Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to reduce costs across the prison estate.

It remains the case that we are investing in our prisons to deliver value for the taxpayer but, more importantly, rehabilitate offenders to reduce their likelihood of reoffending – which costs society around £18 billion each year.

As part of the Government’s wider law and order agenda we have committed to:

• Creating an additional 10,000 modern, efficient prison places, to crack down on crime behind bars. This investment means prison places will become cheaper per place, per year.
• Investing £100 million to bolster security in jails, introducing tough airport-style security scanners, mobile phone detection and prevention technology, and anti-corruption and intelligence operations. This investment will help to reduce drugs and violence across the estate, leading to an overall reduction in costs for other public sector agencies associated with prisons, such as the police and the NHS.
• Spending an additional £156 million on maintenance of the prison estate, to update critical infrastructure such as fire systems and boilers, refurbish cells and showers and improve conditions for those living and working in prisons requiring the most urgent attention.

Although we are significantly investing in prisons, we are continuing with efforts to drive efficiencies across the estate to ensure as much money as possible goes back into keeping our prisons safe, decent and secure. This includes empowering Governors to make local decisions on how to spend their budget in a way that creates the most value for money and efficiency, and through better use of technology including video conferencing; facial recognition technology; and kiosks.

In addition, we want to support Governors in reaching out into communities to ensure that we join up across our system and work with others to address the needs of offenders to stop them coming into or returning to custody.