Nigel Farage to build ‘Nightingale prisons' if he wins election
At a press conference on law and order in Westminster on Monday, the leader of Reform UK will announce the party would 'end the prison place shortage' by building 'low-cost, high-security' modular structures.
The prisons would be named after historical figures involved in policing reform such as Sir Robert Peel, the Tory prime minister who founded the Metropolitan Police.
Reform said the Nightingale prisons would have enough space for 12,400 prisoners and would be built with the help of the army.
Nightingale hospitals, named after Florence Nightingale, were set up at short notice in places such as exhibition centres during the pandemic.
Farage will say: 'If you're a criminal, we are putting you on notice. In 2029 you have a choice to make: be a law-abiding citizen or face serious justice.'
A government source said: 'These are empty promises from Farage, whose plans are unfunded and undeliverable. This government is delivering the biggest jail expansion in over a hundred years, and we've already opened 2,400 cells since taking office.'
The government has announced plans to relieve Britain's struggling prisons, including the early release of serious offenders.
The measures will apply to criminals whose original sentence was one to four years and will only exclude terrorists and individuals deemed by the police, prisons and probation services to be the highest risk to the public and those who commit serious further offences.
On Sunday Farage announced plans to nationalise half of the water industry. Asked how much it would cost to have 50 per cent of the sector under public ownership, he told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: 'That depends what deal you do with the private sector investors. We are in a hell of a mess with this — an increase of the population by ten million has left us completely incapable of coping [and] companies have been badly run … It's all about what deal you strike, isn't it?'
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