Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 26
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)
According to MoJ’s most recent estimate, reoffending in England and Wales costs society approximately £18 billion a year (2017–2018 prices).84 Given MoJ’s and HMPPS’s acknowledgement that crowding impacts prison regimes and can reduce access to purposeful activity and harm rehabilitation, we asked MoJ what level of crowding it had factored into its latest projections.85 It told us that its supply projections assume that around a quarter of the estate (23.6%) would continue to be crowded. However, it noted that this does not commit it to using crowding at this level in the future.86 MoJ was candid that given high occupancy levels, it had set the safety of its staff and prisoners as its priority, and accepted that this had reduced time available for resettlement activity and would therefore affect rehabilitation outcomes.87
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.