Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to ensure prisons are not (a) overcrowded and (b) understaffed.

This Government inherited a criminal justice system in crisis, with prisons running at over 99% capacity and on the brink of total collapse. If our prisons overflowed, police would have been unable to make arrests and we would have faced the total breakdown of law and order. We had to take emergency measures in order to avoid disaster. Our priority is to ensure there is enough capacity in the prison estate in the short and longer term.

Our 10-year Prison Capacity strategy published on 11 December sets out plans to deliver 14,000 prison places, maintain the places in our estate to ensure we have sufficient accommodation and explore the acquisition of land should we need to build more prison places.

We remain committed to ensuring prisons are sufficiently resourced and that we retain and build levels of experience, both of which are fundamental to delivering quality outcomes in prisons.

As of 30 September 2024, there are 23,571 Band 3-5 prison officers in post, and nationally across establishments we are at 99.5% of our Target Staffing Figure (when using hours adjusted FTE).

Substantive recruitment efforts will continue at all sites where vacancies exist or are projected, with targeted interventions applied to those prisons with the most need.