Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 18
15th Report - Prison estate capacity
Published 14 Mar 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Prison estate capacity All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We asked MoJ if it has assessed the costs of needing to deliver prison places so urgently, such as paying contractors more to take on a higher level of risk.62 MoJ said it had not and indicated this could be difficult to disaggregate. It conceded that needing to do things quickly will likely cost more, but it also pointed to other factors which have increased costs such as inflation, which it said had meant delays have been more costly as prices increased.63 HMPPS explained that in some cases it paid to accelerate the delivery of projects, for example one of its new houseblocks, Rye Hill, so that it could be delivered several months earlier.64 It has also paid £70 million to date to house prisoners in police cells under Operation Safeguard to provide additional one–night contingency in the system.65
From: Public Accounts Committee, 15th Report - Prison estate capacity (HC 366), 14 March 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 16 May 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with most of the Committee's recommendations on prison capacity, disagrees with two, and reports several as implemented in April 2025.
- On lessons learned, HMPPS is "committed to reviewing" its Lessons Learned Strategy and Log on a minimum bi-annual basis, with the next review point in October 2025.
- It disagrees with the recommendation for a business case on the maintenance backlog, stating that future investment decisions and business cases "will depend on the outcome of the ongoing Spending Review round".
- It disagrees with the recommendation on evaluating the impact of capacity pressures on risk assessments for new prisoners, stating "it is not possible to evaluate the impact" but that HMPPS will continue to monitor their completeness.
- It agrees to update the Committee within two months of the Sentencing Review's next phase on the forecast prison place shortage, the maintenance backlog and fire safety.