Boris Johnson’s plan to provide 20,000 new prison places by 2026 is due to be completed five years late and billions over budget, a “scathing” assessment by Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found.
The National Audit Office said current plans for prison capacity were “insufficient to meet future demand” amid a projected shortage of 12,400 places by the end of 2027, with costs expected to be at least £4bn higher than initially estimated.
HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) has so far created a third – 6,518 – of the places in England and Wales it committed in 2021 to deliver by the mid-2020s.
Expansion plans in the prison estate are expected to cost between £9.4bn and £10.1bn, which auditors said would be at least £4.2bn above previous estimates.
The findings, which have been labelled as “unacceptable” by the Tory chair of parliament’s spending watchdog, come weeks after the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, enforced an early release scheme which freed 5,500 prison spaces in England and Wales.
Wednesday’s report said prison capacity was projected to increase more slowly than demand. The MoJ expects a shortage of 12,400 places by 2027, if demand increases according to its central forecast. It was relying on the current sentencing review to reduce demand for prison places and close the gap, auditors said.
Reasons for delays to prison expansion plans include “overestimating [the MoJ’s] ability to gain planning permission for three out of the six new prisons”, “unrealistic timelines” and government bodies not working together to prioritise delivery, the report said.
The watchdog blamed successive Conservative governments for capacity problems. “It is the result of previous governments’ failure to ensure that the number of prison places was aligned with criminal justice policies,” the report said.
Over 2020 and 2021, the MoJ increased the scale of its prison expansion plans from 13,400 to 20,000 additional places by the mid-2020s, auditors said.
Despite plans to build six new prisons, refurbish existing prisons and install temporary accommodation, HMPPS has been unable to increase prison places in line with demand. This had resulted in the prison estate operating at close to or at full capacity for over two years, auditors found.
The MoJ and HMPPS now expect the prison expansion plans to cost between £9.4bn and £10.1bn, which will be at least £4.2bn over previous estimates stated in 2021.
Contributing to the overspend were several significant cost increases, auditors said. These include the rising cost of rapid deployment cells – temporary housing units placed in prisons – and inflation in the construction sector, where prices have risen by 40%.
The NAO said that until there was greater coherence between the government’s wider policy agenda and funding for its prison estate, the current crisis position would not represent value for money.
There would be a continued risk to capacity in prisons, the report said, because so many jails were in poor condition. A quarter of prison places – 23,000 – do not meet fire safety standards and HMPPS’s backlog of maintenance works has doubled to £1.8bn in the last four years.
Andrea Coomber, the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “This scathing report underlines a fact that the new government has recognised – we cannot build our way out of the prison capacity crisis. Finding a solution is not simply a matter of supply; we have to reduce demand.”
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the Commons’ public accounts committee, said the delay and extra costs were “clearly unacceptable”.
“The Ministry of Justice has been in firefighting mode, prioritising short-term solutions to the crisis. These are not only expensive, but also increase risks to prisoner, staff and public safety,” he said.
“The government must pull together a coherent and viable long-term plan for a prison estate that meets demand and delivers value for taxpayers’ money.”
In October, there were 85,900 people in prison across England and Wales, a 3% reduction since 6 September 2024, after the early release of at least 3,100 prisoners to manage severe capacity problems.
The MoJ is expected to publish new prison population projection figures later this week.
Responding to the report, James Timpson, the minister for prisons, said: “This report lays bare the litany of failures which brought our prison system to the brink. This not only risked public safety but added billions in extra costs to taxpayers.
“We have already taken immediate action to address the crowding chaos engulfing our jails, and will now focus on improving conditions in the long-term. This includes shortly publishing a 10-year prison capacity strategy to put our jails on a sustainable footing.”
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