Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate she has made of the average daily cost of housing prisoners (a) under Operation Safeguard and (b) in standard prison accommodation.

This Government inherited a prison system on the verge of collapse, which would have left the courts unable to send offenders to prison and the police unable to arrest dangerous criminals. We took decisive action and implemented changes to the standard determinate sentence release point which provided essential but temporary relief to the system.

In July 2024, the Lord Chancellor was clear that the capacity crisis would not disappear immediately and the changes to release points were never the whole solution to the prison capacity crisis we inherited. Over the last three months population growth in the prison estate has been high – January saw the highest average monthly prison population growth in almost two years, which has only just begun to slow. As of 24 March, there were 783 places remaining in the adult male estate. We are operating at more than 99% occupancy. Given this recent increase in demand and the subsequent disruption on the CJS, it is necessary, to temporarily reactivate Operation Safeguard to better manage the flow of offenders into the prison estate.

Between February 2023 and September 2024, when it was in operation under the previous Government, the average cost per police cell activated under Operation Safeguard was £688. This reflects costs incurred by police in making Safeguard cells available, such as additional staffing and food. We will continue to minimise costs by monitoring Safeguard closely and deactivating places where we can.

The cost of running a prison place is £150 per day. This is an average across the closed male estate, which includes costs such as staff costs, food, utilities and facilities maintenance, but does not include capital maintenance costs. Further information on this can be found in our published statistics: Prison performance data 2022 to 2023 - GOV.UK.