Women's Prisons: Costs

(asked on 8th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his Department will publish the estimated cost of delivering the 500 new prison places for women announced on 23 January 2020.


Answered by
Alex Chalk Portrait
Alex Chalk
Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
This question was answered on 16th March 2021

We have committed over £150 million to deliver 500 additional prison places across the women’s estate. The design of the new accommodation is being developed to be trauma-informed and gender specific with improved outcomes for women. Our design principles include requirements around ensuring suitable visiting spaces are provided, greater in-cell communication options informed by the COVID learning, and in open designs, the potential inclusion of rooms to support overnight visits for mothers and their children (currently already delivered in two prisons within the women’s estate). This substantial investment will also increase the number of single cells and availability of in-cell showers. In addition, these places will also allow more women to be held in open conditions, consequently providing greater opportunities for employment and education while completing their sentence.

This is not an ‘either-or-approach’ as we are also investing approximately £80 million in community drug treatment, £70 million in accommodation services, £2 million for women’s centres and a further £2 million to support 38 grassroots organisations doing incredible work steering women away from the criminal justice system.

Reticulating Splines