Separation Centres Review

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I am happy to write to the right hon. Gentleman with the detail, because it is a very good question. There are 254 prisoners in custody for terrorism or terrorism-related offences, 60% of whom have an Islamic ideology, and all the prisoners in our separation centres come from that cohort. He will recognise that that is a tiny proportion of the rising population in prison who say they are of the Muslim faith. It is important to emphasise that. However, radicalisation is a bigger thematic area than just the work of those extremists in separation centres—he is absolutely right—and we have to continue bearing down on it. I have discussed this in Committee stages of Bills under the previous Government. It remains a long-standing issue and will continue to be, I suspect, for decades to come.

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

I wholeheartedly agree that our most dangerous prisoners should be dealt with appropriately, but I will touch on an adjacent point around prison capacity. We are aware that the Government are in the process of rolling out more prison places—around 14,000—but we are also aware that none of those prison places are currently designated as category A. Looking at the most recent statistics for the beginning of the year, we see that of the available capacity in the prison system, only 12% is category A. Is the Justice Secretary confident that there is enough remaining capacity in the prison system at category A level, given that the remaining prison places planned are categories B to D? What is the number of available prison places remaining that will trigger a need for us to build out that capacity?

[Mr Lammy]

I was very pleased to say in oral questions that we are turning the tide on the prison capacity crisis that we inherited. In the context of my statement, I talked about a tiered approach—yes, a supermax approach, but on more than one site. As we enter a spending review and I make that case, as well as the case that Jonathan Hall makes, by definition and necessity the places will have to be category A—at the highest tier—for this group of prisoners. It is important, as we saw after the incident at Frankland, that we are able to move prisoners to other high-security sites; we have Belmarsh prison here in London, which I visited early in my post. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; we will need to have those places, and I am happy to write to him with more detail.