Prisoner Early Release Scheme

Tristan Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jake Richards]

We hear this a lot—Conservative Members saying, “Well, we didn’t do anything for 14 years, we didn’t spend much money, and then in the final few months we thought, gosh, we have a prison capacity crisis, we had better start planning, and then we called an election.” It is absolutely hopeless. What we are doing constitutes the biggest prison building programme since the Victorian era, with 14,000 places by 2031. The Conservatives’ policy chief has apologised for their record on criminal justice, as has the Leader of the Opposition. Will the hon. Gentleman do so?

[Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)]

Of course, the legacy that we inherited was the failure of the last Government, who did not build enough prison places and left it until the last minute to sanction new places. I appreciate the Minister’s clarity in respect of the new prison places and the Government’s investment in 14,000 future places, but may I ask him about the recruitment of prison officers? Will we have enough personnel to support that expansion so that we do not have to resort to early release in the future?

[Jake Richards]

There is indeed a challenge. Alongside our prison building programme, the biggest since the Victorian era, is the need to recruit people to staff those prisons. However, we are implementing a range of new recruitment initiatives to ensure that we have enough prison officers to make them safe and workable.