is essential for public protection; in others, there are more effective community sentences which, for many offenders, are more challenging than a spell in jail. It is not sensible to use the length of a custodial sentence, as we do these days, as the index of how seriously we take a crime. That way lies wasted money and more reoffending on release. Is the political leadership prepared to say that kind of thing? With a former DPP as the Prime Minister, it ought to be possible.

I put to the Minister a simple question: why does this country lock up more criminals for longer than most other west European countries?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Beith, for their comments. We are all aware that we have a problem. The problem is that the prison population increases by 4,500 people a year. In the summer, when I was six weeks into this job, we were 99.9% full: in fact, we had fewer than 100 spaces in our prisons. It was clear that this was not just a problem, it was a very dangerous problem. We are now running at 97% or 96% in the male estate and can already see the benefits of that. But we need to keep building new prisons, and we got planning permission for HMP Garth earlier this month. We do not just need new prisons; we need new house blocks and to ensure that we do not lose cells.

We cannot build our way out of the difficulties we have; we also need sentencing reform. As noble Lords are aware, David Gauke is leading a sentencing review, which will be concluded by the spring. We need to make sure that demand and supply are in balance, because we always need to have space for the police to arrest and charge people and put them in prison. Interestingly, last week I went to Spain to visit the prisons over there. It has 15,000 spare cells, which we can only dream of here. Unsurprisingly, when I went round the prisons there, things were much calmer than they are here.

How will we get more capacity? We have to create these 14,000 prison places. The cost is very high, and much higher because of the delays in the previous Government’s building. But the other real problem is that we have had a net increase of only 500 prison cells because so many have been lost and prisons have been sold. One of the things that is really important is to make sure that we do not lose prison places and prison wings. I am looking forward to visiting HMP Millsike before Christmas and seeing what a good, environmentally state-of-the-art prison looks like. But I have also been recently to HMP Manchester and HMP Winchester, both of which had urgent notifications, to see the other side of the coin, where prisons need serious investment. I am pleased that we have managed to find £500 million to invest.

We have many great prisons as well. We need to future-proof things and to keep buying land on top. In my old job, every day I was looking at the sales figures of our retail chain; now I am looking every day at the prison population and seeing how much capacity we have. I am pleased to say that, so far, our numbers are slightly under the projection we have been looking at.

I have seen a number of rapid deployment cells and the issue with them is that, even though we do not have a choice—we need to do them—the extra cost is not just in the cells but in the extra visitor centre space, extra kitchen space and so on. That is why it is not just a cheap temporary option; it is an expensive temporary option.

On Crown Court backlog days, I am very pleased that colleagues have found more headroom and we have managed to get 2,500 extra sitting days; and the magistrates’ courts going from six to 12 months will free up 2,000 extra days. It will help with the remand population—17,000 is a significant issue—but it is still not enough.

Yes, we need to build prisons. Yes, we need the sentencing review, and to wait and see what the conclusions are. We always need prison cells for dangerous people. We need to incentivise prisoners to turn their lives around. But we also need to punish people outside of prison as well. We need to work hard when we see the conclusions of that review.

We need to focus also on reducing reoffending, because 80% of offending is reoffending. As noble Lords challenged me to do, I need to focus on delivering these new prison places so we do not run out of space, but I also need to really focus on delivering reduced reoffending, so over time our prisons are less full because people are reoffending less.

As we all know, there is a very complex job to do. We are dealing with the most complex people in the country and a system that is the most complex. It is a privilege for me; it is my dream job to do this. I am looking forward in the new year to starting to deliver on my plans. We are now in a position where we have overcome the immediate capacity problems. We can use the headroom, even though we have only minuscule capacity space compared to the Spanish. It is important that we use that time to focus on education, purposeful activity, people addressing their drug and mental health problems, and helping them so that when they get out, they stay out.

19:20

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, I believe that the reason we have a larger prison population than most comparable countries in Europe is not that more of our population are prone to become criminals; it is because of reoffending. Our rate of reoffending is much higher than in most comparable countries. Therefore, rehabilitation is essential.

