Shabana Mahmood was grilled by Kay Burley on the UK's prison crisis. (Image: Sky News)
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood received a grilling from Sky News' Kay Burley over the UK's prison crisis, in which she made an embarrassing admission.
During their heated conversation, Mahmood admitted the Labour government might build new prisons on the green belt - a ring of countryside where urbanisation is restricted.
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The aim is to maintain the land for growing food, forestry, and outdoor activities by preventing urban sprawl and keeping the land green forever.
On the topic of prison expansion, Mahmood told Burley: "The position of the government is that we will build more prison places."
Burley hit back, asking: "Are you going to build on green belt?"
READ MORE: Labour plans to build four prisons - but told it's not enough to tackle crisis
Shabana Mahmood is the justice secretary. (Image: Getty)
Mahmood did not say this was out of the question, responding: "I'm not going to rule out where future prisons might be built."
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has pledged to create an additional 14,000 cell spaces in jails by 2031, with ￡2.3 billion earmarked for this expansion within the next two years.
A significant portion of these new spaces, amounting to 6,400, will be housed within the newly constructed prisons.
To accommodate the rest, the MoJ plans include building new wings at existing facilities, refurbishing out-of-use cells, and investing an extra ￡500 million in crucial building maintenance.
This initiative is part of a decade-long strategy aimed at ensuring the capacity to incarcerate dangerous offenders, with prisons being designated as sites of "national importance" to bypass protracted planning processes.
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This comes in the wake of estimates published last week, suggesting that by 2029, over 100,000 prisoners could be incarcerated in England and Wales.
This follows alerts from Whitehall's financial watchdog that the Government's plans to increase prison capacity may fall short by thousands of cells within two years, costing taxpayers billions more than expected.
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Since September, thousands of inmates have been released early in an attempt to alleviate overcrowding in prisons, temporarily reducing the percentage of sentences some prisoners must serve in England and Wales from 50% to 40%.
However, it is anticipated that prisons will reach critical capacity again by July. According to MoJ data, there were 86,089 adult prisoners in England and Wales as of Monday.
The operational capacity for men's and women's prisons in England and Wales, known as the so-called operational capacity, stands at 88,822, indicating there is currently room for 2,733 criminals.