Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 10 September 2018 to Question 168118 on Prisons: Construction, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure (a) transparency and (b) public confidence in the comparison process between the public sector benchmark and bids from private sector operators.

As you are aware, on 26 June, I updated the House of Commons Justice Committee on our plans to build the first prison in our prison estate transformation programme at the former HMP Wellingborough through public capital, with construction work expected to begin late 2018/early 2019. We intend to launch a competition to appoint a framework of prison operators, from which we will select the operator for the new prison at Wellingborough and potentially further prisons following expiry of current private sector contracts.

All of the above, including analysis of any bids against a public sector benchmark, will be subject to the usual value for money and affordability tests through a process involving the Ministry of Justice, HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office. Contracts will not be awarded if bids do not meet quality or value for money thresholds.