The justice secretary has announced a "record prison expansion" which will see the government build three new prisons. Shabana Mahmood says the investment will also fund "new cells at existing prisons, with new house blocks and rapid deployment cells opened across the country". Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00We've already committed £2.3 billion to prison expansion and since taking office we have delivered
00:072,400 new places and we will now go further. While the spending review is ongoing I can announce
00:17today that the Treasury will fund our prison expansion plans in full across the spending
00:23review period. This is a total capital investment of £4.7 billion. It allows us to start building
00:33three new prisons including breaking ground on a site near HMP Gartree later this year.
00:41This investment will also fund new cells at existing prisons with new house blocks and rapid
00:47deployment cells opened across the country. This is a record prison expansion and after
00:55the long delays under the last government who allowed their backbenchers to block every project
01:00we are building at breakneck pace. But we must be honest. Honest in a way that my predecessors
01:08never were. Prison building is necessary but it is not sufficient. We cannot build our way
01:17out of this crisis. Despite record prison building the population is simply rising too fast. By spring
01:272028 even with the funding that I have announced today we will be 9,500 places short. The conclusion
01:37is clear. We have to do things differently. The consequences of failing to act are unthinkable
01:44but they must be understood. If our prisons overflow, courts cancel trials, police halt their arrest,
01:56crimes go unpunished and we reach a total breakdown of law and order. I was confronted with the