MPs have warned the prison service is operating ‘hand to mouth’ as it scrambles from one crisis to another – with jails set to run out of space again next year
Overcrowded prisons are in danger of becoming “pressure cookers”, a scathing report says, as ministers are warned their target to build more jail spaces is at risk.
MPs on the Public Accounts Committee said the prison service is operating “hand to mouth” as it scrambles from one crisis to another. They warned that despite the early release of thousands of prisoners, the system again “faces total gridlock in a matter of months” – with forecasts showing jails are set to run out of space again in early 2026.
PAC’s report criticised that jails are failing to rehabilitate offenders, with overcrowding instead leading to spiralling rates of violence, self-harm and drug use. It found prisoners are living in “inhumane conditions” with staff being forced to focus on controlling unsafe environments instead of rehabilitation.
The report detailed that the adult male prison estate was at between 98% and 99.7% occupancy between October 2022 and August 2024, and remains “alarmingly full”. It found a quarter of prisoners are doubled up in cells meant for one person. Meanwhile fights between prisoners are up 14% and attacks on staff jumped by 19% in the year to September 2024.
The PAC said years of government efforts have failed to create the extra capacity needed, criticising the Tories’ “completely unrealistic” plan to create 20,000 more prison places by the mid 2020s. It follows Whitehall’s spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, having concluded in December that taxpayers are set to pay £4billion more than expected to build new prison places after the Tories botched their plans. But the PAC also said Labour ’s target to create 14,000 new prison places is “fraught with risk and uncertainty”.
The report said among the reasons for the shortfall of creating more prison places was that the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) assumed they could gain planning permission for new prisons in 26 weeks. They also relied on the Treasury and Cabinet Office to deliver some projects quickly but did not receive the support they needed.
The committee also said HMPPS was “entirely reliant” on “uncertain” future measures to prevent it running out of jail places next year. It hopes these new ideas will come from the independent sentencing review expected to be published in the spring.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “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.”
Charity Howard League for Penal Reform chief executive, Andrea Coomber KC, said: ”It is no coincidence that violence and self-harm are at endemic levels. The Government has acknowledged that it cannot build our way out of this crisis. Ultimately, they must reduce demand on a system that has been asked to do too much, with too little, for too long.”
She added that billions of pounds earmarked for building new prisons would be better spent on securing an “effective and responsive” probation service, working to cut crime in the community.
Prisons minister Lord Timpson said: “This report exposes the catalogue of failures we inherited which almost collapsed our entire prison system. This not only risked public safety but added billions in extra costs to taxpayers.”