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MPs highlight importance of Wales-specific justice data
and addressing causes of Wales' persistently high imprisonment
rate.
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Committee deeply disappointed by delays and lack of
transparency over plans for Swansea Residential Women's
Centre.
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Persistent shortcomings remain in protecting Welsh
language rights within the Welsh prison estate.
Population pressures, staffing challenges and overcrowding have
undermined staff and prisoner safety and the effectiveness of
rehabilitation across the prison estate in England and Wales, the
Welsh Affairs Committee warns in a report
published today.
The wide-ranging report ‘Jagged Justice: Prisons, Probation and
Rehabilitation in Wales', which follows a more than year-long
inquiry into prisons and probation services in Wales, makes
recommendations relating to prison capacity, rehabilitation,
youth justice and the importance of Welsh-specific justice data.
It also warns that addressing the challenges is made more complex
by the division of responsibilities between the UK and Welsh
Governments and calls for close cooperation between the two to
support offenders in turning their lives around.
Highlighting serious concerns about the Welsh prison estate, the
committee concludes that alleviating pressures and ensuring
successful rehabilitation will depend on improving staff
retention, increasing time out of cell and ensuring prisoners are
held as close to home as possible.
Investment in staff is vital if prisons want to deliver effective
regimes that facilitate rehabilitation, and the committee
recommends that the MoJ meet with Welsh justice unions to
identify the main barriers to recruiting and retaining staff.
Concerns regarding pay and conditions should be addressed as soon
as possible, the report adds.
MPs are also calling for a review to investigate why the
imprisonment rate in Wales has consistently been shown to be
higher than that seen in England, as well as in most of Western
Europe.
The report outlines how with no women's prisons in Wales, Welsh
women who receive custodial sentences are held in England, often
far from home and family support, which poses challenges for
resettlement and rehabilitation.
MPs therefore urge the MoJ to confirm its plan for the Swansea
Residential Women's Centre, including whether it will open and
when. The centre was due to open two years ago, but after funding
was reallocated by the previous UK Government it remains unclear
whether the project will be going ahead at all. The committee is
clear that the centre should support women who have committed
low-level offences to address the root causes of their offending
behaviour, therefore being a genuine alternative to custody: not
a prison in all but name.
The report also highlights the importance to rehabilitation of
Welsh-speaking prisoners being able to exercise their rights to
speak Welsh no matter where they are held in the prison estate.
The committee is urging the prisons inspectorate to adopt a more
consistent approach to assessing and recording Welsh language
provision during their inspections, and recommends that UK
Government agencies, like HMPPS, follow the Welsh Language
Standards Regulations 2023 as a means of bolstering the rights of
Welsh speaking prisoners.
MP, Chair of the Welsh Affairs
Committee, said:
“Throughout our inquiry and visits to prisons across England and
Wales, we found dedicated staff and genuine examples of good
practice and innovation. But we also found a system that too
often fails the people it is meant to serve. It's a system
struggling with population pressures, staffing shortages, and
increasingly complex demand, all of which have serious
implications for safety and rehabilitation outcomes.
Additionally, Welsh women who are serving their custodial
sentences in prisons are often far from home, family and the
support services they will be returning to. That's why we are
urging the Government to confirm its plans for the Swansea
Residential Women's Centre.
The justice system in Wales needs better data, sustained
investment, and policy that is designed with Wales' devolution
settlement in mind and that is tailored to the needs of the
people of Wales.
To deliver on this will require decisive action from the UK
Government, as well as close collaboration with the Welsh
Government, who are responsible for services that are vital to
rehabilitation, including healthcare, education and housing.”
Main findings and recommendations
Imprisonment rates
- The imprisonment rate in Wales has consistently been shown to
be higher than that seen in England. The committee recommends the
MoJ and the Welsh Government co-commission a joint academic
review to investigate this trend. The findings of this review
should be shared with the committee in twelve months' time.
Welsh Women Prisoners
- The committee calls on the MoJ to confirm its plans for the
Swansea Residential Women's Centre as soon as possible, noting
that the centre must serve as a genuine alternative to custody.
These plans should confirm whether the site will be opening, and
if so, when it will open.
- The number of Welsh women receiving custodial sentences in
Wales is rising. The committee is supportive of the establishment
of the Women's Justice Board and welcomes the publication of its
report. The committee recommends that the UK Government use its
ongoing recruitment drive for magistrates as an opportunity to
enhance their training, encouraging them to make greater use of
alternatives to custody and to consider the impact that short
sentences can have on women in particular.
Rehabilitation and Education
- Engaging with purposeful activity, such as education and
skills provision, is vital to reducing reoffending rates among
prisoners. The MoJ should support prison leaders in designing
regimes (the structured daily schedule that prisoners follow)
that prioritise time out of cell and engagement with purposeful
activity alongside safety and order. The committee is clear that
without adequate staffing levels, prisons will not be able to
deliver such regimes.
- The committee calls on the MoJ to immediately reverse its
real-term cuts to the prison education budget in England and to
ensure that future funding grows in line with inflation and is
aligned with the true costs of delivery. The committee encourages
the Welsh Government to publish education data for Welsh prisons,
noting the disparity between that which is available for prisons
in England versus prisons in Wales.
