Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

4. If he will take steps to encourage the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute people for treason in cases where that offence is suspected to have been committed.

[The Attorney-General (Jeremy Wright)]

In all cases referred for a charging decision, the CPS should use whichever offence, including treason, is appropriate to the facts of the case. However, modern criminal offences, including terrorism offences, usually offer a better chance of a successful conviction than would a prosecution for treason.

[Mr Hollobone]

British jihadists who go abroad to support ISIS are aiding and abetting the Queen’s enemies, and now that we have the horrific spectacle of British citizens beheading other British citizens and citizens of allies on international television, should it not be made clear to these people that it is worse than murder and terrorism—it is treason—and that should they ever be apprehended they should be prosecuted for such?

[The Attorney-General]

I have a good deal of sympathy with what my hon. Friend says. The point I would make is a purely practical one. I think it important that treason remains available to prosecutors in appropriate cases and I wish to see that continue, but I also think it important to recognise that there are specific practical difficulties in the prosecution of treason—whether it be the establishing of the direct or constructive levying of a war under one limb of the offence or indeed defining the sovereign’s enemies under the other. It is important that we prosecute effectively.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is important to look at what the Immigration Act will do. It will enable a better balance between the interests of the general public and the interests of the individual who is claiming, for example, that they have a right to a private and family life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights. As I said a moment ago, the Act will also restrict the number of appeals that individual has. But I think we can do more, and, as he knows, if the country has a Conservative Government after the next general election we will see further changes to our human rights legislation.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

If these countries will not take their nationals back why can we not send them the bill?

[Jeremy Wright]

As my hon. Friend knows, I think that the best thing for us to do is to send them back, but inevitably the difficulties that we have spoken of this morning will get in the way. That is why we are doing what we are. He is well aware that this Government are utterly committed on this issue. We would certainly like there to be more removals under compulsory prisoner transfer agreements. He may know, as may the House, that the number achieved under those agreements by the previous Government was not high, although it was at least a round number.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady is being uncharacteristically unreasonable. We are not banning prisoners having access to books. As I have just explained to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), there really is no difficulty with prisoners having access to books. If only that were the biggest problem we face in connection with literacy in prisons, but it is not. What she must consider is whether she is really going to allow people to send into prison unrestricted packages, which, as long as they say “Books” on the outside, she will be prepared to accept at face value. If that is the case, she will have a rude awakening. This is a sensible restriction on packages coming into prison, but it is no restriction on prisoners being able to read or to study, which they can do now and will continue to be able to do.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

13. How many foreign nationals are in prison in England and Wales; and how many such people come from (a) non-EU countries with which the UK has compulsory prisoner transfer agreements and (b) EU member states which are signatories to the EU prisoner transfer agreement?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

As of 2 May, there were 10,516 foreign national offenders in custody. There are 798 prisoners from non-EU countries with whom we have compulsory prisoner transfer arrangements, and 4,162 from EU member states. All EU member states will be subject to the EUPTA, but 10 countries have not yet implemented it.

[Mr Hollobone]

All those people should be serving out their sentences in their home countries, and it is costing British taxpayers just south of £400 million a year to pay for their board and lodging. Yet in a written answer I received on 7 April, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that in the past five years, only five individuals have been compulsorily transferred to prisons in their own countries.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

How many foreign national offenders are there in our prisons, and what steps are being taken to return them to secure detention in their own countries?

[Jeremy Wright]

I took the trouble to look up that figure on the off-chance that my hon. Friend might ask for it. It is 10,689 as of last Friday, which, I am pleased to tell him, is a reduction from the last time that he asked for the figure and I told him it. It is important that he, I and other Members of the House support the Immigration Bill when it returns to this House, so that we can begin to deal with some of the obstacles to doing what he has described, which include the number of appeals that are available to some people to delay their return to the country to which they should go.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

How many foreign national offenders are there in our jails, how does the figure compare to last time and when does the Minister expect the first Nigerian to be sent back?