It is very good to hear the Minister talking about the importance of spare capacity, because he will know, I suspect, from discussions with the Treasury, the tendency of the Treasury to hate any sense of spare capacity—that offends its deepest instincts and upbringing. Spare capacity, however, is essential to enable prisoners to be kept in prisons as close to their home as possible so they do not lose touch with their family and to enable the continuity of rehabilitation. Does he agree on how important it is that rehabilitation should start from the moment a prisoner goes through the prison gates to enter prison until long after he or she—and it is mostly a “he”—comes out of the prison gate at the end of the sentence? Is it not important that the Treasury should understand that the benefits that come from reducing reoffending—the financial benefits as well as the benefits in terms of human happiness versus human misery—are spread across an enormous range of public services? The savings are huge. It is important that the Treasury understands the need for holistic activity and for taking a longer-term view than that to which it is prone.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. In respect of reoffending, the latest figure I have seen is £18 billion per year. Reoffending in our country is definitely higher than in Spain and in other countries as well. It is not just the level of reoffending; it is also the length of sentencing we have that makes a difference to the large prison population. As for spare capacity in prisons—yes, I agree. I can never see us at the levels of other countries. We need our prisons to be efficient. We need to make sure that our prisons are full but also effective.

It is important that the hard-working staff who run our prisons have the opportunity to deliver what they know works. I do not want to walk past any more classrooms in prisons where there are lots of computers and nobody is there. I want people to be in classrooms; I want people to be in workshops; I want people to be doing things that are helping them to get out and stay out.

One thing that has made a big difference is the employment advisory boards that I set up four years ago. When we started, 14% of people leaving prison had a job after six months. It is now over 35%. Things can be done, and I am really focused on that. I am also focused—and this is probably one of the conversations we may turn to in the new year—on this being not just about prisons but about probation. The whole thing needs to be working in tandem. There is an awful lot of pressure not just on prisons but on probation colleagues too.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on the Front Bench on his very interesting Statement on prison capacity. While this issue relates to England, and prisons in Northern Ireland, along with justice issues, are very much a devolved matter, there are also capacity and reoffending issues there. Therefore, I ask the Minister, whenever he is next in Northern Ireland and in other devolved regions and nations, whether he will take an opportunity to talk to the Minister for Justice in Northern Ireland about measures to increase prison capacity and reduce reoffending. Back when recent statistics were revealed, the overall average daily prison population increased by 11.4% during 2023-24 to 1,877. The male population increased from 1,607 to 1,787, while the female population increased from 78 to 90. I realise those numbers are probably small compared to England, but when we consider the actual population of Northern Ireland, we see that they are very high. Therefore, I urge my noble friend to talk to the Minister for Justice and exchange his good ideas with her about such measures to do with prison capacity and reoffending.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. I am a big fan of the prisons in Northern Ireland—it is not because my wife is from Northern Ireland and I have been round the prisons many times. We can always learn from what they are doing. There is a prison there that noble Lords may not have heard of called HMP Hydebank Wood. It is a combination of a female prison and a young offender prison. It is one of the most impressive establishments I have seen—and I have seen lots of prisons over the years. I would be delighted to meet the Minister for Justice and to share ideas, as I would be with other colleagues as well.

The point my noble friend makes about the increasing size of the prison population in Northern Ireland is similar in theme to what is happening elsewhere. Even in Spain—I apologise for talking about Spain a lot; I just got back on Friday night—the prison population is also increasing. There will be similar themes around drugs, ageing population, mental health and purposeful activity. It is something we all need to be aware of, and it is a great way of exchanging ideas and learning things. As someone who has employed a number of people from prisons in Northern Ireland to work in the business that I used to be involved in, I know that there are many talented individuals there as well.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, a part of the criminal justice system’s problems is one word: money. That has been my experience for the past 20 or so years—seeing the justice system from the side of the judiciary and seeing it from here. I want to ask about money because it is the temptation of everyone to forget money. Build prisons, and how do you finance the result? As I understand it, the 14,000 additional prison places are going to cost between £9.4 billion and £10 billion—I assume, on current costs. The NAO report says that there is a £1.8 billion maintenance backlog, so there are huge sums of capital expenditure—assuming that the Treasury treats maintenance as capital expenditure, which it probably does not.

