Sir Keir Starmer and deputy PM David Lammy are under pressure over prisons (Image: Getty Images)
Labour is accused of presiding over a “crisis” in the nation’s prisons with alarm bells triggered at six establishments. Conditions have sunk so low at six prisons that “urgent notifications” – a formal warning for when conditions are so dire the Justice Secretary is personally alerted – have been issued. Since Labour took power, HMP Rochester, HMP Manchester, HMP Winchester, HMP Swaleside, HMP Pentonville, and HMP Woodhill have all triggered this emergency mechanism.
HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes has been the subject of an urgent notification in both August 2023 and March this year. According to HM Inspectorate of Prisons, the “rate of prisoner-on-prisoner violence had increased by 23% and the rate against staff had increased by 45% since the last inspection in 2023”.