[Jeremy Wright]

Once again, I was ready for this one. There are currently 10,692 foreign national offenders, and when I last reported to my hon. Friend the figure was 10,789. The figures are heading in the right direction—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

How many foreign national offenders are there in our prisons, and what steps are being taken to send them back to secure detention in their own countries?

[Jeremy Wright]

Well, this question is familiar to me. The answer is 10,789—I think that figure is heading in the right direction although there is a lot more to do. My hon. Friend is right to say that the Government’s clear intention is to return all the foreign national offenders we can back to custody in their own countries. That requires compulsory prisoner transfer agreements of the kind that we are negotiating and that Labour failed to negotiate.

Wellingborough Prison Site

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on securing the debate. Let me also congratulate him—as others have—on working so vigorously to secure the reopening of Her Majesty’s Prison Wellingborough, and, indeed, on representing his constituents as actively and effectively as he always does.

I well remember debating the closure of the prison with my hon. Friend some 14 months ago. That was not just my first debate as prisons Minister, but my first day in the job. I put on record at that time, and I do so again today, the Government’s appreciation of the efforts of all who worked at Wellingborough. As I said then, any decision to close a prison is not made lightly, and is never easy. The decision to close this prison was not a reflection on either the work or the performance of the staff. As my hon. Friend pointed out, I said then—and I am happy to repeat—that the way in which he found out about the closure was profoundly unacceptable. He was entitled to an apology. As he knows, I gave him one on that occasion, but I am happy to repeat it.

It is regrettable that the letter to which my hon. Friend referred, dated 3 September, was not received in my Department. We checked again after he spoke to me about it, but there is still no record of its having arrived. I regret that, because I think he knows me well enough to know that had I received it, and had it included—as it did—a request for a meeting, we would have had such a meeting. He also knows that I have taken every opportunity to speak to him and to give him what information I can about progress in relation to Wellingborough prison.

The decision to close the prison followed an evaluation of every establishment on the prison estate, based on age and economic factors such as operating costs, outstanding maintenance issues and their proximity, and an operational assessment of the geographic and strategic function that the prisons performed. That included consideration of whether it would be difficult to replicate such functions elsewhere. According to those criteria, Wellingborough was chosen for closure.

The fact is that parts of the site were in a poor state of repair. Its physical fabric, like that of other facilities that were built in the 1960s, had deteriorated over the years. It was not simply the accommodation that needed to be brought up to standard; many other improvements were required. It was increasingly unsafe, with poor services and infrastructure, poor electrics, and inadequate water pressure which failed to meet the required standards for the fighting of fires. It was in need of a substantial further investment of about £50 million. I know that my hon. Friend does not like round figures, so I shall give him the precise figure: it was £49.7 million, and that was for the full refurbishment that it needed in order to remain viable.

As I said last September, the proximity and size of the financial liability forced the prison management to decide whether to proceed with the outstanding and necessary refurbishments—at a time when there was sufficient prison accommodation on the rest of the estate, and there were many other pressures on the Department’s budget—or to close the prison and use the capital to better effect elsewhere.

On 4 September this year, my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary updated the House on our plans to modernise the prison estate so that we always have enough places for those sent to prison by the courts, but at much lower cost and in the right places, and on our plans to deliver on our ambition of reducing stubbornly high reoffending rates, and to do so in a way that gives taxpayers the best possible value for money.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am listening to my hon. Friend’s speech with great interest, in particular in respect of the figures. What is the Department’s assumption of capital cost per new prison place and how does the refurbishment of Wellingborough prison stack up in terms of that criterion?

[Jeremy Wright]

As I have already said, the cost of £50 million—or £49.7 million if we want to be precise—is the cost of bringing part of Wellingborough prison up to standard, so that is not a directly comparable figure in this regard. My hon. Friend may also know, as he may have heard this figure mentioned in the House earlier today, that we estimate that the cost of a new prison in Wrexham—which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough pointed out, will provide some 2,100 places, not 1,000—will be about £250 million. My maths is not good enough for me to do that sum, although perhaps the maths of my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) is, but there is a clear problem with Wellingborough, which is that substantial capital investment would be required to bring it up to standard. This also has to be seen against the backdrop of what was a strategic consideration as to where those prison places would best be provided, and I will come on to that subject.

