About a quarter of prison places are unsafe, Ministry of Justice admits
The government has reneged on a pledge to make all prison cells fire-safe or take them out of use by the end of next year, meaning tens of thousands of prisoners in England and Wales will remain at risk.
The Ministry of Justice has admitted it has known for almost two decades that about a quarter of prison places are unsafe, putting the people housed in affected cells at risk.
Successive governments had pledged to remedy the situation by the end of 2027, but that commitment has now been dropped and the government has not set a new date.
Earlier this week, the Guardian reported on the inquest of Clare Dupree, a woman with severe mental illness who died in a fire in her cell at HMP Eastwood.
