A £2.3 billion prison building programme to provide 10,500 extra spaces is not based on “solid foundations”, according to a critical Commons committee report published today.

The Government is accused of a “risky strategy” by focusing on spending large amounts on more jail spaces, including three Titan prisons each holding 2,500 inmates. Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, embarked on the policy after a report by Lord Carter of Coles, a Labour peer, recommended a programme to deal with the rising number of offenders who are being imprisoned.

The Justice Committee’s report is scathing of Lord Carter’s work, saying that it failed to explain in any detail the evidence or reasoning behind the conclusions. It described Lord Carter’s review as “deeply unimpressive”.

The report said that it was impossible to scrutinise the basis of Lord Carter’s conclusions, because so little evidence was provided. “It is clear that the substantial investment now being made on the basis of those conclusions is not based on solid foundations.” Lord Carter’s review was a missed opportunity for a fundamental consideration of the problems involved with sentencing and the provision of spaces in jails, the committee said. It cautioned that building prisons would not solve fundamental issues on how to manage the growing prison population, which stands at 83,610.Today’s report is also critical of the amount of criminal justice legislation passed by the Government.

Lord Carter was best man at Mr Straw’s wedding. He has chaired a number of government reviews, including one on managing offenders that recommended the creation of the troubled National Offender Management Service. Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: “This blistering report must make ministers review their failing prisons policy before they disappear down the bottomless public spending pit of Titan jails.”

Nick Herbert, the Shadow Justice Secretary, said: “The committee rightly identifies a complete incoherence in government policy which has lurched from releasing 30,000 prisoners a year early to belatedly building the biggest prisons in Europe. What’s needed is a strategy to reduce reoffending.”

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