If the Conservatives take office, they have pledged to create 50,000 new prison places in England and Wales, a commitment that would cost £2bn a year to construct and maintain. The scheme is intended to pay for itself by cutting spending elsewhere.
The pledge comes as prisons in England and Wales sit at 98% capacity, running close to full for years. Hundreds of prisoners were released early on Thursday under new rules to stop jails reaching capacity, with around 4,500 due to be freed by next summer.
The Early Release Scheme
Now, under the newest regulations, eligible inmates may leave behind bars on a community licence after completing one-third of their time served. Those who remain excluded from such relief include individuals found guilty of murder, manslaughter, a sexual or grooming-related crime, or a driving offence that caused a fatality.
One-year jail terms have been removed by the government, and the Tories have said they would put unused prison space to work to bring those terms back.
The former Conservative administration launched an early release programme that freed over 10,000 prisoners between October 2023 and September 2024. There are now roughly 89,000 available beds across prisons in England and Wales.
The 50,000 new places would increase the total by more than 50%. The vast majority are expected within the party’s first Parliament in government, up to five years, with the full increase delivered within seven years.
The Costs Behind the Promise
The £2bn annual price tag covers building and running the new places. The Tories say they would introduce legislation early in the new Parliament to override planning and procurement barriers, allowing the process to be “fast-tracked”. They argue using private finance would help speed up delivery and control costs.
The £2bn annual price tag would come from reductions elsewhere, with the aid budget cut by £1bn and the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s budget reduced by £1bn.
Reaction From Opponents
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch defended the proposal. “A violent criminal doesn’t become less dangerous just because the government has run out of prison cells,” she said.
She also attacked Labour’s response. “[Labour’s] answer is to let dangerous offenders out even earlier instead of building the prison spaces we need,” she said.
Bridget Phillipson, the chairwoman of the Labour Party, answered back to the figures. “The Tories are taking the public for fools. Across 14 years in government, they added just 500 prison places and closed 23 prisons. Now Kemi Badenoch expects the British people to believe they’ll build 50,000.”
The body representing prison governors has raised a warning about staffing levels, describing them as the real obstacle to running prisons. “Building 50,000 cells is one thing; finding the thousands of experienced officers, governors and specialists needed to run them safely is quite another,”
“Politicians have spent years announcing prison places while the service struggles with overcrowding, ageing infrastructure and staffing shortages. The real test is not how many places can be promised, but how many prisons can be operated safely, effectively, and sustainably.”
Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy argued for a tougher approach. “Prison works. It works by punishing and deterring, but most importantly by incapacitating. Prison should keep violent and repeat offenders away from the law-abiding public.”
The government of the Labour party has pledged to increase the nation’s prison capacity by 14,000 before the deadline of 2031.
What Comes Next
Birmingham hosts the conference on Sunday, and the party faces a host of questions. Among them:
- How the funding cuts affect other services.
- Whether the promised delivery timeline can survive.
“The real test is not how many places can be promised, but how many prisons can be operated safely, effectively, and sustainably.”
The Conservatives have presented the choice as a straightforward one: lock up more people or release them before their time is served. Labour, meanwhile, has presented the issue as a broken promise.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs the early release scheme’s removal and is against the £2bn pledge to build 50,000 new prison places. It supports strict, certain punishment for violent crime, and it opposes any policy that puts violent offenders back on the street. The pledge rests on cutting the aid budget and the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s budget each by £1bn — money taken from people least able to bear it.
The paper is against agencies writing their own authority, mandates on private life, and any office gathering more power. A pledge this large, from a party that has added barely 500 places in 14 years, raises questions about whether it can deliver at all.
The pledge is a promise of more government power, not less. It asks voters to trust that £2bn will buy 50,000 new places without breaking other promises. The paper’s position rejects trusting any office to gather that much power, whatever party holds it. It also rejects early release for violent offenders, which is why the paper backs the scheme’s removal.
Source material: “Tories pledge to build 50,000 new prison places,” the BBC.
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