Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress his Department has made on delivering 20,000 additional prison places.

So far, c.5,600 additional prison places have been delivered. This includes our two new c.1,700-place prisons: HMP Five Wells, which opened last year; and HMP Fosse Way, which opened in May. It also includes, among others, c.380 Rapid Deployment Cells now in place across six sites, c.350 places brought online by re-rolling HMP Morton Hall, and a workshop at HMP High Down to support 90 new places which was delivered ahead of schedule in March.

By the end of 2025, we will have delivered over 10,000 places in total. This will include our third new prison, HMP Millsike, delivering c.1,500 places, new houseblocks at HMP Stocken and HMP Guys Marsh, as well as hundreds more Rapid Deployment Cells.

We have secured outline planning permission for our fourth new prison, near the existing HMP Gartree in Leicestershire, which will deliver a further c.1,700 modern places.

We have also put in place short-term measures across the prison estate to expand useable capacity in the estate by an extra c.2,500 places since September 2022 while ensuring our prisons remain safe for staff and offenders.