Her Majesty's Prison Service: too many 'guests'

Audit Shows Big Rise in Prison Numbers

The audit was ordered in May by the incoming Government, which is accusing the previous Conservative administration of having failed to fund the service properly.

The figures, for England and Wales, have forced the Home Office to provide an extra £43 million for the service, and next week the Home Secretary will announce two initiatives to cut prison numbers.

Crisis measure: the prison ship Weare, bought from the U.S.

The audit shows that the prison population has risen by 17,000 - almost 40% - in the past four years. Since the election in May, it has gone up by the equivalent of four average-sized jails.

Official projections made as recently as April dramatically under-estimated the increase.

The Home Secretary promised the additional money after the audit concluded there was not enough in the budget to cope. It will go on building new cell blocks and providing extra staff so that more inmates can safely be held in existing jails.

Dur: 5'48"

Debate: David Evans of the Prison Officers' Association and Richard Tilt, head of the Prison Service

It means 290 places will be added to the current building programme while the money would also cover the costs of placing of 1,830 inmates in existing accommodation - 630 of whom are already being held.

The service is thought to have been desperately close to having to house prisoners in police cells.

The Home Secretary is expected to announce plans to speed up the court process to help reduce the numbers of people on remand, and to extend the use of electronic tagging to make community sentences a more viable alternative to prison.

Currently, the jail population stands at more than 62,000 and is rising at the rate of 250 a week.