Justice Secretary Alex Norris has announced a cash injection to speed up plans to create 14,000 new prison cells – while unused space in existing jails will be converted to house more inmates
The government has promised the biggest prison building programme since the Victorian era(Image: Getty Images)
Plans to build new prisons will be sped up – while unused laundry rooms and storage place in existing jails will be converted to house lags.
Justice Secretary Alex Norris will announce the biggest prison building programme since Victorian times will be accelerated. MPs will be told that paperwork for a controversial 1,700 capacity ‘super prison’ in Ulnes Walton, Lancashire, has been signed.
The government has promised an additional 14,000 prison spaces by 2031 as it grapples with a dangerous shortage of spaces. Mr Norris will update the Commons on controversial plans to release thousands of inmates to prevent jails running out of places within months.
At the weekend Andy Burnham announced that criminals serving sentences for unlawful killing – including manslaughter, causing death by dangerous driving and allowing the death of a child – will be excluded from the early release programme. This means two of PC Andrew Harper’s killers, Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, will remain behind bars.
Rapists, groomers and child sex offenders will also be excluded. Around 4,500 inmates are being released after serving a third or a half of their sentence in phases from October to relieve the strain on the prison system.
Mr Norris said: “This Government is serious about fixing the broken prison system we inherited, which is why we’ve already delivered more than 3,200 prison places in just two years.
“We’re now investing to boost these efforts further – getting spades in the ground quicker to deliver thousands more places to lock up dangerous criminals and keep the public safe.”
The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) said £110million will be invested in delivering new prison spaces faster. It also said unused space in existing prisons will be converted into cells.
The announcement paves the way for work to start on the new Category C prison in Lancashire, which has been the subject of a bitter planning battle. Chorley Council rejected the proposal, but was overruled in 2024 by Angela Rayner.
On Monday victims minister Alex Davies-Jones said early prison release will not mean freedom, amid alarm about criminals being let out of jail.
And she said victims of offences including domestic abuse will have a greater say on the conditions placed on criminals. Ms Davies-Jones said: “We’re ensuring that victims have the opportunity to feed into licensing conditions.
“Because release does not mean freedom.” She said there will be a presumption that prisoners who are freed early will have to have a GPS monitoring tag, and stick to restriction zones – making the UK the first country to bring in such a requirement.
They also face being banned from pubs, concerts, public spaces as well as having their driving licence removed and madatory work placements.
Ms Davies-Jones said male prisons are currently at 98% of capacity, and failure to act would have been catastrophic. The minister said: “What I will not stand for, and what this government must be responsible for, is to keep the public safe and ensure that there is always a prison place available for someone who needs it.
“The worst thing in the world would be for a domestic abuser to be sentenced to prison, and we are not able to lock them up because there isn’t a prison place available, so we have to send them home back to their victim.
“That is unconscionable. That would be untenable. And that is something that this government is not prepared to do.”
The government is investigating ways to deport foreign criminals as soon as they are sentenced. And Mr Burnham has said he wants to end the injustice of inmates serving indefinite sentences for public protection.
Asked whether a convicted criminal would be jailed in their homeland after being deported, Ms Davies-Jones said: “That would be for the determination of their country of origin.
“What we do know is that currently 10,000 foreign national offenders are taking up space within our criminal justice system, the vast majority of them on remand awaiting court dates. Our plan is to deport them on sentencing so that they don’t serve a day at His Majesty’s pleasure and at the taxpayer’s pleasure, the UK taxpayer, in our prisons.
“Because we need our prison places for British offenders.”
