Answer from Hansard

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Sir Nicholas Dakin)

We took immediate action to prevent the collapse of our prison system. The last Government added just 500 places to our prison estate over 14 years, whereas the previous Labour Government added around 28,000 places over 13 years. We intend to match the ambition of the last Labour Government, not the last Conservative Government, which is why we are committed to building 14,000 new prison places. By the end of this Parliament, we will have more people in prison than at any time in our history.