Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government why only 206 new prison places have so far been created to help meet their 2016 commitment to produce 10,000 new places.

In 2016, the then Secretary of State for Justice announced the creation of up to 10,000 new for old prison places. As part of this, a new 206 place houseblock at HMP Stocken was opened in June 2019. Work to construct a modern, uncrowded, decent, safe and secure prison at Wellingborough, providing 1,680 places, is progressing on schedule and we will commence work to build a 1,680 place prison at Glen Parva in the Summer, bringing the total places delivered to 3,566.

The Prime Minister has committed to invest up to £2.5 billion to transform the prison estate by building 10,000 additional places – in addition to the 3,566 already being delivered. The first of these new prisons will be at Full Sutton. All future new prison developments are subject to receiving planning permission and will be announced in due course.

We acknowledge the National Audit Office’s review, ‘Ministry of Justice, HM Prison and Probation Service: Improving the prison estate’, undertaken in 2019 and we will be carefully considering the report to ensure that we are able to effectively deliver the additional 10,000 places whilst ensuring value for money for taxpayers.