Prison Capacity

Shabana Mahmood Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Written Statements

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)]

This Government inherited a prison system at the point of crisis. We took swift and decisive action to stabilise it, but we knew that was a first step. This is why, in October, I appointed the right hon. David Gauke to lead an independent review of sentencing. I expect the sentencing review to provide recommendations to place the system on a sustainable footing and ensure there is always space in prison for dangerous offenders.

Last December we published a long-term prison capacity strategy, setting out plans to build 14,000 prison places by 2031. This is the largest expansion of the prison estate since the Victorians. We have already committed £2.3 billion to prison expansion. Since taking office, we have opened 2,400 new prison places. While the spending review is ongoing, I can announce today that the Treasury will fund our prison expansion plans, in full, across the spending review period.

I have been clear that it was likely that further measures would be required before the sentencing review’s long-term recommendations could be implemented. Under central demand projections, the adult male estate will have capacity of just 200 prison places remaining by the end of September 2025 and will hit zero capacity—entirely run out of prison places—by November 2025.

It is therefore essential that we act now to avert a further crisis in prison capacity and manage the system over the shorter term while long-term reforms are delivered. The alternative would be the total breakdown of law and order, and the end to our ambitions of meeting our safer streets mission.

The recall population has more than doubled since 2018 from 6,000 to 13,600 prisoners in March this year. Last year I was clear that sustained action on recall was needed. The Government will bring forward legislation in the coming weeks to make more use of fixed-term recall, mandating it for sentences of less than four years. We will exclude offenders recalled for committing a serious further offence and offenders who are subject to higher levels of risk management by multi-agency public protection arrangements. This measure builds on previous legislation that mandated 14-day recalls for those serving sentences of less than a year. The proposals will ensure we do not run out of prison places before we introduce the sentencing reforms that—alongside our record prison building plans—will end the crisis in our prisons for good.

[HCWS634]