Recommendation 3

Despite releasing thousands of prisoners early, MoJ forecasts it will run out of capacity again in early 2026. According to its central prison population forecast, MoJ will run out of places again in 2026, and be short of 5,400 prison places by November 2027. Consequently, HMPPS is entirely reliant on uncertain future demand reduction measures, which it hopes will come from the independent Sentencing Review, to prevent it from running out of places. It is also assuming it can introduce any required legislative changes very quickly. HMPPS’s future capacity position is worsened because it will not meet its deadline to make all cells fire safety compliant by 2027– approximately 23,000 cells did not meet safety standards at March 2024. It has committed to taking the cells that are not remediated by its 2027 deadline out of use. The condition of the estate also poses a risk to future capacity. MoJ received £520 million funding for maintenance over the next two years, but this is a small proportion of the £2.8 billion it estimates it needs to bring the estate into a fair condition, which would also require more headroom in the estate. Its current maintenance schedule has also been disrupted by the collapse of ISG. MoJ acknowledged that it is generally cheaper to maintain an existing cell than build a new one. It is also possible that the Independent Sentencing Review will recommend greater use of community sentencing rather than short prison sentences for relatively low–level offences. This may help reduce demand for prison places, but may also affect the amount of supervision and support required from probation services. 4 recommendation Alongside the Treasury Minute response, MoJ should produce a business case setting out steps to address the prison estate maintenance backlog much more rapidly, including any extra resources that would be required and its progress on re–tendering contracts for maintenance projects held by ISG. Once the next phase of the Sentencing Review