Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of expected trends in the level of the prison population in the next five years.

The November 2021 prison population projections published by the Office for National Statistics show that the overall prison population in England and Wales is projected to increase to 98,500 by March 2026.

This is largely due to the recruitment of an additional 20,000 police officers, which is expected to increase charge volumes, as well as the impact of courts working through the backlog of cases and implementing tougher sentencing measures to protect the public.

We are investing £3.8 billion over the next three years to deliver 20,000 additional, modern prison places across England and Wales by the mid-2020s to meet this projected increase.