Prison Accommodation

(asked on 15th September 2026) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many cells, rooms or dormitories in the prison estate have a Certified Normal Accommodation of (a) one and a maximum capacity of one, (b) one and a maximum capacity of two, (c) two and a maximum capacity of two, (d) two and a maximum capacity of three, (e) three and a maximum capacity of three, or (f) three and a maximum capacity of four, broken down by establishment.


Answered by
Catherine McKinnell Portrait
Catherine McKinnell
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 14th October 2026

HMPPS does not centrally record the reasons why a prison's in-use Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA) is lower than its baseline CNA, nor does it centrally hold information on when individual CNA places were taken out of use or are expected to return to use. This information will be held locally by individual prisons but collating it manually across the estate would incur disproportionate cost.

HMPPS does centrally record reasons for any changes to Operational Capacity, which is the total number of prisoners that a prison can hold, taking into account control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime. These data are not directly equivalent to places excluded from in-use CNA, but provide the closest centrally held measure. Information on Operational Capacity places out of use by establishment and reason is set out in the first attached table.

Please see attached data tables.

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