Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to his speech delivered on 10 July 2018 to the Centre for Social Justice, what the timetable is for the additional 10,000 prison places to be completed; and what assessment he has made of the potential effect of those additional places on prison officer to offender ratios.

The Ministry of Justice remains committed to previously announced plans, subject to planning approvals, value for money and affordability, to build six category C modern prisons. We intend to build the first prison at Wellingborough (Northamptonshire) through public capital, with construction work expected to begin late 2018 to early 2019 with completion projected for early 2021. We will continue work to demolish buildings at the former HMP/YOI Glen Parva and intend to deliver this second prison through private finance. We will also build a further four prisons on land adjacent to HMP Full Sutton (East Yorkshire), Port Talbot (Neath), HMP/YOI Hindley (Greater Manchester) and HMP/YOI Rochester (Kent) and we will provide more detail about the delivery of these once we have undertaken the relevant assessments in regard to population projections, planning approvals, value for money and affordability tests.

Alongside the new prisons, a new houseblock at HMP Stocken, (Rutland) which will create 206 modern prison places. Construction of the houseblock started in February 2017 and is expected to begin taking prisoners in December 2018.

The same considerations in assessing staffing levels will be applied to the new prisons as to those in the existing estate. HM Prison and Probation Service will not take part in the prison competition but will provide a ‘public sector benchmark’ against which potential operators’ bids can be assessed and will take on the provider role if bids do not meet quality or value for money thresholds.