Recommendation 14

The Ministry of Justice must maintain its focus on reducing the prison population pressures across the prison estate. We welcome the introduction of the Sentencing Act 2026, which has been described as a vehicle to do this. With this in mind, we recommend that in 18-months’ time, once the Act has had time to bed in, the Department conduct a review of its approach to prisoner placement across the estate, focusing particularly on the placement of Welsh prisoners, and that the findings of this review be shared with us. As it stands, far too many prisoners are serving sentences far from home: this poses challenges for the prisoner, their family, and the staff working to support them. A prison estate with greater capacity offers the potential for the Department to change its current approach. (Recommendation, Paragraph 52)