I want to know what it is going to cost every year to fund these 14,000 additional places, which, as the Minister has kindly pointed out, must be on the basis of rehabilitation—it must be much cheaper to lock people up and leave them in their cell for 23 hours, but that is bad. What is the realistic cost of these additional places, and if the Minister can help us, where is the money to come from? That is the terrible problem that we have never grappled with: value for money in relation to sentencing. I would be very grateful if the Minister could help on this.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble and learned Lord for his detailed question. In the wider scheme of things, the best way to get value for money, as he says, is to reduce reoffending. Maybe in 15 or 20 years we will not need the prison places we have now because our reoffending will be much lower and the success of what I am trying to do in this job will be bringing results. One of the main areas of being sensible with money is not to lose cells, so we are making sure that our existing stock is maintained.

Noble Lords may remember that I mentioned HMP Preston. It first welcomed prisoners in 1798 and is still going strong. It has some elements that need a bit of work, but we also need to maintain them. The cost of building new cells in new prisons is £500,000 each. The cost of running them will be significant, because it is not just running buildings but staffing them and all the associated healthcare costs that go with it. Unfortunately, we do not have a choice to spend £10.1 billion at the moment—it was going to be a lot less than that—because we are in a position where we need to have spare capacity for the courts to do their job.

I am also looking forward to David Gauke’s review of sentencing to see the conclusions it comes to and the evidence it has looked at. A number of noble Lords will be feeding information into the sentencing review, which is due before 9 January. Running prisons is an expensive business. Reoffending, at £18 billion a year, is an incredible amount of money and waste. My job here, as a commercially minded person, is to look at why we are spending this money, and to challenge when we are spending what look like eye-watering amounts. I am challenging it, and I like to think I am starting to get some results.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I begin with an expression of sympathy to the Minister. What we have heard in your Lordships’ House—the focus on rehabilitation and reducing reoffending—is very welcome. However, we are discussing the Statement from the other place and asking questions about that. The focus of that Statement is on having capacity to meet demand. It talks about bringing in an annual statement to

“set out prison population projections”

and

“the Department’s plan for supply”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/12/24; col. 1090.]

This sounds rather like Defra promising us a plan for the increases in rainfall that climate change predictions suggest will happen. It is as though it is something being done to the Government rather than a result of the choices of the criminal justice policy the Government have in their own hands. This is very much a passive approach. The Minister might say that this promises an Independent Sentencing Review, but that is handing over the responsibility to a group of independent people.

As the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, pointed out, we have the highest per capita prison population in western Europe by a long way. I am not sure whether this should be a milestone or a mission; maybe we could just call it a target. Surely the Government should be saying, “We are going to aim, by the end of this term, to have a reduction”. We are currently at 159 people in prison per 100,000. Perhaps we could aim to match the next big country, France, which has 104 people per 100,000—that is a reduction of a third. Finland has 51 per 100,000, which is a long way away indeed. Perhaps we could aim for an average. Should the Government not have a target, milestone or mission to reduce the prison population by the end of their period in office?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. I would love it if we could lock up fewer people, but we cannot: we need prison spaces to ensure that we punish people who have done very bad things. We also need to make sure we rehabilitate them. We need the capacity to cater for things such as the civil unrest we had in the summer. We are way off levels of prison population like those of the countries the noble Baroness mentioned.

This is going to take an awful long time to turn around, but the steps we are taking are very important. We need capacity, we need to have the sentencing review, we need to focus on reducing reoffending, and we need all the associated tools to do that. We know what needs to be done and what the evidence is. I see my job as delivering on that.

I also know that this is not a quick fix. If we go for a quick-fix solution, we will be in trouble. This needs to be very thoughtful and take time. The people we are dealing with in prisons and on probation are often very complex people. I want to make sure that what we do works.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I apologise for missing the very beginning of this as I rushed to the Chamber. I congratulate the Minister not just on his Statement but on a lifetime’s commitment to rehabilitating offenders. The example he has set to other businesses when he was running—

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord was not present at the start of the debate and therefore, according to the Companion, should not be speaking.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

Go on, let him speak.

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

No.