The £212m prison will hold 2,100 inmates, but plans for a 320-place youth jail have not been approved

The contract to build Britain’s first titan prison holding more than 2,100 inmates has been signed just days before next Monday’s deadline, when parliament officially dissolves for the general election.

But Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, has failed to get approval in time for his other flagship prison project, a 320-place “secure college” or supersized youth jail costing £80m, which was to be the first of a network to replace the current system of youth offender institutions and secure training centres.

The main contract for the £212m titan jail being built at Wrexham, north Wales, includes punitive penalty clauses that will make it very expensive for any incoming government to cancel the category-C prison, which will hold prisoners from north Wales and north-west England.

But Dame Ursula Brennan, the justice ministry’s permanent secretary, has now confirmed that the main contract for Grayling’s “secure college” to be sited in Leicestershire will not be signed before the general election. This leaves open the possibility that it could be cancelled by any incoming government.

“The Ministry of Justice is continuing to work with contractors on the project, but there are no penalty clauses related to this work that would result in significant financial commitment, were a new administration to pursue a different approach,” Brennan wrote on Thursday to Labour’s shadow justice secretary, Sadiq Khan.

This comes despite the fact that a parliamentary order giving Grayling the powerto give the go-ahead to his secure college came into force on Friday 20 March.

Khan confirmed Labour’s threat to cancel the project: “Ministers have tried to sneak out these important decisions in the dying days of this parliament without anyone noticing.

“But no amount of smoke and mirrors can mask their failure to get their massive kids’ prison approved. Not a single expert or charity spoke in favour of these plans. They would have created a dangerous and violent, teenage titan prison that is an £80m bricks-and-mortar vanity project. It would do little to punish and reform young offenders. Labour has a longstanding commitment to cancel the secure college. This news makes that decision even easier,” he said.

The plans for the secure college, which is being designed to hold 320 12- to 17-year-olds, ran into strong opposition in the House of Lords. The former chief inspector of prisons, Lord Ramsbotham, said he regarded building “the biggest children’s prison in the western world as a stain on our treasured national reputation for fairness, decency and humanity under the rule of law”.

Peers insisted that, even when it goes ahead, fresh legislation will have to be put before parliament before the institution can hold boys aged under 15 or girls of any age.

The justice secretary made clear he saw the pilot privately run Leicestershire secure college as the first of a network that would replace existing young offender institutions and secure training centres. Many criminal justice experts criticised the plan, saying it was far better to hold young people in small custodial units.

The justice ministry’s sign-off of the titan prison at Wrexham with the Australian property company, Lend Lease, means that construction can now begin in earnest on the site of the former Firestone tyre factory.



The plans for the new prison involve three 702-place house blocks subdivided into “communities” of 88 inmates each. It has been designed with three K-shaped units, each with four spurs and two living units on each spur.

The new prison is to have a phased opening from February 2017 and will be run by the public prison service.