Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the condition of the prison estate.

We recognise the need to invest in the maintenance of the existing prison estate. £156m of maintenance funding has been committed for financial year 2020/21 as a first step to addressing maintenance pressures. We will be targeting this funding at worn out and failing infrastructure, as well as supporting additional maintenance workload.

In the previous financial year, we invested an additional £31m to improve conditions in some of the prisons with the most pressing issues. This saw us refurbish nearly 1,000 cells, over 100 shower blocks and 14 food serveries, and in addition carry out essential fire safety work.

We have launched a Living Conditions Audit across 60 prisons and a national Clean and Decent Project is also underway, producing materials such as cleaning schedules, guidance and training for all prisons to draw on to improve conditions.

We have set out our commitment to build 10,000 additional prison places through an investment of £2.5 billion to refurbish the estate and to create modern prisons. Work to construct a new prison at Wellingborough is progressing on schedule and we have planning permission to build a 1,680-place prison at Glen Parva, scheduled to start in Summer 2020.

We will also be seeking further longer-term increases in capital funding in discussions with HM Treasury in order for us to continue to make progress on the condition of the prison estate.