Prisons crisis: As justice system faces total gridlock in 2026, PAC calls for rapid action

Overcrowding forces UK prisons to be focused on averting disaster, instead of rehabilitation. In a report published today, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) urges the Government to take rapid action on the prison estates crisis, with forecasts indicating that prison capacity will run out again in early 2026, despite the recent early release of thousands of prisoners.

The report finds a system in crisis, with the safety and security of prisons at risk and HM Prison and Probation Service's (HMPPS) ability to rehabilitate offenders hampered. The adult male prison estate, at as high as 99.7% occupancy between October '22 and August '24, is alarmingly full. HMPPS says it can't run the estate efficiently at over 95% occupancy. The PAC's inquiry found that around a quarter of prisoners are sharing cells designed for one person, often with an open toilet. Violence is increasing, with fights between prisoners up by 14%, and attacks on staff up by 19% at September '24.

Evidence to the inquiry also showed that the crisis puts barriers in the way of prisoners accessing overstretched education and drug treatment services – both essential to rehabilitation. The PAC also heard that the strain some prisons are under means that prisoners do not always receive required health assessments or safety interviews. This creates significant risks around self-harm and pre-existing health issues.

To prevent it running out of prison places early next year, HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) is relying entirely on uncertain future changes to how sentencing works. These will be laid out in the Sentencing Review in late spring, with HMPPS further assuming any required changes in the law could be introduced very quickly. The position is worsened by fire safety problems. HMPPS has committed to taking non-fire safe cells out of use by 2027 - around 23,000 cells did not meet safety standards at March 2024.

Bringing the prison estate into a fair condition will cost an estimated £2.8bn, and will also require headroom in capacity. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has only received £520m in maintenance funding over the next two years. The PAC has asked MoJ to outline its plans to address the prison estate crisis within two months of the Sentencing Review's publication.

The PAC's report is critical of MoJ and HMPPS' failures in increasing capacity. In 2021, Government committed to delivering 20,000 additional prison places by the mid-2020s. These plans were completely unrealistic, based on assumptions that planning permission would be secured for new prisons in 26 weeks. Plans to deliver the remaining places, expected five years late in 2031 and costing £4.2 billion (80%) more than planned, are also fraught with risk and uncertainty. Sites have already been used where development is easiest, and the collapse of major contractor ISG, which went into administration in September '24, will cause further delays both to building new prisons and addressing the maintenance backlog. The PAC calls on both MoJ and HMPPS to outline what they are doing to assure Parliament that their plans are now realistic.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “This Committee recognises and respects the extraordinary work carried out by prison staff. This work is often done in the most difficult circumstances, even when the system is working at optimal efficiency. But our inquiry has established that severely overcrowded prisons are in danger of becoming pressure cookers. Vital rehabilitative work providing purposeful activity including retraining would help to cut high rates of reoffending – but this work is sidelined as staff are forced to focus on maintaining control of increasingly unsafe environments. Many prisoners themselves are living in simply inhumane conditions, with their health needs often overlooked.

“As with our recent inquiry into court backlogs, we find a Department grappling with the fallout of problems it should have predicted, while awaiting the judgment of an external review before taking any truly radical corrective action. Lives are being put at increasing risk by the Government's historic failures to increase capacity. Despite the recent emergency release of thousands of prisoners, the system still faces total gridlock in a matter of months. It is now for the Government to act on the recommendations in our report if disaster is to be averted.”

PAC report conclusions and recommendations 

MoJ's and HMPPS's efforts to increase prison capacity since 2021 have failed to deliver the number of additional places needed.In 2021, MoJ committed to delivering 20,000 additional prison places by the mid-2020s, but by September 2024 it had delivered just 6,500 places. It does not expect to deliver all of the remaining places until 2031, around five years late, and at a cost of £4.2 billion (80%) more than planned. The net position is worse; between May 2010 and September 2024, HMPPS only added a net 1,005 places to its estate (new prison places minus places lost).  MoJ's and HMPPS's plans were completely unrealistic. For example, they assumed they could gain planning permission for new prisons in 26 weeks. MoJ and HMPPS also relied in part on assurances from HM Treasury and Cabinet Office to deliver some projects quickly, but did not receive the required support. The Committee recognises that MoJ and HMPPS were delivering the additional places in challenging economic conditions. However, their urgent need to deliver places quickly has also led to sizeable cost increases. For example, MoJ and HMPPS tried to develop and deliver Rapid Deployment Cells (RDCs), a new type of accommodation, quickly. This led to them being under scoped and MoJ now estimates they will cost 259% more than expected.

