Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the number of prison places added through (a) prisons opening, (b) small secure houseblocks, (c) rapid deployment cells, (d) crowding places and (e) other additions was in each year from the earliest year for which data are available.

As outlined in the recently published 10-Year Prison Capacity Strategy, this Government is committed to delivering an additional 14,000 prison places through the 20,000 prison place programmes, which the previous Government failed to deliver.

We are aiming to deliver the further 14,000 places by 2031 through our four new prisons, in addition to HMPs Five Wells and Fosse Way which have already been built. Other places within the 20,000 place programmes will be delivered through expansion of the existing estate, including Small Secure Houseblocks and Rapid Deployment Cells, additional houseblocks and refurbishments on the existing estate, additional crowded places available in the new manage and maintain private prison contracts, Category D Estate Expansion, Small Secure Investments and Urgent Temporary Accommodation.

No places have been delivered through the Small Secure Houseblocks Programme to date. ‘Other (e)’ in the table below consists of additional crowded places available in the new manage and maintain private prison contracts, Category D Estate Expansion, Small Scale Investments and Urgent Temporary Accommodation.

Data has been provided from this point as the programmes in the question (Rapid Deployment Cells and Small Secure Houseblocks) are new delivery types from the 20k programmes, which began in 2020. Due to the complexities around prison crowding data (d), we are unable to provide a breakdown in the below table. However, data on prison crowding is published annually and a comprehensive overview can be viewed at HMPPS Annual Digest, April 2023 to March 2024 - GOV.UK This data does not represent the net breakdown of supply across this period, which can be found through PQs 36624 and 36626, or the October 2024 Ad Hoc publication which can be found at The_number_of_prison_places_built_and_closed__2010-2024_.docx.