Labour set to ship fewer felony to jail as ministers admit £10bn prisons constructing plan will not clear up house disaster – and refuse to rule out releasing extra convicts early

Labour is set to send fewer criminals to jail as it admits a £10billion building prison-building push will not solve the space problem.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood admitted that the estate will be full within three years, despite unveiling plans for to provide 14,000 extra places by by 2031.  

In a round of interviews, she was repeatedly asked whether she could guarantee there would be no more early releases.

Ms Mahmood told Sky News that she was ‘straining every sinew’ to avoid making the controversial move again.

But she said other operational measures, such as more people on home detention curfew, could be used to stabilise the prison system.

Ms Mahmood also dodged on fears that new prisons could be sited on Green Belt land, regardless of local objections. 

The extra capacity, details of which are being released today, would bring the total number of spaces in England and Wales to just under 103,000.

But forecasts published last week said the jail population will hit 100,800 in March 2029.

It is understood there will be a shortfall of 5,400 jail spaces by November 2027 – less than three years from now.

It remains unclear when the 14,000 spaces – a combination of four new prisons and additional houseblocks in existing jails – will be complete.

The shortfall will be met by the government’s sentencing review, which will mean wider use of community punishments for criminals – including house arrest.

Ms Mahmood has indicated she wants to extend use of technology such as electronic tags to create ‘robust community alternatives to prison’ for non-dangerous offenders.

Ms Mahmood said the prisons estate is facing a ‘sad situation’ in which ‘we cannot build enough to keep up with the pace of demand’.

The Justice Secretary told Times Radio: ‘We have already committed record sums of money, but it still ultimately won’t be enough. We are going to have to do something slightly differently.’

She told the broadcaster: ‘We will build, but the sad situation here is we cannot build enough to keep up with the pace of demand which is rising very, very quickly.’

Asked whether she could say there would be no more emergency releases over the next few years, Ms Mahmood said: ‘Well, I’ve obviously had to make some emergency decisions. 

‘I don’t want to be in a position where we ever do emergency release of the kind that we’ve had to do, the so called SDS 40 measure I am straining every sinew to make sure… we’re not going to do any more emergency releases.’

Pressed again on whether more could be freed early, the Cabinet minister said: ‘I’m not going to do any more emergency releases of the kind either that I’ve had to do at the beginning or as the last Conservative government did with their early release scheme as well.

‘I want to avoid that scenario. We will not be doing that. There are other operational measures that we might have to take to try and stabilise the prison system… so more people potentially on home detention curfew.’

Grilled on prisons minister Lord Timpson suggesting two-thirds of the prison population should not be behind bars, Ms Mahmood said: ‘Oh, well, look, James’s comments before he became a minister… 

‘The position of the Government is that we will build more prison places, the number of prison places in our estate is going to go up, the number of people in prison is going to go up, but that is still not enough, so I want to make sure that we are able to run a sustainable prison system so that no government has the sort of inheritance that I’ve had.’

If the Government changes the law, as expected, to imprison fewer criminals then the number of new jail spaces required will fall.

The MoJ is allocating only £2.3billion to the jail-building programme in today’s announcement – even though the total cost is due to be £10billion.

Labour is taking forward plans set in place by the Tories for the four new jails, including HMP Millsike in York, which will hold 1,500 and is due to open next year.

A further 6,400 places will be built in new blocks on current sites, there will be 1,000 ‘rapid deployment cells’ – a type of secure portable building – and more than 1,000 existing cells will be refurbished.

Labour has already released thousands of inmates early to free up cell space.

There were sickening scenes of criminals celebrating Labour’s scheme, launched in September, with some being picked up in luxury cars and sprayed with champagne.

One proclaimed ‘Big up Keir Starmer’ as he posed with a £150,000 Bentley.

A Labour spokesman accused the Conservatives of ‘gross negligence’ for failing to build enough jail spaces when they were in power.

Ahead of publishing her 10-year prisons strategy today, Ms Mahmood said: ‘The last Government pretended they could send people away for longer and longer without building the prisons they promised.

‘This strategy reveals that their prison building plans were years delayed and nearly £5billion over budget. They left our prisons in crisis, on the edge of collapse.

‘Part of our plan for change, this capacity strategy, alongside an independent review of sentencing policy, will keep our streets safe and ensure no government runs out of prison places again.’

Last week, the Government gave the go-ahead for a new prison next to HMP Garth in Lancashire, which will have 1,700 places.