Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 19
Fifteenth Report - Improving the prison estate
Published 11 Sep 2020
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Improving the prison estate All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
One of the largest women’s prisons, HMP Holloway in London, was closed in 2016. HMPPS sold the prison in March 2019 and generated £81.5 million from the proceeds.41 We were concerned that such a large amount of money had come out of the female prison estate but appeared to have been spent on improving the men’s prisons estate. We therefore asked how much of the money raised by the sale of HMP Holloway was reinvested in the female prison estate. HMPPS told us that some of the money was used in the female prison estate but did not tell us how much this was. It said that the money from the sale was returned to the Ministry and subsequently used for “a number of purposes”. The Ministry confirmed that that the money went partly to its programme to build new prisons and partly to fund its general overspend.42
From: Public Accounts Committee, Fifteenth Report - Improving the prison estate (HC 244), 11 September 2020
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 18 November 2020 (deadline 11 November 2020).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states that it "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" on each of the six recommendations, with target dates between December 2020 and April 2021.
- On a long-term prison estate strategy, the department will write to the Committee in January 2021, then "proposes to consult" in early 2021 before publishing a comprehensive strategy in summer 2021.
- On women's prisons, the department "accepts this recommendation" and will write in January 2021; the summer 2021 estate strategy "will include how it plans to improve conditions in the women's estate".
- On capacity, it will publish prison population projections "by the end of 2020" and, "By April 2021", provide an update on progress, including plans for expected use of temporary accommodation.
- On reducing reoffending, it has "committed to publishing an update on this work in due course" and to write to the Committee "before the end of 2020".