Secretary of State for Justice (): This Government inherited
a prison system on the verge of collapse, which would have left
the courts unable to send offenders to prison and the police
unable to arrest dangerous criminals. I took decisive action and
implemented changes to the standard determinate sentence release
point which provided essential but temporary relief to the
system.
When I updated parliament in July 2024, I was clear that the
capacity crisis would not disappear immediately and the changes
to release points were never the whole solution to the prison
capacity crisis we inherited. To put our Criminal Justice System
on a sustainable footing for the long term, I launched the
Independent Review of Sentencing in October and set out the 10
Year Prison Capacity Strategy to deliver the 14,000 new prison
places we promised. In my commitment to transparency, I also laid
the first Annual Statement on prison capacity, setting out
expected demand and supply for prison places.
Over the last three months population growth in the prison estate
has been high – January saw the highest average monthly prison
population growth in almost two years, which has only just begun
to slow. As of 17 March, there were 824 places remaining in the
adult male estate. We are operating at more than 99% occupancy.
Operating this close to critical capacity increases the risk that
prisons do not have sufficient space for a given prisoner
entering the system and so an alternative has to be found, which
is most frequently in a police cell. In recent weeks this has
happened hundreds of times, far above the rate seen during normal
operations. On the night of 10 March, there were 124 no-space
lockouts, which is the highest number of business-as-usual (BAU)
lockouts on record.
We have just opened a new 458-capacity houseblock at HMP Rye
Hill. In addition, in a few weeks' time, I will be opening HMP
Millsike, a brand new 1,500 capacity prison in North Yorkshire.
However, I expect prison capacity will remain tight until the new
capacity is fully operational. Given the recent increase in
demand, it is necessary, and prudent, for me to temporarily
reactivate Operation Safeguard to better manage the flow of
offenders into the prison estate. This is an established protocol
that will ensure that HMPPS and police forces can jointly plan
which police cells may be required to hold offenders on any
particular day. The previous government last activated Operation
Safeguard in February 2023; it ran until it was formally
deactivated in October 2024 by this government. This time we have
a clear plan to improve capacity and minimise the use of
Safeguard.
Safeguard will help ensure temporary pressures on the prison
estate are managed effectively with partners in the police. We
will keep its use under constant review and work closely with
police colleagues to ensure we can stand down cells as soon as
they are not required.
I am incredibly grateful for the support of police colleagues and
want to pay tribute to the continued extraordinary work of our
frontline staff in police, courts, prisons and probation whose
daily efforts keep the public safe.
