§ Mr. MichaelTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) where the six new prisons, recently announced at Blackpool, will be located;
(2) what is his timetable for opening six new prisons; and what is his estimate of the cost in this financial year and in 1994–95.
§ Mr. Peter LloydResponsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Derek Lewis to Mr. Alun Michael, dated October 1993:
215WThe Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Questions about the proposals to build six new prisons and the new prison building programme.The six new prisons to which the Home Secretary referred on 6 October are in addition to the current new prison building programme. The construction of the first two of these prisons was announced in the Autumn statement last year. On 2 September 1993 the Home Secretary announced that the design, construction, management and potential financing of the prisons would be contracted out to the private sector. I expect that the further four prisons which were announced on 6 October will be procured in the same way.Sites at Fazakerley in Merseyside and at Bridgend in South Wales have been identified for the first two prisons. The proposal to build a prison on the Fazakerley site is the subject of a non-statutory public local inquiry beginning on 26 October 1993. We will be shortly submitting to the local planning authority a Notice of Proposed Development seeking outline planning clearance to build a prison on the site at Bridgend. Work is currently in progress to identify suitable sites for the other four prisons.If we obtain planning clearance for new prisons on the sites of Fazakerley and Bridgend we expect that the two prisons would open in 1997–98. It is too early to indicate a timetable for the other four prisons.It is also too early to indicate the cost of six prisons which will be assessed on the basis of value for money obtained for the complete financial package comprising both capital and operating costs. Outline proposals and expressions of interest in the first two prisons will be invited shortly.Twenty new prisons have opened since 1983 and Doncaster prison is due to open next year. The attached table shows the total cost of constructing each establishment and the main construction firm.
Prison Location Date of opening Estimated total cost (includes capital costs, claims and property services agency's resource costs) (£K) Main construction contractor Full Sutton Full Sutton, Yorkshire September 1987 40,020 Monk Construction Littlehey Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire January, 1988 34,002 Bovis Construction Mount Bovingdon, Hertfordshire March 1988 28,185 Wimpey Construction Garth Leyland, Lancashire July 1988 45,110 Tarmac Swaleside Isle of Sheppey, Kent May 1990 33,539 Mowlem Belmarsh South East London April 1991 161,273 Wimpey Construction Moorland Hatfield Woodhouse, South Yorkshire July 1991 55,219 Higgs and Hill Whitemoor March, Cambridgeshire September 1991 54,100 Monk Construction Brinsford Featherstone, Staffordshire November 1991 45,563 Taylor Woodrow Elmley Isle of Sheppey, Kent February 1992 82,782 Mowlem Bullingdon Bicester, Oxfordshire March 1992 64,339 Kier Construction Wolds Brough, North Humberside April 1992 36,880 UK Detention Contractors (Consortium: Mowlem and Sir Robert McAlpine) Holme House Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland May 1992 66,184 Sir Robert McAlpine Woodhill Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire July 1992 117,753 Higgs and Hill High Down Banstead, Surrey August 1992 91,058 Alfred McAlpine Lancaster Farms Lancaster March 1993 73,150 AMEC Blakenhurst Redditch, Worcestershire May 1993 80,432 Tarmac Doncaster South Yorkshire April 1994 94,730 Shepherd Construction