Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Timpson on 7 May (HL6683), what potential prison sites they are considering for the 14,000 new prison places by 2031.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The prison population has nearly doubled in the past three decades, with just 500 extra prison places added in the last 14 years. To put an end to this crisis, the Government confirmed plans to invest £4.7 billion more in prison building, putting the Government on track to open 14,000 places by 2031. This will be the largest expansion of the prison estate since the Victorians. Since July 2024, 2,400 places have already been opened.
As outlined in the December 2024 10-Year Prison Capacity Strategy, this Government is committed to delivering an additional 14,000 prison places through the 20,000 prison place programmes. Delivery will be achieved through the construction of new prisons, the expansion and refurbishment of the existing estate and temporary accommodation. A breakdown of the prison build programmes by region and build type can be found within the Capacity Strategy.
The construction of four new prisons will deliver c.6,500 of the remaining 14,000 places. This includes the recently delivered HMP Millsike, which officially opened in March 2025. It also includes a new prison in Leicestershire which has full planning permission, a new prison in Buckinghamshire which has outline planning permission and a new prison in Lancashire which also has outline planning permission.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that sufficient prison places of appropriate standard are available on the prison estate.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
As set out in the December 2024 10-Year Prison Capacity Strategy, the Ministry of Justice is committed to delivering an additional 14,000 modern prison places and aims to do so by 2031. These places will be delivered through the construction of four new prisons, including the recently opened HMP Millsike which will deliver c.1,500 places, as well as the expansion and refurbishment of the existing estate and through temporary accommodation.
We are also investing £220 million in prison and probation service maintenance in 2024-2025 and up to £300 million in 2025-2026. We are committed to undertaking critical maintenance work to allow prisons to hold offenders safely, securely and in decent conditions.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans, if any, they have to expand HMP Highpoint.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice is delivering an additional c.700 places at HMP Highpoint through the construction of three four-storey houseblocks and supporting ancillaries. Construction work started at HMP Highpoint in November 2024, with prisoners expected in the new accommodation by the end of 2027.
This expansion programme is being delivered as part of the 20,000 Prison Place Programmes. In the 10-Year Prison Capacity Strategy, published in December 2024, the Lord Chancellor committed to delivering the remaining 14,000 places of the programmes, with an aim to complete delivery by 2031.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans, if any, they have to locate a prison at Wethersfield in Essex.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice continues to consider all options for delivering additional prison capacity.
Any decision to deliver a prison at Wethersfield will be dependent on planning conditions and a balance of operational and physical factors.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to introduce legislation to repeal section 2(4) of the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act 1948 to enable courts to take account of the existence of NHS care when awarding compensation.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
The Government does not have any current plans to either review or repeal section 2(4) of the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act 1948. However, the Department of Health and Social Care is currently reviewing a range of options around clinical negligence reform and will announce its position on this in due course.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, if any, to combat overcrowding in prisons.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
In prisons where there is overcrowding, a rigorous cell certification process ensures that the use of cells is subject to a formal assessment of safety and decency.
On 16 October 2023, the Lord Chancellor announced additional, longer-term measures to reform the justice system and continue to address the prison capacity challenges. The measures announced include: extending the Early Removal Scheme, introducing a presumption to suspend sentences of 12 months or less, curtailing the license period for IPP sentences and extending the use of Home Detention Curfew.
To meet pressing demand, we are building c.20,000 modern, rehabilitative prison places – the biggest prison build programme since the Victorian era. We have already delivered c.5,900 of these, including through new prisons HMP Five Wells and HMP Fosse Way, and we have been rolling out 1,000 Rapid Deployment Cells across 18 prisons. By the end of 2025, we will have delivered over 10,000 in total.
The Government will continue to carefully monitor demand for prison places so that we can make sure we have the right approach in place to maintain the capacity required for a safe and effective criminal justice system.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many successful prosecutions of people-smugglers there have been in England and Wales in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce reoffending.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
Over the last 10 years, overall proven re-offending has decreased from 30.9 per cent (2009-10) to 25.6 per cent (2019-20).
In the 2021 Prisons Strategy White Paper, we set out ambitious cross-government plans to tackle re-offending issues. We are investing £550 million in services over the Spending Review period to get offenders into skills training, work and stable accommodation. The White Paper was published alongside the Government’s 10-Year Drug Strategy, and we are investing an additional £120 million to tackle substance misuse.
We are also strengthening the supervision and monitoring of offenders in the community by:
We are also giving £300 million of funding over the Spending Review period to youth offending teams in England and Wales – the largest investment in youth justice in a generation.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address the backlog of court cases.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
The Government is committed to supporting the recovery of the courts and our decisive action kept justice moving during the pandemic. Now that barristers have returned to work, we can work together to drive down the backlog and ensure victims see justice served sooner.
To increase capacity in the Criminal Justice System, we have removed the limit on sitting days in the Crown Court for the second year in a row and extended 30 Nightingale courtrooms beyond the end of March 2022. Over the next three financial years, we are investing an extra £477 million for the Criminal Justice System to help improve waiting times for victims of crime and address the Crown Court backlog.
Over the next three financial years we are also investing £324 million to further improve waiting times in the civil and family courts, and tribunals. In July 2022, we introduced a Virtual Region pilot scheme to support civil and family courts in London and the South East. In March 2021 we launched the Family Mediation Voucher Scheme to encourage people to resolve their disputes outside of court where safe and appropriate to do so.
Across all jurisdictions, we are recruiting more judges to enable us to sit at the maximum possible level over the coming years.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the (1) direct, and (2) indirect, costs of imprisonment; what alternatives, if any, they are considering; and what steps are they taking, if any, to promote these alternatives.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
The direct cost of holding offenders in Custody for 2019-20 in England and Wales was £2.4bn. The indirect costs for the year were £1.1bn. The overall cost was therefore calculated at £3.5bn. These figures were taken from the latest published Prison Unit Cost statistics (Cost per prison place and Cost per prisoner).
The Government is clear that delivering public protection is not just about better use of custody. In many cases – particularly for low-level offending – effective community supervision keeps the public safer by intervening early to deflect offenders away from future offending and so prevent future victims.
The Government’s Sentencing White Paper, published in September 2020, set out an agenda of reform for punishing and rehabilitating low level offenders. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is currently before Parliament, is delivering on reforms to make community sentences more robust and effective, so that they offer an appropriate level of punishment and address the underlying drivers of offending where appropriate. This will be achieved by piloting a problem-solving court approach for certain community and suspended sentence orders, closer supervision of certain offenders, and the option for tougher and more flexible use of electronically monitored curfews to better reflect the punishment intended, better support rehabilitation, and better protect victims.