[Mr Hollobone]

rose—

[Jeremy Wright]

I sense that my hon. Friend wants me to give way again, and I am happy to do so.

[Mr Hollobone]

We have a lot of time this evening, so we can explore this subject in some detail, with Mr Speaker’s permission.

It would seem from the figures my hon. Friend has just given the House that the cost for the refurbishment of Wellingborough prison is in the same ballpark as would be needed in new spend on a new prison, but the advantage of Wellingborough is that it is a prison that works and the community accepts it. One of the big difficulties about new prisons is getting the communities where they are to be built to accept all these prisoners in their midst.

[Jeremy Wright]

I can tell my hon. Friend that there is very considerable enthusiasm among the local authorities in the Wrexham area to have a new prison, and that is one of the reasons why we considered that to be a sensible site for the building of a new prison. Again, if my hon. Friend will be a little patient I will come on to why we consider that Wellingborough would not be the right site for the development of what would in effect be a substantially new prison.

I was talking about the comments my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary made on 4 September. As I said, the intention is to deliver reduced reoffending rates in a way that delivers the best possible value for money for the taxpayer.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough said, we are replacing accommodation that is old, inefficient or has limited long-term strategic value. Reshaping the rest of the prison estate will enable us to release offenders closer to home, which we know improves their resettlement and helps prevent reoffending. Linked intrinsically to this, a nationwide through-the-prison-gate resettlement service will be put in place, meaning that most offenders are given continuous support by one provider from custody into the community. We will support this by ensuring that most offenders are held in a prison designated to their area for at least three months before release. To achieve that we must have the best fit between custodial capacity and demand.

We will open an additional 1,260 places in four new house blocks at HMPs Parc, Peterborough, the Mount and Thameside. The first of these at HMP the Mount is on track to accept prisoners in September 2014. The construction of the new prison in Wrexham, subject to planning approval, will offer 2,100 places when it is fully operational from late 2017. In addition, we are looking into replacing the existing Feltham young offenders site with a large new adult prison and a discrete new youth facility. It is our aim that we will have more adult male prison capacity in May 2015 than there was at the start of this Parliament. As a result of this new capacity coming on stream, we were able to announce the closure of a further four prisons, removing 1,400 uneconomic places from the prison estate, in addition to those closed earlier this year.

It remains the Government’s intention to ensure that the prison system retains sufficient capacity and resilience to manage all those who are committed to custody by the courts. It is equally clear that the Government have a duty to their citizens to ensure that we make the best use of public funds. As I said in the earlier debate, the prison system is necessarily complex and it must be able to meet a variety of needs. That includes being able to receive new prisoners direct from courts throughout England and Wales, providing health care and education, tackling deep-rooted, dangerous and harmful behaviour and providing specialist interventions for particular groups of prisoners.

Maintaining a wide geographical spread of prisons and a functional balance that meets the changing needs of the prison population is essential. By doing that, we remain able to carry out the punishments set by the courts, to maintain strong security to protect the public and to provide opportunities for different types of offenders in order to reduce the likelihood of their committing further crimes. Accordingly, individual prisons are robustly assessed to determine whether their closure is operationally viable before a recommendation is made. Such a recommendation was made in relation to Wellingborough, and the decision to close it was subsequently taken. That was because Wellingborough prison is located in a region with too many places and it did not perform a function that could not be replicated at other prisons. Furthermore, there were enough other prisons located nearby to allow us to avoid compulsory redundancies by redeploying staff.

