Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the expected capacity of the adult (a) male and (b) female prison system will be in (i) June 2015, (ii) January 2016, (iii) June 2016, (iv) January 2017, (v) June 2017, (vi) January 2018, (vii) June 2018, (viii) January 2019, (ix) June 2019 and (x) January 2020.

Decisions on the number of spaces required in each year, up to 2020, will depend on population trends and projections over the coming years.

This Government will always ensure that we have enough prison places for those sent to us by the courts and we continue to modernise the prison estate so that it delivers best value for the taxpayer.

We have a long term strategy for managing the prison estate which will provide more adult male prison capacity than we inherited from the previous Government.We also have a range of contingencies available to manage temporary or unexpected increases in the population.