Recommendation 1. MoJ and HMPPS should set out how they will ensure that lessons learned to date from their projects to increase prison places are incorporated into the remainder of the programme and into future major estate projects.

MoJ's and HMPPS's plans to deliver the remaining 14,000 places by 2031 are still fraught with risk and uncertainty. MoJ and HMPPS acknowledge that they have not delivered prison places on time. We accept that they faced several challenges expanding the estate, such as dealing with environmental regulations and site-specific difficulties, but many of these were predictable and could have been managed more effectively with better planning. Furthermore, the difficulty and cost of remaining expansion projects is likely to increase, as HMPPS has already used sites where development is easiest. HMPPS must also re-tender many of its building contracts as one of its major contractors, ISG, went into administration in September 2024. This may further increase delays. Given past issues, MoJ is proposing changes to how government approves planning permission for new prisons through the Crown Development Route; this is yet to come into effect and would bypass local planning committees entirely. HMPPS noted that there is contingency within its revised plans, but that planning permission for one of its new prisons remains uncertain due to an ongoing judicial review.

Recommendation 2. In the Treasury Minute response, MoJ and HMPPS should outline what they are doing to assure themselves and Parliament that their plans are now realistic. The response should state how MoJ and HMPPS will manage risks and monitor the feasibility of their plans, particularly in relation to gaining required planning permission.

Despite releasing thousands of prisoners early, MoJ forecasts it will run out of capacity again in early 2026. According to its central prison population forecast, MoJ will run out of places again in 2026, and be short of 5,400 prison places by November 2027. Consequently, HMPPS is entirely reliant on uncertain future demand reduction measures, which it hopes will come from the independent Sentencing Review, to prevent it from running out of places. It is also assuming it can introduce any required legislative changes very quickly. HMPPS's future capacity position is worsened because it will not meet its deadline to make all cells fire safety compliant by 2027 - approximately 23,000 cells did not meet safety standards at March 2024. It has committed to taking the cells that are not remediated by its 2027 deadline out of use. The condition of the estate also poses a risk to future capacity. MoJ received £520 million funding for maintenance over the next two years, but this is a small proportion of the £2.8 billion it estimates it needs to bring the estate into a fair condition, which would also require more headroom in the estate. Its current maintenance schedule has also been disrupted by the collapse of ISG. MoJ acknowledged that it is generally cheaper to maintain an existing cell than build a new one. It is also possible that the Independent Sentencing Review will recommend greater use of community sentencing rather than short prison sentences for relatively low-level offences. This may help reduce demand for prison places, but may also affect the amount of supervision and support required from probation services.

Recommendation 3. Alongside the Treasury Minute response, MoJ should produce a business case setting out steps to address the prison estate maintenance backlog much more rapidly, including any extra resources that would be required and its progress on re-tendering contracts for maintenance projects held by ISG. Once the next phase of the Sentencing Review is published in spring 2025, MoJ should provide an update to the Committee, within two months, outlining:

1. a) how this will affect the forecast prison place shortage and any further mitigation that may be required.
2. b) how it will use any resulting increase in headroom in the estate to accelerate plans to reduce its maintenance backlog and progress its fire safety works.
3. c) how many cells it estimates will not meet the required fire safety standards by its 2027 deadline.
4. d) how much additional funding it is seeking from Phase 2 of the Spending Review to help it tackle its maintenance backlog.
5. e) how it plans to deal with any consequent impact on the demand for probation services.

