§ Mr. David Priceasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is the present capacity of the prisons of England and Wales on the basis of one prisoner per cell; what is the present prison population; how many prisoners share a cell; what percentage of the total prison population this represents; and what is his estimate of the cost of the necessary prison building programme to ensure that no prisoner has to share a cell.
§ Dr. SummerskillIn mid-July the certified normal accommodation of prison service establishments in England and Wales was 36,342 and the population was 37,024, of whom 12,822, or about 35 per cent. were sleeping two or three to a cell. The over-crowding is concentrated in the older local prisons and reflects the continuing need for additional modern accommodation for remand prisoners and convicted prisoners unsuitable for open conditions.
The prison building programme is designed, first, to provide enough accommodation for the likely prison population so as to eliminate overcrowding and provide a small operational margin of places, and, second, to begin the process of replacing obsolete prisons. We estimate the capital cost of achieving the first objective as about £70 million at September 1973 prices. This includes the cost of the necessary staff quarters and expenditure already incurred on schemes now under construction.