Prison Estate Capacity
Tuesday, 10 November 2026
Contributions
Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)Labour
8. What steps his Department is taking to increase the capacity of the prison estate.
The Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending (Catherine McKinnell)Labour
As my hon. Friend knows, we inherited a crumbling prison estate that was close to breaking point, with only 100 places remaining. The previous Government were just days away from reaching capacity, which is why we are working at pace to deliver an additional 14,000 prison places by 2031; we have already delivered 3,300. That stands in marked contrast to the 500 net places that the Conservative Government managed to add during 14 years in office.
I thank the Minister for the fantastic progress made. What steps is the Department taking to ensure that foreign national offenders are held in prison until they are deported, not released back into our society where they can reoffend or abscond?
There are currently thousands of foreign criminals in our prisons, at vast expense to the taxpayer, and that cannot be right when we need every space in our prisons. Within our first two years, the Government have increased foreign national offender returns by 41% compared with the last two years of the previous Government. I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that capacity in the immigration removals estate is within the remit of the Home Office, and we continue to work closely with the Department to ensure we increase the number of foreign national offenders being removed and keep the public safe.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)Conservative
I will push back gently on the Minister’s assertion of 3,300 new prison places, knowing full well that they were all approved under the previous Conservative Government. Across the adult male prison population, there are 3,669 places out of service due to everything from lack of fire safety measures to infestations of bedbugs and rodents. What are the Government doing to expedite the renewal of those prison places, some of which are out of service until as far out as 2034, given that prisoners are being released, including some today?
The hon. Gentleman is brave to highlight the record that his Government left, which is a backlog of repairs and a shortage of places. That is why we are working on delivering the largest prison expansion programme since the Victorian era. We are bringing forward £110 million of existing budgets so that we can deliver additional places faster. We are working to repair the perilous state in which the previous Government left some of our prison estate, and ensuring that we manage offenders in the community through an increased Probation Service, which the Conservatives also decimated.
Source: UK Parliament Hansard API. Debate ID: 5434236.