The Treasury will also fund the cost of building a new
prison at Glen Parva in Leicestershire. This significant
investment will allow us to get started on construction
sooner since planning permission was granted in the summer.
The new Glen Parva will accommodate around 1,680 prisoners
which, along with an equivalently-sized new prison at
Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, is an important step
towards delivering on our commitment to building up to
10,000 decent new prison places.
An extra £30 million will be spent on prisons this
financial year on top of the £40 million we announced over
the summer. The money will go towards further improvements
to safety, security and decency on top of those already
announced such as the roll-out of body scanners and
phone-blocking technology.
There is also a further £15 million to spend this year on
the maintenance and security of our court buildings.
Spending more this year in our courts will ensure that our
ageing estate remains fit for the 21st century as we invest
£1 billion in modernising services and moving more online
making them easier to use, more efficient and saving
taxpayers’ money.
Another £6.5 million will be invested across the wider
justice system, including a further £1.5 million for the
Parole Board to boost its operational capacity.
Commenting on the Budget, the Secretary of State for
Justice said:
I am pleased that the Treasury has given us this extra
£52 million which will help address the acute problems
facing our prisons and begin to improve the conditions of
some of our courts. We have also secured a cash boost for
the Parole Board to support its operations, especially
the extra work associated with our transparency reforms.
This budget means that since July, we are directing an
additional £70 million to tackling drugs and violence,
and improving the basic conditions of our prisons.
Treasury’s commitment to funding a new prison at Glen
Parva is an important step to getting this built as soon
as possible and will ease the pressure on our prisons.
The Budget also committed to funding a review by the Law
Commission into simplifying the rules around marriage
ceremonies in England and Wales and propose options for a
simpler and fairer system to give couples greater choice
and reduce prices in a notoriously expensive market. It
will look at reducing unnecessary red tape supporting small
and medium-sized businesses in the hospitality sector, like
hotels and pubs, to host weddings and boost their income.
Notes to editors
- The Treasury have committed to providing the capital
funding to build the new prison at Glen Parva. While we
cannot comment at this stage on the anticipated cost, the
newest prison in the estate, HMP Berwyn in North Wales,
cost £250 million when it was built in 2015/16.
- The Ministry’s Spending Review 2015 settlement set the
department on a course to reduce spend by 11% between
2015/16 and 2019/20. The figures on the Ministry of Justice
from yesterday’s announcement of next year’s settlement are
not new.
- We are continuing to engage with HM Treasury on
ensuring that the justice system has sufficient funding in
both the short and medium term, ahead of the Spending
Review in 2019. The department continues to work to ensure
that the department’s finances are set on a long term
sustainable footing.
