The Times: Britain may start sending its prisoners to Estonia

Estonia is among countries that could house British prisoners under plans to rent spare capacity abroad to tackle chronic overcrowding in jails.

The government is in discussions with other European countries to rent spare prison cells, Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, said in a speech to the Conservative Party conference, The Times reports.

He said ministers would change the law to allow prisoners sentenced in England and Wales to serve their terms overseas.

He is considering how other countries have rented cells abroad in the past, including Norway and Belgium. Estonia is one of the countries that the UK government is in talks with and Chalk visited the country in the summer.

New legislation will be included in next month’s King’s Speech, to allow for the transfer of prisoners to overseas jails.

Norway has rented prison cells from the Netherlands under the Norgerhaven agreement. About 650 prisoners convicted in Norway were sent to Norgerhaven Prison in the Netherlands to serve their sentence between 2015-2018.

Belgium also rented spare prison capacity in the Netherlands under the Nova Belgica agreement from 2010 to 2016, which led to between 500 and 650 prisoners convicted in Belgium, including foreign criminals, transferred to the Netherlands.

The plans are the latest measures to deal with declining capacity, with just 768 available places left in jails across England and Wales as of last week.

The courts backlog caused by the pandemic and tougher sentences introduced by the government has exacerbated the overcrowding in jails. The average custodial sentence has increased by 57 per cent since 2010.

Chalk said the new legislation would be passed when “parliamentary time permits”, expected to be before the general election next year.

He said the measure would “put public protection first” and help provide additional capacity to the prison service in a “safe and sustainable way”.

Exploratory discussions with potential partners in Europe have already taken place and are continuing.

Agreements would mean that prisoners in the UK could be moved to another country’s prison provided the facilities, regime and rehabilitation provided meets British standards. They might only be foreign offenders or could include remand prisoners and British inmates.

Chalk said: “This government is doing more than any since the Victorian era to expand prison capacity. Alongside our extra 20,000 prison places programme, refurbishment of old prisons and rapid deployment cells, renting prison places in other countries will ensure that we always have the space to keep the public safe from the most dangerous offenders.”

Earlier this year the Ministry of Justice activated an emergency procedure of using 400 police cells due to the lack of space in prisons.

Some regions have already run out of space, with jails in the northwest of England transferring inmates to Birmingham.

Official projections on prison population figures predict that by December there will be 89,100 prisoners, surpassing the available capacity, although the ministry says insist that it will install enough rapid deployment cells to cope.

The prison population is estimated to grow from its present level of 87,000 to 106,000 by 2027.

However, the ministry must retain a buffer of space in prisons to serve as a contingency in the event of an emergency.

The lack of capacity has also led to two thirds of jails categorised as overcrowded by the prison watchdog, which means some cells contain more inmates than their intended capacity.

Earlier this year the Ministry of Justice was forced to activate an emergency procedure of using 400 police cells for inmates due to the lack of space in prisons.

The government’s pledge to build 20,000 new prison places, which was a key Conservative manifesto pledge at the 2019 election, has been quietly dropped.

Less than half of these places will have been delivered by March 2025, according to Ministry of Justice projections. So far, 5,500 have been delivered, with a further 2,5000 by March 2025.

Plans for new prisons in Lancashire, Leicestershire and Buckinghamshire have all been by problems getting planning permission.

Prisons are increasingly relying on rapid deployment cells, which are swiftly built structures with maximum lifespans of 15 years, to cater for newly sentenced or remand prisoners, and 1,000 expected to be installed by the end of the year.

Labour has pledged to retain the government’s ambition to build the extra prison cells but has not said how it intends to overcome planning obstacles.