Prison Capacity: Annual Statement

Nick Timothy Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

This is my first chance to speak about prisons as shadow Justice Secretary, and I want to get straight to the point: prison works. By taking dangerous and repeat criminals off the streets, prison works. By punishing people who have done wrong, prison works. By sending a clear message that if someone is thinking of committing a crime, they will face consequences, prison works. So when the Government produce sound plans to increase prison capacity, we will support them, but let us cut the spin from the substance in that statement.

The Minister seems to want a medal for letting criminals out of prison early, and what he said about the new prison places created since the election was utter nonsense. Those places were inherited from the last Government. All he and his colleagues are doing is turning up to new prisons to cut the ribbon. Millsike, Fosse Way, Welland Oaks and other prisons he did not boast about were all set up and funded before the Minister and I were even elected to this House.

The Minister pretends that the plan for 14,000 new prison places by 2031 is some radical new departure, but that number depends entirely on the thousands of places from new prisons and houseblocks started under the last Government. Let me read his answer to a question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty):

“No new prisons have been (a) planned or (b) approved since 5 July 2024.”

It is a pity he was not so candid in his statement just now. What about the milestones in creating the new prison places? What will be the consequences if Ministers fail to reach them? Is the Minister satisfied that the planning framework, as changed by this Government, will mean no delays in construction? How many projects have been stopped since the construction company ISG went bust? If he cannot rule out delays, what is his plan B? Can he promise the public that there will be no extension to Labour’s early release scheme? The crime statistics out today show that sex offences are up by 8% and shoplifting is up by 5% compared with last year, but with Labour’s sentencing policies, many of these criminals will avoid going to prison altogether.

What about the performance of the Prison Service? For all the talk of transparency today, at no point did the Minister admit that prison officer numbers are down under this Government by 468. Will he confirm that fact? With reports today that record numbers of offenders are being recalled to prison, will the Minister comment on the serious allegation made by the Prison Officers Association that many criminals are breaching their probation terms so that they can return to prison to sell drugs?

On the deportation of foreign criminals, there was another statistical sleight of hand. Deportation numbers under this Government remain roughly in line with the average of the coalition and Conservative years in office and are lower in half of those years.

[Jake Richards]

indicated dissent.

[Nick Timothy]

That is true. But I agree that those numbers remain too low, because we should be deporting all the foreign criminals in our prisons. Can the Minister confirm that that is also his aim, and can he tell us how he will stop the European convention on human rights getting in the way? The Opposition are clear that we will leave the ECHR. Will he condemn the actions of his boss, the Justice Secretary, who in opposition actively campaigned against the deportation of foreign rapists?

Finally, I want to ask the Minister a question of principle. He told a journalist this week:

“a pretty big chunk of the overall population… shouldn’t be in prison”.

His colleague Lord Timpson says that only a third of prisoners should be locked up. These are my most important questions, and the Minister needs to answer them clearly: is it true that only a third of prisoners should definitely be behind bars, and will he say very clearly that he agrees with me that prison works?

[Jake Richards]

I welcome the new shadow Justice Secretary to his place; I hope he can do a better job than his predecessor. Let me deal with his last question first. If he had read what I said in that interview carefully, he would know that I was talking about the Youth Custody Service; I was not talking about the adult estate. I urge him to go back and read that interview and perhaps come to the House to correct the record.

On the issue of whether prison works, prison can work. I was abundantly clear in the statement that at the end of this Parliament, under this Labour Government, there will be more criminals in prison than ever before, so prison can work. But I gently urge the shadow Justice Secretary to delve a little deeper and look at short-term sentences, for example. Is it the Conservatives’ position today, which it was not by the end of their time in government, that short-term sentences should not be reformed at all? It was proposed in legislation put forward by the Conservative Government in their final year in office that never saw the light of day because of the general election to make exactly the same changes we are making now—but now they oppose it. I am afraid that the Conservative position on sentencing is all over the place.

When it comes to prison building, the Conservatives expect to get some praise for panicking in their last year of government, realising that they had not done anything for 13 years, that they had underfunded prisons and that places were not keeping up with demand, so they started doing something about it. But none of those places was delivered under a Conservative Government. Unless I am hallucinating, I have been to these sites— I opened them; I put the shovel in the ground. It is a Labour Government who are delivering where the Tories completely failed.

On foreign national offenders, I do not accept the figures that the hon. Gentleman set out today. Foreign national offender deportations are up under the Labour Government. Through the Sentencing Act 2026, which the Conservatives opposed, we are making it far easier to deport foreign national offenders.

The Conservative Opposition have a real problem. They oppose every single step this Government are taking to solve the crisis they created, and then they step up and moan about it. They should support us. We are getting on with the job—we are reforming sentencing, building prison places and making sure the prison system is fit for the future. They should support us, rather than moaning from the sidelines.