Jails to run out of space in five months as government announces 'record prison expansion'
14 May 2025, 15:52 | Updated: 14 May 2025, 17:43
Men’s prisons are due to run out of space in just five months time, according to the Ministry of Justice, which has announced three new jails in a "record prison expansion".
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Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has confirmed the government will build three new prisons starting this year as part of a "record prison expansion".
Up to £4.7bn will put behind building new jails, she said.
The MOJ confirmed to LBC the new prisons will be located at Grendon in Buckinghamshire, the Market Harborough area in Leicestershire, and Leyland in Lancashire.
It comes amid a crisis in Britain's prisons, which are overcrowded and reporting more violence.
In fact, the MoJ has warned "will run out of prison places in just five months time.”
Ms Mahmood said she is "determined" to solve the crisis, adding that England and Wales are "never going to be in this position again".
She stressed that the government "has been dealing with that crisis ever since" Labour came into power.
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In a bid to tackle the challenge, the Justice Secretary also revealed a shake-up of prison recall measures.
She announced that "those serving sentences of between one and four years can only be returned to prison for a fixed 28-day period".
She said some offenders will be excluded from this measure, including recalling those for committing a serious further offences.
"We also will exclude those who are subject to higher levels of risk management by multiple agencies where the police, prisons and probation services work together," she added.
Ms Mahmood said the move "buys us the time we need to introduce the sentencing reforms that, alongside our record prison building plans, will end the crisis in our prisons for good".
Earlier, the MoJ’s interim permanent secretary Amy Rees, told reporters in Downing Street: “The total prison population is 88,087 and the "adult male estate is operating at approximately 99% of its capacity every year.
"On our current trajectory, the prison population rises by 3,000, and now we expect to hit zero capacity, to entirely run out of prison places for adult men, in November of this year," she added.
'We will run out of places'
Early release measures have “only bought the service time”, including the Government’s decision to reduce early release to 40% of sentences.
The prison population is rising by 3,000 each year, “the equivalent of two large prions every single year”, Ms Rees claimed.
She added: “Even with these measures in place, we will run out of prison places in just five months time.”
Reacting to the government's announcement, the chairman of the Prison Officers Association (POA) has said building new prisons will “not improve the current population crisis”.
“The Government would be better off spending billions of taxpayers’ money on modernising the prison estate, funding an under-resourced probation service, providing more secure mental health beds and ensuring we have robust community sentences that the public have confidence in,” Mark Fairhurst said.
“Building new prisons will take years and will not improve the current population crisis.“If new prisons are to be built, I hope the Labour Party’s commitment to the biggest insourcing in a generation is applied and the new build prisons remain in the public sector.”
It follows proposals laid out by David Gauke, former Conservative justice secretary, who called for an prisoners to be released early if they behave well and take part in rehabilitation programmes.
The move will be the biggest revival of the prison system in 30 years.
Each prisoner will be given a minimum and maximum sentence, depending on the seriousness of their crime.
In Mr Gauke's proposals, prisoners will qualify to be released from jail at the minimum stage of their sentence if they satisfy good behaviour standards, work and involvement in education, rehabilitation, and anger management courses.
Although, if prisoners commit violence, are found with contraband or refuse to work while in prison, they wouldserve much longer time - up to the maximum sentence.
More than 4,000 prisoners serving a sentence of longer than five years have already been released early under government plans to free up prison spaces.
The Government began freeing thousands of inmates early in September to curb jail overcrowding, by temporarily reducing the proportion of sentences which some prisoners must serve behind bars from 50% to 40%.
