Jails could run out of space within months as Labour ministers wait for the 'uncertain' results of sentencing review, MPs warn

Jails could run out of space within months as ministers wait for the ‘uncertain’ results of a sentencing review, MPs have warned. It said the Ministry of Justice was pinning its hopes on a sentencing review launched by Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, which will set out how Labour will send fewer criminals to jail. Today’s report warned the Prison Service is ‘entirely reliant on uncertain future demand reduction measures, which it hopes will come from the independent sentencing review, to prevent it from running out of places’. Jails could run out of space within months as ministers wait for the ‘uncertain’ results of a sentencing review, MPs warn Committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said: ‘We find a department grappling with the fallout of problems it should have predicted, while awaiting the judgment of an external review before taking any truly radical corrective action.