British taxpayers are being forced to fork out more than £1billion for two "mind-boggling" prison projects as the total cost is expected to ballooned to £800,000 per prisoner.
Since coming into office, Andy Burnham has been bludgeoned with the same issue that plagued his predecessor's time in No10 as jails become filled to the brim with prisoners.
In March 2025, prisons across England and Wales averaged 87,009 prisoners with a 25 per cent overcrowding rate.
Meanwhile, the male inmate estate between October 2022 and August 2024 recorded occupancy rates up to 99.7 per cent, far higher than what is considered the safe operational threshold of 95 per cent.
In a bid to tackle the crisis, the Prime Minister ploughed on with the vastly unpopular early release scheme, allowing convicts to roam Britain's streets freely once again without having completed their full sentence.
But Labour has also promised to build more institutions across the country to accommodate the bursting prison population.
Both HMP Highland and HMP Barlinnie are due to be completed over the next two years, creating approximately 1,500 new prison places.
The new buildings have come at the eyewatering cost of £800,000 for each inmate, provided each cell is filled.
Senior sources also warned the cost is almost eight times the price of the original plans from more than 10 years ago and will continue to grow.
"Given what we know about the public sector’s ability to deliver large scale infrastructure projects, it would be safe to assume these figures will continue to rise given we are still years out from completion dates," they explained to the Sunday Mail.
One insider added: "Inverness will already cost over £1million per prisoner space, and I would expect Glasgow to be in a similar ballpark by the time it opens.
"These are truly mind-boggling figures when you consider the original budgets. It is not just prisons - we have ferries hundreds of millions over budget, the Monklands Hospital project doubling to £2billion - the list is endless."
On the outskirts of Glasgow, HMP Barlinnie is scheduled to be completed in 2028 and is due to house 1,344 prisoners, coming to the cost of £1billion.
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Given it was originally meant to cost around £100million, the new prison will cost at least 10 times more.
Meanwhile, HMP Highland - which will be Scotland's first "Net Zero prison" - is due to open up in spring 2027 and is already costing the taxpayer around £209million for 200 cells, which is a £52million jump from a decade ago.
As a result, the total cost for one of the 1,544 prisoners being housed in one of the new facilities will come to £783,031.08 each.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay ripped into the crisis, accusing the SNP for the "problem entirely of their own making".
He said: "You say that they find themselves in this position, the SNP Government, but it’s a problem entirely of their making.
"They’ve been in charge of Scotland’s justice system and prison service for two decades and they are the ones that failed to build adequate capacity.
"We’ve got a new prison in Glasgow that was supposed to be ready.
"It’ll be at least six years late, and instead of costing £100million as they said it would, it’s now going to cost at least £1billion – that’s the scandal."
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West Christine Jardine said the early release scheme was merely a short-term measure, calling on Holyrood should focus on long-term remedies.
She said: "The new prison in Glasgow is an example of failure to actually deal with it, to make sure there are facilities there, but hand in hand with that, you have to have better non-custodial sentences.
"You have to look at better risk assessment as well, particularly where you’ve got domestic violence, violence against women, violence against everybody."
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "It is widely accepted that additional capacity in the prison estate is needed and HMP Glasgow will add 357 places.
"The cost of HMP Glasgow is comparable to other large-scale prison projects across the UK."
A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said: "HMP Glasgow and HMP Highland are significant long-term investments in Scotland’s justice infrastructure that will serve communities for decades to come.
"Both prisons will provide fit-for-purpose, safe and secure accommodation, bringing modern environments that better support and meet the needs of those in our care, and our staff.
"With greater opportunities for education, work, healthcare and maintaining family relationships, these establishments have been designed to enhance our ability to help individuals address their offending behaviour, reducing the risk of reoffending and help us to create safer communities across Scotland."
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