Written question asked by Claire Curtis-Thomas (Labour) on Thursday, 19 January 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 23 January 2006. It was answered by Fiona Mactaggart (Labour) on Monday, 30 January 2006 on behalf of the Home Office.

Prisons

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what forecast he has made of the level of the prison population in each of the last three years; and what the actual level was in each year.

Answer: Projections of the prison population are made on the basis of several possible future scenarios (a range of likely changes in sentencing and effects of new legislation, etc.) and are regularly updated. All published projections are available on the Home Office website. Taking the most recent projection for June in each case: in 2003 the projections ranged from 73,600 to 75,800 and the actual value was 73,700; in 2004 the projections ranged from 79,500 to 85,100 and the actual value was 74,500; in 2005 the projections ranged from 76,100 to 76,600 and the actual value was 76,200.

Secondary information