Ministry of Justice written question – answered at on 9 April 2025.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will replicate the data line items included in the ad hoc publication Estimate of the number of prison places built and closed between 2010 and 2024, published on 25 October 2025, for each year from the earliest year for which data are available to 2010.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 25 March 2025 to Question 36626 on Prison Accommodation, what breakdown is available of the figure of a net 28,000 places added to the prison estate in England between 1997 and 2010 in terms of (a) place additions (b) place removals, (i) by year and (ii) in total.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the gross number of prison places added to the prison estate in England and Wales through new builds and extensions to prisons was between (a) 1997 and 2010 and (b) 2010 and 2024.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the gross number of prison places removed from the prison estate in England and Wales through permanent closures of whole (a) prisons and (b) wings was between (i) 1997 to 2010 and (ii) 2010 to 2024.
The previous Labour Government added nearly 28,000 places to the prison estate between 1997 and 2010. However, available records do not provide a breakdown for these figures of these places by category. The annual breakdown of this net change has been provided in the table below.
For the information requested relating to the period between 2010 and 2024, I refer you to the table provided in the response to PQs 36624 & 36626.
Last year this Government announced plans to build 14,000 places by 2031 as part of our 10-year Prison Capacity Strategy. We have already started the 700-place expansion at HMP Highpoint in Suffolk in March, and a new houseblock providing nearly 460 places at HMP Rye Hill in Northamptonshire recently received its first prisoners. We are also opening HMP Millsike in the coming weeks, a major milestone which will hold nearly 1,500 prisoners and help put more violent offenders behind bars to make streets safer.
Table 1. Annual change in Operational Capacity between May 1997 and May 2010.
Date | Total Operational Capacity | Annual net change |
May-97 | 61,927 | x |
May-98 | 69,520 | 7,593 |
May-99 | 69,645 | 125 |
May-00 | 71,171 | 1,526 |
May-01 | 71,598 | 427 |
May-02 | 73,535 | 1,937 |
May-03 | 76,051 | 2,516 |
May-04 | 77,431 | 1,380 |
May-05 | 78,987 | 1,556 |
May-06 | 81,200 | 2,213 |
May-07 | 83,158 | 1,958 |
May-08 | 85,087 | 1,929 |
May-09 | 86,805 | 1,718 |
May-10 | 89,757 | 2,952 |
Total | 27,830 |
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