The prison capacity crisis has led to decisions and inefficiencies which represent poor value for money. Maintaining and making best use of the existing prison estate represents better value than building new places. However, capacity constraints mean that MoJ and HMPPS are unable to make cost-effective decisions. For example, HMPPS needs cells to be empty to undertake essential maintenance work but it cannot do so when there is little flexibility in the system and cells have to be kept occupied constantly. Its maintenance backlog has doubled to £1.8 billion in the last four years and its Spending Review allocation of £220 million in 2024-25 is not sufficient to reverse this trend. MoJ also extended its lease at HMP Dartmoor despite the presence of radon gas, but has since had to close the prison due to high radon readings. HMPPS has paid additional costs to accelerate delivery at some sites, and its contingency measure to rent police cells overnight (Operation Safeguard) has cost £70 million to date. Efforts to reduce the Crown Court backlog are also being stymied as prisoner transport services are at full capacity and prisoners on remand are not necessarily housed at the prison closest to the relevant court, leading to inefficiency if prisoners do not attend hearings on time. Reception prisons are under particular pressure, and the remand population was at a record high of 17,711 in August 2024.

Recommendation 4. In its Treasury Minute response, MoJ should set out how it will estimate the costs to the Criminal Justice System caused by acute prison capacity pressures, in order to strengthen its strategic case for longer term planning and investment.

The prison capacity crisis risks undermining the safety and security of prisons and reduces HMPPS's ability to rehabilitate offenders. Due to MoJ's and HMPPS's failure to deliver additional prison capacity, the adult male prison estate was operating at 98.0% to 99.7% occupancy between October 2022 and August 2024 and remains alarmingly full. HMPPS cites 95% occupancy as the limit at which it can run the estate efficiently. A quarter of prisoners are doubled up in cells designed for one person. Greater crowding is linked to higher rates of violence and self-harm - the rate of assaults, such as fights between prisoners and attacks on staff, increased significantly in the year to September 2024. Furthermore, admissions procedures within prisons are under strain, meaning some prisoners are not receiving health care assessments or safety interviews to assess risk. Education and drug treatment are essential to rehabilitating offenders. However, crowding and a lack of headroom in the estate creates barriers to prisoners accessing education and makes it difficult for HMPPS to tackle high levels of drug usage in prison.

Recommendation 5. In its Treasury Minute response, MoJ and HMPPS should set out how they intend to evaluate the impact of prison capacity pressures on key areas such as:

1. a) completeness of risk assessments for new prisoners
2. b) self-harm and levels of violence
3. c) access to prison services such as education, drug rehabilitation, and work opportunities
4. d) access to purposeful activity and time spent outside of cells.

MoJ's and HMPPS's main focus has been on managing the capacity crisis rather than rehabilitating offenders to reduce reoffending. In 2020, the previous Public Accounts Committee reported that HMPPS was operating hand to mouth by reacting to immediate crises. This remains the case. MoJ's demand and supply forecasts assume high levels of crowding will continue, but it acknowledges this is detrimental for rehabilitative outcomes. Poor quality service delivery and a lack of purposeful activity within prisons is storing up problems for the future. According to MoJ's most recent estimate, reoffending in England and Wales costs society approximately £18 billion a year (2017-2018 prices). Increasing prisoner numbers and potential changes to sentencing will also increase pressure on probation officers, who are already reducing supervision of medium and low risk offenders due to high workloads.  In September 2024, HMPPS had 5,413 full time equivalent probation officers in post against a target of 7,115, giving a staffing level of 76%. It estimates it will need to supervise around 20% more prison leavers by 2028 compared with December 2023. HMPPS acknowledges that the probation service cannot absorb additional demand without making further decisions on how it might focus its efforts.

Recommendation 6. Once the next phase of the Sentencing Review is published in spring 2025, within two months, MoJ should write to the Committee setting out:

1. a) how it plans to improve the rehabilitative environment in prison, for example, by reducing crowding.
2. b) what additional funding it requires to increase probation capacity and provision of community support, including substance misuse treatment.
3. c) how it will evaluate the impacts of any future changes to probation and community sentencing on reoffending rates.

This plan should include both a target and a timetable to reduce reoffending and set out a forecast reduction in demand for prison places over time if successfully implemented.