- MoJ should support prison leaders in their engagement with
local employers to ensure prisoners are being provided with the
right skills to gain employment upon release. This must be
balanced against ensuring there is consistency in provision, so
that prisoners who transfer between prisons are not
disadvantaged.
Devolution
- The committee recognises that the justice system in Wales has
been under immense strain in recent years and agrees with
Minister Timpson that it is best to wait until the system has
stabilised before introducing further changes. However, it also
acknowledges that exploring and considering the case for
devolving probation and youth justice were manifesto commitments
for the UK Government, and there must be clarity and transparency
around what steps need to be taken before a final decision can be
reached on this matter.
Welsh-Specific Justice Data
- The MoJ should continue working with the Welsh Government and
the Wales Governance Centre to publish Wales-specific justice
data. As part of this work, the committee calls for the
department to provide annual updates on its progress in
publishing the remaining datasets that have been requested by
stakeholders.
Welsh Language
- Welsh-speaking prisoners should be able to exercise their
rights to speak Welsh. Ensuring consistency in the Welsh language
obligations placed on Crown agencies operating either side of the
England-Wales border should help to improve compliance and to
drive the cultural change needed to embed respect for the
language within prisons across the estate. The committee
recommends that the UK Government work with the Welsh Government
to subject Crown agencies to the Welsh Language Standards
Regulations 2023.
- The committee calls on HMI Prisons to work with the Welsh
Language Commissioner to design an additional survey for
Welsh-speaking prisoners, with questions specifically designed to
gather information about the quality and availability of Welsh
language services in Welsh prisons. The information gathered
through this survey should inform a dedicated section—designed to
be uniform and consistent, to allow for effective comparison—on
the Welsh language within all of the inspectorate's future
reports on Welsh prisons.
Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs)
- The lack of oversight provided by IMBs during a significant
period of turmoil and unrest at HMP Parc caused the committee
great concern. The MoJ should undertake a targeted recruitment
campaign with a focus on bilingual Welsh speakers to ensure that
each of Wales' IMBs is fully resourced and able to undertake its
statutory obligations.
Prison capacity
- MoJ must focus on reducing prison population pressures
through the Sentencing Act 2026. The committee recommends that in
18 months' time, once the Act has had time to bed in, the
department conduct a review of its approach to prisoner
placement, focusing particularly on the placement of Welsh
prisoners.
- There must be enough staff with the right experience to
deliver effective regimes. This requires investment in staff and
ensuring that their concerns around pay and conditions are heard.
We recommend that the MoJ meet with the Welsh justice unions
representing prison staff in Wales to identify the main barriers
to recruiting and retaining staff.
Healthcare and Welfare
- Prisoners in Wales should not be disadvantaged when it comes
to healthcare provision. We recommend that the MoJ and the Welsh
Government co-commission an independent review of the provision
of healthcare services in prisons in Wales, focusing particularly
on the effectiveness of the existing health board model.
- The UK Government's recurrent transfer to the Welsh
Government to support prisoner healthcare in public prisons in
Wales has been eroded by inflation. The UK Government must revise
its funding formula so that it is uplifted in line with inflation
to maintain the recurrent funding in real terms.
- Too many women are self-harming, especially in the prisons
that hold the majority of Welsh women offenders. The committee
calls on the MoJ to understand and tackle this problem, and to
make it easier for women to stay in contact with their families
by reducing the cost of phone calls.
Housing
- The committee calls on the MoJ and prison leaders to
prioritise timely notification of upcoming releases to local
authorities, giving them the best chance to identify suitable
accommodation among an already limited stock of options. It also
highlights the impact that the decision to freeze local housing
allowance rates has had on Wales, and calls for the decision to
be reversed.
Probation
- Probation staff in Wales have been stretched to their limit
and without tangible investment in additional officers at a
national level—as well as measures to improve retention—the
service runs the risk of being overwhelmed in the future.
- The committee calls on the MoJ to increase its support for
the staff of the Probation Service in Wales. The upcoming
strategic review of probation should be accompanied by a review
of the service's staff numbers, pay and working conditions so
that the department can best realise its ambition to increase its
use of community alternatives to custody.
Youth Justice
- The committee recommends that the UK and Welsh Governments
build on the existing success of the youth justice system in
Wales, working in lockstep to support children, provide funding
certainty to youth justice services, and ensure that the welfare
of children underpins decision-making in this area. As part of
this work, both governments should review the case for embedding
speech and language therapists within all Youth Offending Teams
in Wales, as well as for utilising smaller modular units across
Wales that would allow children in the secure estate to maintain
their family connections.
Policymakers in Whitehall
- The committee heard mixed evidence when it came to the extent
to which justice policy was tailored to the needs of Welsh people
and was reflective of Wales' devolution settlement. Going
forward, the committee calls on the MoJ to engage early and work
closely with the Welsh Government and other relevant stakeholders
to ensure policies meet the needs of Welsh offenders.
ENDS
Notes to editors
In March 2026, the committee also published an interim report to
the inquiry calling on the Ministry of Justice to pause its
planned expansion of HMP Parc. The Government responded in May
2026 and the committee have subsequently responded through a
letter to Minister Timpson
