Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when new prisons in (a) Buckinghamshire, (b) Lancashire and (c) Leicestershire were first announced by his Department.

Plans to build a potential new prison in Buckinghamshire were first announced by the Ministry of Justice in December 2020. Plans to build potential new prisons in Lancashire and Leicestershire were first announced by the Department in June 2021.

This Government will now deliver those prisons as part of our 10-Year Capacity Strategy, under which we aim to deliver 14,000 additional prison places by 2031, with the expectation that they will become operational by 2032. We are currently on track to do so, having already delivered c.2,600 since taking office, including 1,500 places through the new prison HMP Millsike, which opened earlier this year.