I do not think that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough disagrees with much of that. We met today to discuss the matter in more detail, and he argued that I should have considered Wellingborough as a London prison rather than an east midlands one. He has made that point again tonight. He suggested that Wellingborough might provide a better solution to meeting the shortfall of London places than the other options we are considering, which include the redevelopment of Feltham that was announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on 4 September.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend is right to an extent, and he knows that the two prisons in his constituency are probably no more than a stone’s throw from the edge of mine, and I know them well. He is right that there are a number of London prisoners who are in prisons outside London for good and sensible population management reasons. I can reassure him that it is highly likely that whatever provision we make for an additional London prison, there will remain some transferring of London prisoners to sites outside London. That will be necessary because of the figures that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough has given the House tonight. That does not mean that we should not consider the needs of the majority of London-based prisoners, which will be to remain in the London area, and the needs of their families who will wish to visit them, as much as the needs of those offenders themselves. It still seems to me that we will want to consider the building of additional prison capacity in or around the London area.

[Mr Hollobone]

rose—

[Jeremy Wright]

I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend before I come to a conclusion.

[Mr Hollobone]

I applaud the Minister for his open-mindedness with this new question that he now poses for himself, and stress the excellent connectivity of Wellingborough, both north to south—it is less than 50 minutes on the train to London—and east to west, with the excellent road network. Moreover, much to local people’s consternation, a campaign sponsored by the Department for Communities and Local Government a couple of years ago saw Northamptonshire marketed in London as “North Londonshire”, attracting people from London to Northamptonshire. In his efforts to answer this new question, I urge the Minister to ignore this regional boundary, which very few people recognise. Northamptonshire is the southern most part of the supposed east midlands, but it really does not feel like it.

[Jeremy Wright]

I sense that the next application from my hon. Friends will be an extension to the tube network to Wellingborough and Kettering. In any event, I feel it necessary to point out that it is still a hard sell to make the argument that it is a more effective location for a London prison to put it in Northamptonshire than to put it in London. None the less, as I have said, I will consider that case, and I will look carefully at what my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough has said. He will recognise that I cannot undertake indefinitely to hold on to a prison site that we may not need and do so at a significant cost to the taxpayer. It follows that, as a first step to what may be the disposal of that site, officials in the Ministry of Justice have a meeting scheduled already with the local planning authority to begin discussions on the future of the site. That process is obviously at an early stage and no decisions on its future use have been made. It must surely be in the interests of my hon. Friend’s constituents and the taxpayer at large that we, in close consultation with the local planning authority, look at the possible future uses of the site, including its potential for development. We will continue with that process alongside looking again at the viable options for the new London prison. I trust that my hon. Friends will accept that that is a prudent way to proceed.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

In commending my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on his energetic campaign to save Wellingborough prison, may I gently suggest to the Minister that Government papers must have become muddled on this prison, because it is extremely cost-effective? It has one of the lowest costs per prisoner across the prison estate. The Minister says that lots of money is needed to improve the site but, having gone round it myself, I simply do not think that that is the case. May I urge him to take my hon. Friend’s advice and look again at this wrong decision?

[Jeremy Wright]

First, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that our hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) has done a first-class job in advocating for his constituents, as he always does. That is his job, but my job is to look at the prison estate across the country. I am afraid that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) is not correct about the costs of running a prison, which are made up of several components, and a significant one is the cost of maintenance and the cost of maintaining accommodation standards. On our estimates, it would cost £50 million to bring that up to standard, which is why we concluded that it was right to close the prison. There is a separate consideration about whether it is right to retain the site, but for reasons that I have explained we have decided that it not the right thing to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

How many foreign national offenders do we have in our prisons, and what steps are being taken to send them back to secure detention in their own country?

[Jeremy Wright]

I am ready for this one this time! The answer is 10,833, and my hon. Friend and I are in agreement that that is far too many. As we have discussed before, the answer is that we need to make more use of compulsory prisoner transfer agreements. I can tell him that, as he knows, we have a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement with Albania, and 77 Albanian nationals have been referred to the Home Office for immigration enforcement and deportation. He knows, too, that we are part of the European Union prisoner transfer agreement—another compulsory PTA—under which 277 EU nationals have been referred to the Home Office. We are making progress, although it is not as quick as either of us would like.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

What is the latest total for the number of foreign national prisoners in our jails and what steps have been taken in recent months to send them back to secure detention in their own countries?

