Shabana Mahmood says prisons may still run out of space

The government released thousands of inmates early in order to free up space – with more than 1,700 let out in England and Wales in September, and then another 1,200 in October.

Under its new prisons strategy – which it is calling a “Plan for Change” – the government will build four new prisons over the next seven years, creating 6,400 new places.

The same number of places will also be created by building new blocks on current prison sites.

As well as this, 1,000 makeshift cells with a lifespan of 15 years will also be built – and another 1,000 cells will be refurbished.

“The current state is appalling,” said Mahmood, in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme being broadcast on Wednesday.

She said the prisons system was “under huge stress” and was seeing prisoners “coming out better criminals than they were before they went in”.

“We’ve got to turn that around,” she said. “I think that the first step in turning things around is dealing with our capacity problems.”

But Mahmood admitted there could still be another overcrowding crisis despite the extra places, and that building more jails was not the only solution.

“We will run out,” she said. “Demand is still rising faster than any supply could possibly catch up with.”

“We’re very honest and transparent in the strategy itself that building alone is not enough because the demand is rising more quickly,” she added.

The prison population has ballooned in recent decades as a result of tougher sentences and court backlogs.

And the number of prisoners has been growing by around 4,500 a year – faster than previous governments had built new cells.

But Carl Davies, from the Prison Governors’ Association which represents managers in the prison service in England and Wales, was cynical about the plans.

“We’ve heard this time and time again – we’re going to build more prisons,” he said. “Announcements and strategies are great but until we have some certainty, until we see this happen, it’s hard to believe the words.”