00:01We've always said that the government should be pulling out all the stops to make sure that they can maximise
00:07the capacity of the existing prisoner state.
00:12They haven't done that for two years because they've been so focused on their early release schemes.
00:17So this is welcome, but it is too little too late.
00:21Andy Burnham has actually said that himself.
00:23There are thousands of prison places that are certified and possible to use, but are not in use at the
00:30moment for a variety of reasons, whether that is about staff shortages, because we have fewer prison officers than we
00:37had at the time of the general election.
00:38That's true even at some of the new prisons, such as HMP, Milpsych, but there are thousands more that can't
00:45be used because of rules and regulations, such as fire assessments and things like that, where we say the government
00:52should be doing absolutely everything it can to make sure that those cells are used.
00:57And we should also be considering other things at difficult times, such as renting prison cells in foreign countries, countries
01:06like Estonia, countries like the Netherlands have surplus places and are open to those conversations.
