Member

The task is not only to get the population down within the capacity of the prison estate. We need to build in spare capacity. I will make a number of points on why that is so important. I will make them briefly because I have made them many times before. First, we must address overcrowding. Cells made for one are packed with more than one prisoner each. That is inhumane and it also increases the risk of violence within prisons—prisoner on prisoner, and prisoner on staff—because of boredom, frustration and discomfort. We must maintain the conditions of our prisons and we must do better because they are squalid; we must improve the conditions. That means that the current position, where cells scheduled for maintenance are being kept in service, with maintenance programmes deferred, is simply not good enough. We have an excessive use of temporary cells, which lack the ancillary features required for prison life to be remotely civilised.