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Written Question
Prison Accommodation: Construction
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison cells have been built in each year since 2010, broken down by cell type.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

As some cells hold more than one person, the operational capacity of the prison estate is best understood by the number of places rather than number of cells, and this is how data is recorded by HMPPS.

The below table provides a summary of the number of prison places which have opened in each year since 2010, broken down into Adult Male, Female and CYPSE (Children and Young People’s Estate). Please note that, for simplicity, all places relating to a prison opening are included in the year that the prison opened. In practice, a new prison may take more than a year before reaching its final operational capacity.

Year

Adult Male

Female

CYPSE

Total

2010

1479

1479

2011

240

240

2012

3066

3066

2013

201

201

2014

45

45

2015

1466

85

1551

2016

78

78

2017

2000

2000

2018

580

580

2019

206

206

2020

484

24

508

2021

1044

20

1064

2022

2176

2176

2023

2435

24

2459

2024

140

40

180

Total

15413

271

45

15729

We continue to push ahead with the largest prison expansion programme since the Victorian Era – with 10,000 of the pledged 20,000 additional places to be delivered by the end of 2025.

We have also put in place short-term measures across the prison estate to expand capacity by the equivalent of around 2,000 places since September 2022, through doubling up cells and delaying non-urgent maintenance work where safe to do so. Thousands of places are also being created through the expansion of prisons through additional house blocks and major refurbishments at existing prisons and we are rolling out Rapid Deployment Cells across the estate, with c.590 already delivered at eleven sites.


Written Question
Prison Accommodation
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress his Department has made on providing 20,000 additional prison places by 2025.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

We are delivering 20,000 additional, modern prison places, the largest prison build programme since the Victorian era, ensuring the right conditions are in place to rehabilitate prisoners, helping to cut crime and protect the public.  So far, c.5,900 additional places have been completed. This includes our two new c.1,700 place prisons, HMP Five Wells, which opened in 2022 and HMP Fosse Way, which opened last year. It also includes, among others, c.590 Rapid Deployment Cells (RDCs) now in place across 11 sites.

There was no commitment to deliver 20,000 additional prison places by 2025. By the end of 2025, we are on track to have delivered around 10,000 places in total. This will include our third new prison, HMP Millsike, delivering c.1,500 places, new houseblocks at HMPs Stocken and Rye Hill, as well as hundreds more RDCs.

We have secured outline planning permission for our fourth new prison, near the existing HMP Gartree in Leicestershire, and for our fifth new prison, near the existing HMP Grendon in Buckinghamshire. We will now seek to deliver those new places as quickly as possible.

We are continuing to push ahead with further options to deliver capacity across the estate, including looking at all options for accelerating timelines.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release
Monday 18th March 2024

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, in which prisons the end of custody supervised licence scheme (a) is operational and (b) has been since October 2023.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Unlike Labour’s End of Custody License scheme which ran from 2007 to 2010, End of Custody Supervised Licence only operates in specific prisons where it is absolutely necessary. The number of prisons where it is in operation is reviewed constantly and therefore varies as required.


Written Question
Domestic Abuse and Stalking: Prisoners' Release
Monday 18th March 2024

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether (a) domestic abusers and (b) stalkers are ineligible for release under the end of custody supervised licence scheme.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Nobody convicted of serious violence will be released early and anyone convicted of any sexual or terror offence is automatically excluded. Unlike Labour’s End of Custody Licence scheme, which ran from 2007 to 2010, all offenders who may be eligible for release will be subject to the same set of licence conditions that would apply had they been released automatically.

Those licence conditions will reflect the risk management release plan prepared by probation staff and what is necessary to safely manage the offender in the community. The offender can be immediately recalled to prison if they do not comply or otherwise behave in a way that is assessed to be putting the public at risk.

In contrast to Labour’s approach, we have introduced an additional safeguard, whereby it remains at the discretion of the prison service to block the ECSL release of any prisoners where releasing an offender earlier presents a heightened risk than if they were released at their automatic release date.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release
Monday 18th March 2024

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for which types of offences prisoners released under the end of custody supervised licence scheme were sentenced.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) allows certain lower-level offenders to be released before their automatic release date. Unlike Labour’s scheme, which ran from 2007 to 2010, all offenders will be released onto strict licence conditions.

Nobody convicted of serious violence will be released early and anyone convicted of any sexual or terror offence is automatically excluded. In contrast to Labour’s approach, we have also introduced an additional safeguard, whereby it remains at the discretion of the prison service to block the ECSL release of any prisoners where releasing an offender earlier presents a heightened risk than if they were released at their automatic release date.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release
Monday 18th March 2024

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released under the End of Custody Supervised Licence scheme.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) began in October 2023, and an analysis of its use will be based on one year’s worth of data and published on an annual basis in line with other statistics, such as deaths of offenders in the community.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release
Tuesday 14th November 2023

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when the end of custody supervised licence scheme was introduced.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

End of Custody Supervised Licence was first implemented on 17 October 2023.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release
Tuesday 14th November 2023

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released early under the End of Custody Supervised Licence scheme in each prison since 16 October 2023.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

As the Lord Chancellor set out in his statement of 16 October, End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL), first implemented on 17 October 2023, uses s248 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to remove onto licence some prisoners up to 18 days in advance of their automatic release date. Its use is targeted, and it will only operate in certain areas for a limited period of time.

Data on Prison releases are routinely published as part of the Offender Management Quarterly Statistics, the latest available data goes to June 2023. The number of releases under s248 is not included in this publication but we are currently reviewing what statistics we routinely publish


Written Question
Prisoners' Release
Tuesday 14th November 2023

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish a list of prisons that have been authorised to release prisoners before the end of their sentence under the End of Custody Supervised Licence scheme.

Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL), first implemented on 17 October 2023, is operating in 21 prisons and is a temporary measure in response to the current pressure on some prisons. Its use is targeted, and it will only operate in certain areas for a limited period of time.

The Government regularly releases data and information in relation to prisoners’ release in the Prison Releases (quarterly) publication.

We are currently reviewing our publication of data around these issues.


Written Question
Prisoners' Release
Thursday 26th October 2023

Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, from which prisons prisoners will be released 18 days before their automatic release date; and what estimate he has made of the number of people who will be released from each prison in this way.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.