Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 21 October to Question 866 on Prisons: Overcrowding, to which (a) programmes and (b) prisons the £2.5 billion will be allocated.

The Prime Minister has committed up to £2.5 billion to transform the prison estate by creating 10,000 additional prison places as part of this government’s commitment to crack down on crime.

We plan to build the first of these prisons on land adjacent to the existing, well-performing, prison at Full Sutton. We have received outline planning permission to build a 1,440 place prison there, so this site can be quickly mobilised for the first of the new prisons.

All future new prison developments are subject to receiving planning permission and will be announced in due course. We are exploring a range of options for new sites and we will announce potential sites in due course.