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Home Office

Answer

Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many additional prison places have been provided and at what cost in each of the last 10 years; and what the average cost of building a new prison place is. [118780] Paul Goggins: The following table gives information on the number of additional places and an estimate of the cumulative cost of providing them, from 1995 onwards: this is the earliest date for which information is available. The data includes places both at new prisons and those provided at existing prisons by building houseblocks, Ready to Use Units (RTUs) and Modular Temporary Units (MTUs). It does not take into account any places taken out of use, or places provided by subsequent overcrowding. Costs are based on an estimate of the total capital and cumulative operating costs and includes new prisons provided under the Private Finance Initiative. The average cost of building a new prison place is around £100,000. This is an average unit cost for providing public sector prison places through houseblocks and RTUs. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Places Cost (£ million) 1995-96 1,165 103 1996-97 1,857 206 1997-98 4,635 231 1998-99 1,697 258 1999-2000 2,071 225 2000-01 800 264 2001-02 1,103 317 2002-03 1,902 426 _________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

118780; 407 c872W;407 c876W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Costs Construction Finance Prisoners Prisons Population Prison accommodation

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk