Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 24
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 ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We also received evidence on how the crisis has impacted education and pre–release services. For example, the Prisoners’ Education Trust told us that overcrowding means education departments in prisons are unlikely to have the capacity needed, and prisoners are more likely to be moved at short notice, without their educational needs being considered.80 HMIP noted that pressures were having an impact on preparing prisoners for release as they are less able to progress through the estate and are often placed far from their families, making it difficult to maintain relationships which are important to successful reintegration into the community.81
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.