In 2015, after the General Election, my then boss @michaelgove persuaded @David_Cameron & @George_Osborne of the importance of building a new, modern prison estate fit for the future
They embraced this agenda and the importance of prison reform (carried forward by successive Conservative Lord Chancellors inc @DLidington, @DavidGauke, @RobertBuckland, to @AlexChalkChelt)
Osborne used his Autumn Statement in November to announce a £1.3bn programme of prison building. He made quite a thing of it
The plan then was to build 9 new prisons while also closing and selling off older Victorian prisons. (Holloway was closed but broadly that part of the plan has still not been able to happen)
It is striking looking back now on the debate at the time of the 2015 Autumn Statement that the then Shadow Chancellor didn’t even seem to mention prisons in his response
It’s understandable that Labour will try to claim that they were ahead of this issue but go back and read the debates
They weren’t interested
hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2015-1…
They embraced this agenda and the importance of prison reform (carried forward by successive Conservative Lord Chancellors inc @DLidington, @DavidGauke, @RobertBuckland, to @AlexChalkChelt)
Osborne used his Autumn Statement in November to announce a £1.3bn programme of prison building. He made quite a thing of it
The plan then was to build 9 new prisons while also closing and selling off older Victorian prisons. (Holloway was closed but broadly that part of the plan has still not been able to happen)
It is striking looking back now on the debate at the time of the 2015 Autumn Statement that the then Shadow Chancellor didn’t even seem to mention prisons in his response
It’s understandable that Labour will try to claim that they were ahead of this issue but go back and read the debates
They weren’t interested
hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2015-1…
The programme was expanded, rescoped and changed over the following years
There’s a useful explainer on the House of Commons library site for those interested
The Prison building programme is now a much bigger capital programme (also because the original plan was to help pay for the new estate by selling the old inner city locations which hasn’t happened to the extent which we planned)
Not enough of the new prison places have yet come online (an example of the challenges of running major projects in Government) but several thousand new places have
Other prisons are stuck in a planning mess
Which is why the Government’s recent reforms to the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Programme (introduced in the Levelling Up Act) are important
And why the last Government tried to reform nutrient neutrality which has stalled other prison expansion - this was opposed by the then Opposition
2/2
There’s a useful explainer on the House of Commons library site for those interested
The Prison building programme is now a much bigger capital programme (also because the original plan was to help pay for the new estate by selling the old inner city locations which hasn’t happened to the extent which we planned)
Not enough of the new prison places have yet come online (an example of the challenges of running major projects in Government) but several thousand new places have
Other prisons are stuck in a planning mess
Which is why the Government’s recent reforms to the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Programme (introduced in the Levelling Up Act) are important
And why the last Government tried to reform nutrient neutrality which has stalled other prison expansion - this was opposed by the then Opposition
2/2
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