Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made on the availability of prison places in 2023.

The Ministry of Justice continually monitors the availability of prison places and will ensure availability of places sufficient for the requirement.

Following a sharp increase in the adult male prison population in the autumn we formally activated Operation Safeguard, working alongside the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) to provide additional capacity as a precautionary measure as needed, to ensure the smooth running of the prison estate. No police cells have yet been used.

To ensure ongoing availability, we are delivering 20,000 additional, modern prison places, the largest prison build programme in a century. We have already delivered over 3,100 of these additional places to date.