Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to plan for the projected increase of 10,000 inmates in the prison population by March 2025.

As our public forecast sets out, we expect the prison population to rise over the coming years.

We are implementing a suite of measures to ensure we have sufficient prison capacity both in the immediate and the longer term. We are delivering 20,000 additional, modern prison places, the largest prison build programme since the Victorian era. This will ensure the right conditions are in place to rehabilitate prisoners, helping to cut crime and protect the public.

As of end of April, we have already delivered around. 3,400 of these additional places, including through the brand-new prison, HMP Five Wells, which opened last year. In addition, HMP Fosse Way will open this year, and construction is well underway on our newest prison HMP Millsike - bringing over 3,000 new prison places between them by 2025. We are undertaking major refurbishments at sites including HMP Birmingham, HMP Liverpool and HMP Norwich, delivering around 800 cells between them. Construction has started on new houseblocks at HMP Stocken, HMP Hatfield, HMP Sudbury and HMP Rye Hill which will add an estimated 850 places between them.