Labour to slash council red tape and build more prison space if elected – as ex-officer reveals scale of overcrowding

LABOUR will tackle overcrowding in “powder keg” prisons by tearing up planning red tape to build more cells.

The party pledged to make jails sites of “national importance” – giving ministers the power to bypass local council mandarins and green-light new wings.

Darren Fletcher

Labour says they will build 20,000 new spaces for lags by slashing council red tape[/caption]

Paul Edwards

Shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood said the move would deliver on a promise originally made by the Tories[/caption]

Some prisons have been unable to expand because of years-long planning between the government and pen-pushing planning officials.

Labour says the change will help deliver 20,000 more jail beds to lock away the country’s most dangerous offenders.

It comes after reports found some inmates, including stalkers and domestic abusers, were being released up to 70 days early because of overcrowding.

On Friday government stats showed just 1,579 spaces are free in British prisons – with 87,284 offenders currently behind bars.

Labour candidate Sally Jameson, who quit as a prison officer at HMP Moorland in Doncaster to stand, said the changes had a “huge impact” in her final months on the inside.

She told The Sun on Sunday: “We were expected to create more space and double-up cells.

“The reality of that is staff are busy trying to get through the delay dealing with the constant flow of new intake.”

Ms Jameson, who spent six years working at the Doncaster jail, added cutting red tape was the only way to ease pressure on staff.

Shabana Mahmood, the party’s Shadow Justice Secretary, said: “The crisis in our prisons is a powder keg waiting to explode.

“The dangerous overcrowding of our prisons was foreseeable and avoidable, but this government has not had the will or courage to act.”

She added Labour would build prison places the Tories “promised but never delivered”.