Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison places for the estate in England were (a) under construction and (b) in planning, in (i) new build prisons (ii) prison extensions and small secure houseblocks and (iii) other projects as of May 2024.

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. This Government will deliver what the previous administration failed to achieve. We will get the prison places this country needs built and will ensure that we always have enough prison places to lock up dangerous offenders.

Given the nuances of the planning system and prison build programmes, we have defined ‘in planning’ as developments submitted for, or awaiting, determination of full planning permission as of May 2024. Some projects within the 20,000 prison place programmes can be delivered through Permitted Development Rights and therefore do not require planning permission. Places that had received planning permission ahead of May 2024 have not been included in this response.

We are aiming to deliver four new prisons (i), in addition to HMPs Five Wells and Fosse Way which have already been built. As of May 2024:

1. c.1,500 places were under construction at HMP Millsike, which officially opened on 27 March 2025, alongside an additional c.245 place houseblock at HMP Fosse Way.

2. c.4,900 places were in the planning system for the proposed new prisons in Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire and Lancashire.

Other places within the 20,000 prison place programmes will be delivered through the expansion and refurbishment of the existing estate ((ii) and (iii)) including Small Secure Houseblocks. As of May 2024:

1. c.2,400 places were under construction.

2. c.970 places were in the planning system.