[Jeremy Wright]

The last time my hon. Friend asked me that question, I did not have the number to hand. I still do not, but I can tell him that it is in the order of 10,800. He and I are in full agreement that that number is too high. As for the second part of his question, as he knows we are attempting to negotiate compulsory prisoner transfer agreements with a number of countries. We already have one with the European Union. I know how enthusiastic he is about EU measures, so he will be pleased to know that we are making real progress in sending people back under the EU PTA. We will continue to work hard to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T5. If it is true that there are still almost 11,000 foreign national offenders in our prisons, what steps are being taken to negotiate compulsory prisoner transfer agreements with other nations so that these people can be sent back to secure detention in their own countries?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that that is the right objective. We have negotiated a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement with Albania, which is a high-volume country. That was concluded in January. We are making better use than ever before of the European Union prisoner transfer agreement. My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that some 200 cases are currently processing through that method. We will remove as many as we can because, as my hon. Friend has heard me say before, the right place for foreign national offenders is their own country, not ours.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

What is the latest number of foreign national offenders in our prisons, and what progress is being made on sending them back to secure detention in their own countries?

[Jeremy Wright]

Off the top of my head I think there are about 10,300 in our prisons at the moment. We are making progress, as I explained earlier, not only with individual compulsory prisoner transfer agreements such as the one that we have already negotiated with Albania, but with more effective use of the European Union prisoner transfer agreement. Something like 200 cases under that agreement are currently being considered for deportation by the Home Office.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend is right to say that there will be a variety of different organisations providing rehabilitation services for which those currently employed by the probation service might end up working, and I hope very much that we will retain the skills within the system. He is also right that the proposals present the opportunity for increasing the professionalisation of the probation service of which he is a great champion, and we want to ensure that those proposals are not overlooked in the consultation process and beyond.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I commend to my hon. Friend the Minister the response to the consultation from the Northamptonshire Probation Trust, which has an excellent reputation. Although it is supportive in principle of the concept of payment by results, it, like my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), has concerns that large and remote contracts—if the Department goes down that route—will not place sufficient emphasis on the joined-up local delivery of effective probation services.

[Jeremy Wright]

Again, that is a realistic concern and one that we will address. It is important that we maintain those crucial local partnerships, and we will expect anyone taking on this work to do that. We will also want to ensure that not only the design of the contracts but the management of those contracts and the relationships with smaller and local organisations, particularly in the voluntary sector, are maintained and nurtured. We will look carefully at all bids to ensure that they do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Jamaican and Nigerian nationals make up a big proportion of the foreign nationals in our jails. What progress is being made on negotiating compulsory prisoner transfer agreements with Jamaica and Nigeria so that we can send those people back?

[Jeremy Wright]

As my hon. Friend rightly says, Nigeria is a significant country in that respect, and he will know that one obstacle to negotiating such an agreement concerns the constitutional restrictions in potential receiving countries. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the Nigerian legislature has now passed legislation that makes such an agreement feasible, so we are making considerable progress with Nigeria.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman knows how difficult this exercise is. He knows perfectly well that prisoner transfer agreements are a matter of negotiation, and he also knows that compulsory transfer agreements are much more valuable than voluntary ones. Most of the agreements that he has described his Government as having achieved are voluntary, not compulsory. This Government will attempt to negotiate more compulsory agreements, so that we can continue to send home foreign offenders whom we do not want in our prisons.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Now that we have a fresh, dynamic new regime at the Ministry of Justice, may we please move the subject of foreign national offenders to the top of the Ministry’s agenda? There are more than 10,000 foreign nationals in our jails, and that is far too many. Jamaica, Poland and Ireland are the three countries that send most foreign nationals to our jails, but we have compulsory transfer agreements with none of them. Please will the Ministry get on with negotiating compulsory transfer agreements, so that these people can be sent back to their countries of origin?

