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Select committee: Public Accounts Committee

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fifteenth report from Session 2024-25

Published 16 May 2025

Public Accounts Committee Prison estate capacity Report on parliament.uk ↗

At a glance

The government's response

This document responds to 15th Report - Prison estate capacity.

This is the government's response, published 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.

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error

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