The Ministry of Justice has abandoned plans to use “rapid deployment cells” to tackle prison overcrowding after the company behind the project collapsed – leaving the Government with a £6m loss, The i Paper can reveal.
Since the pandemic, the Government has used the prefabricated alternative to traditional cells as a method of quickly expanding the overloaded prison estate.
Despite the release of low-level criminals and plans to open 14,000 more prison places, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in December that “building alone is not enough” to deal with the critical lack of space in UK jails.
At one point last summer, the prison estate was just 100 spaces away from reaching full capacity.
Last December, Ms Mahmood announced plans to create 6,400 new prison places over the next seven years.
However, The i Paper can reveal that a key part of the Government’s strategy to reduce prison overcrowding been dropped.
According to Government documents, pre-made cells costing £6m have been abandoned across low-security prisons due to the financial collapse of a contractor.
A Whitehall insider said the project had been ditched after the initial supplier had ceased trading and as it was deemed uneconomical to hand production over to a different supplier.
Due to the aborted plans, the Ministry of Justice is no longer set to use the modern cells as a method of quickly building prison capacity at Category D prisons, the lowest security option within the prison estate.
An insider told The i Paper the prison cells will be built with a traditional light gauge steel frame from now onwards.
It is understood that the collapse of the contractor has also caused delays in the rollout of some prison places.
The prison blocks were being built as part of Boris Johnson’s 2019 pledge to expand the prison estate by 10,000 places, following concerns around over-crowding. This was in addition to the 10,000 pledged by Theresa May.
Officials warned Rishi Sunak before the election of the poor state in British prisons.
In 2023, The i Paper revealed that one man who assaulted a prison guard was spared jail due to overcrowding due to the exceptional circumstances within prisons.
According to the most recent Government figures, 87,726 prisoners are currently detained in the UK, with the Ministry of Justice only having an operational capacity of 88,818. Almost one in four detainees are held in an overcrowded prison, and 42 per cent of prisons are deemed to be of an unacceptable standard.
Last month, the national Audit Office (NAO) office said there would be a shortage of 12,4000 prison space by 2027. The report also said Johnson’s pledge to create 20,000 spaces is not expected to be reached until 2031.
Despite criticism, Labour instituted an early prison release scheme for low level criminals to free up space last year.
The scheme was dubbed “not good enough” by the national Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales who expressed concern for the probation sector, in an interview with The i Paper.
A Ministry of Justice Spokesperson told The i Paper: “Value for the taxpayer will always be taken into account when making decisions on whether to write off costs.”
