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
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