[Jeremy Wright]

Let me say again that I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s concern. He has spoken out about this a number of times. However, I have at least some good news for him. European Union nationals account for about a third of foreign national prisoners. A European Union prisoner transfer agreement came into force in December last year, and EU countries are implementing it this year. I hope that that will not only help to remove foreign national offenders, but rank as one of the very few measures coming out of Brussels of which my hon. Friend wholly approves.

HMP Wellingborough

Debate between Jeremy Wright and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Wright]

At this early stage in my career, I cannot speak for my diary, let alone for that of the Secretary of State. However, I have no doubt that if my hon. Friend, with all his persistence and eloquence, asks the Secretary of State for a meeting, he will get one as soon as it can be arranged.

[Mr Hollobone]

I very much respect the Minister, who is a good man, but this is day one of his job, and he has not even had time to sleep on the matter. As a human being, he cannot possibly be confident that the assessment of this prison closure is right. I know that that is what his officials are telling him, but he has simply not had time to digest it and to think about it. It would be perfectly reasonable for him to tell the House that as it is day one of the job and he has not had time to sit and think about the matter, he will postpone the decision for a set period. He could then be confident about whether it should close.

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend makes a tempting offer. This may be day one for me in the job, but it is not day one of consideration of the issue. If he is patient, I will try to explain the work that has been done, and the reasoning that led us to the decision. I take him back to July when the then Secretary of State announced the closure of HMP Wellingborough. The gap between the prison population and our useable capacity then stood at 3,500 places, which represented the most headroom experienced in the prison estate since early 2011, with more empty prison places than there were before last year’s announcement of the closures of HMP Latchmere House and part of the Hewell cluster, formerly known as HMP Brockhill. It also represented more unused places than were available immediately before the serious public disorder in August 2011, and I remind the House that the prison system coped admirably with the unprecedented prison population growth experienced following those events.

The latest figures demonstrate that that degree of headroom has widened further, with a population of 86,708 on Friday 31 August against a useable capacity of 90,897, a gap of more than 4,100. Throughout this year, the capacity of the prison system will increase further as new accommodation at HMP Oakwood and HMP Thameside, with a total of more than 2,500 places, becomes fully operational. The provision of new accommodation is part of our wider strategy to improve prison conditions, to reduce operating costs, and to ensure that the prison system is able to provide opportunities for prisoners to work and to reduce their risks of further offending. That goes entirely to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough made about capacity within the system. Accordingly, it is clear that the loss of 588 places at HMP Wellingborough will not materially affect the Government’s ability to accommodate all those who are committed to custody by the courts in the foreseeable future.

My hon. Friend made the point that even if a prison closure is necessary, it need not be the prison in his constituency. Indeed, he has previously made similar arguments forcefully. The reason for closing HMP Wellingborough is, as he knows, linked to what happened when the running of that prison was put up for competition by the previous Government. He will recall that the reason for withdrawing HMP Wellingborough from that competition has been known to the House for some time. It was central to the decision on closure, and is summed up in the comments of the then Secretary of State:

“During the preparations for the bid it became apparent that competition could not produce improvements at HMP Wellingborough without significant capital investment to secure its long-term viability. In the current financial climate, this is clearly not a tenable proposition, so I took the decision to remove it from the competition process.” —[Official Report, 31 March 2011; Vol. 526, c. 526.]

It has taken longer than we would have hoped to determine the prison’s future, not least because of the significant pressure placed on the prison estate in the aftermath of last year’s public disorder. However, in the intervening period, the continued deterioration of the site has only served to make the need for a decision more pressing. They key point is that the cost of running the prison is not solely operational, as there are also costs for repairs and for bringing the prison up to an acceptable standard.

My hon. Friend mentioned that Wellingborough is the third most cost-effective prison in the country, but as ever, it depends on how that is calculated. That statistic relates to the prison’s running costs; it does not take account of the capital costs required to deal with the backlog of improvements that are needed on site. He is right that Wellingborough has an annual budget of £11.6 million for 588 places, which does not compare unfavourably with other prisons of the same type. However, as it was built in the 1960s, the physical fabric has deteriorated over the years.