Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his Department’s press release of 9 November 2015, Prison building revolution announced by Chancellor and Justice Secretary relating to the 2015 Spending Review, how much of the Government's planned £1.3 billion capital investment to transform the prison estate has been spent since the 2015 Spending Review; which (a) new prisons have been successfully opened and (b) prisons have closed since the 2015 Spending Review; and how many (i) new prison places and (ii) additional prison places have been created since the 2015 Spending Review.

Since the 2015 Spending Review we have:

• opened HMP&YOI Berwyn, a new rehabilitative male prison in North Wales, in February 2017. As we build up to full occupancy this will provide 2106 places.

• closed a total of four prisons (Holloway, Kennet, Glen Parva, and Blantyre House) and one immigration removal centre (IRC) (Dover) since October 2015. On 8 March this year we announced the sale of the former HMP&YOI Holloway site to social housing group Peabody in partnership with London Square Ltd

• created new houseblocks in HMP Peterborough, HMP Parc, HMP The Mount, HMP Thameside and HMP Stocken which has delivered an additional 1,465 prison places.

Of the £1.3 billion planned capital investment, the total spent to date (i.e. to the end of July 2019) has been around £0.25 billion. This has been spent on the early stages of long-term projects including the building of the new prison at HMP Wellingborough and the start of work at Glen Parva. Significant further spend is expected in future years to complete these projects.