Prisoners across England and Wales are to be put to work repairing the “appalling” state of jails in a nationwide Shawshank Redemption-style programme, MPs have revealed.

Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, has told the Justice Committee that teams of prisoners will be deployed to help reduce the £900 million backlog of repairs while also honing skills in plastering, bricklaying, woodwork and painting.

“We need to do something more systemic to give governors a higher level of autonomy to get on with the little repairs that mean so much to the prison community,” he said. It echoes the iconic film Shawshank Redemption where prisoners set to work repairing the library.

The move is disclosed in a report by the Commons Justice Committee which warned some prisons were so “dilapidated and decrepit” that they were “unsafe and inhumane” and offered little hope of rehabilitating offenders.

The MPs warned Boris Johnson’s plans for longer jail sentences and 10,000 extra prison places could be jeopardised by the backlog: “While new prison places are welcome, they do nothing to improve the condition of the current prison estate, much of which is in an appalling state of disrepair.”