Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that there will be sufficient prison places available for those offenders given custodial sentences over the next 10 years.

We will always have enough prison capacity for those committed by the courts and are committed to increasing overall capacity by more than 3,000 new places by 2017.

Decisions on the future size of the prison estate will reflect the current and projected prison population.