To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many new prison places have been created in each of the last five years.

The below table provides a summary of the number of prison places that have opened in each year since 2019. This includes places delivered as part of the 20,000 places portfolio, including two new c.1,700 place prisons and new prison places delivered through houseblocks and Rapid Deployment Cells (RDCs)

For simplicity, all places relating to a prison opening are included in the year that the prison opened. In practice, a new prison may take more than a year before reaching its final operational capacity.

We continue to push ahead with the largest prison expansion programme since the Victorian era – with 10,000 of the pledged 20,000 additional places on track to be delivered by the end of 2025. This will include our third new prison, HMP Millsike, delivering c.1,500 places, new houseblocks at HMP Stocken and Rye Hill, as well as hundreds more RDCs.