Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee by the Chief Executive of HM Prison and Probation Service on the 11 February 2021, Q46, what assessment he has made of the effect of increased use of accommodation within existing prison sites on access of residents to (a) healthcare, (b) education, (c) exercise and (d) association spaces and (e) other shared prison facilities over the next two years.

As part of the Prime Minister’s commitment announced on 30 June 2020 to ‘Build, build, build’, we have secured funding to design and build 1,000 additional temporary prison places. The Rapid Deployment Cells Project has been initiated to create a new design that can be quickly deployed to meet the technical and security standards of the closed estate. Funding has been secured to progress the Outline Business Case and we are working towards a final business case with costs to be informed by professional service providers and cost consultants. This is an ambitious project that aims to deliver 1,000 additional prison places in the 2021/22 financial year.

The prisons that will benefit from this accommodation, along with the number of prison places that will be created at each location, have not yet been finalised. The installation and deployment strategy will follow from the final site selection, along with the suppliers of the accommodation. We will agree the dates on which this new accommodation will be installed in due course.

Our expectation is that we will begin installation of the first prison places in December 2021.

The temporary accommodation installed for COVID-19 has proven successful. It has contributed to the full implementation of the compartmentalisation strategy in the prison estate as part of the COVID-19 management strategy. Regarding the suitability of this type of accommodation, prisons have noted the benefits of a safe space in which to shield, isolate or remain distinct from the wider prison population, allowing key workers to remain in their roles while minimising the risks to the wider prison population. This type of accommodation has allowed prisons to reduce cell sharing and the use of shared sanitation. Residents have reported improvements in their mental health and appreciating the opportunities that this accommodation has offered. The accommodation installed for COVID-19 has only been suitable for Cat D and risk-assessed Cat C men and women. In order to make sure we have a design for accommodation that can be deployed quickly in the future, the Rapid Deployment Cells Project will design accommodation to meet Cat C security standards.

We have continually sought to identify value for money ways to purchase and install temporary accommodation, as required in our on-going and evolving response to the COVID-19 crisis. The interaction with the relevant supply chain and actual deployment of temporary accommodation has also assisted in evaluating how and where this type of accommodation may prove useful in the future. We continue to identify opportunities to achieve greater value for money, for example transitioning to mains electricity, rather than use of generators, where the temporary accommodation continues to be in use.

The temporary accommodation installed for COVID-19 did not increase operational capacity at prisons and therefore did not put any additional pressure on services already in place, such as healthcare, education, and other shared prison facilities. We did identify, however, that the use of the accommodation as shielding units required additional space for prisoners to associate and exercise in shelter, where necessary, away from the wider prison population. We have taken steps to put necessary provisions in place at each prison that requires it. If the existing temporary accommodation in prisons transitions into operational capacity, then in line with processes in place to increase capacity at a prison site, we will assess the level of ancillaries and services required (including staffing and healthcare) to support the change in population and make sure the appropriate provisions are in place.