Parc prison's expansion plans should be paused, say MPs

Plans to expand a prison hit by inmate overdoses, a spate of deaths and self-harm should be paused for the safety of prisoners and staff, MPs have said.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) wants to add 345 inmates and 160 staff to HMP Parc in Bridgend, which has been criticised for failing to tackle an "alarming" amount of drugs.

The expansion would be a distraction from improvements being made when inspectors still have concerns about prisoner welfare, according to a report by the Welsh Affairs Committee of MPs.

Issues involving violence, suicide and drug misuse have been highlighted at the prison since 2024.

The MoJ said it was taking "decisive action" to address the prison crisis.

There has been scrutiny by MPs since the deaths of 17 men in 2024 and another three in the first nine months of 2025.

The category B prison, which opened in 1997, is operated by private firm G4S, with room for 1,670 prisoners and 676 staff.

The expansion was granted pre-application approval in September 2024, when the MoJ said Wales and England would "run out of prison places by November" without urgent action.

The expansion proposals are subject to a public consultation and are part of a £4.7 billion prison building programme.

The report comes after two years of scrutiny of HMP Parc by MPs and an unannounced visit by prison inspectors in January 2025, who found high levels of drug abuse, self harm and violence.

They also found mental health and substance misuse services were under resourced, gaps in public protection, poor quality and unhealthy food and that prisoners could left in their cells for up to 21 hours at a time.

The report acknowledges the overall need for more prison places for adult men.

Recent inspections at HMP Parc show "green shoots" of improvements, the report says, but the chief inspector of prisons still found insufficient progress in the latest inspection in January.

The MPs' report says HMP Parc is not the right place to expand the prison population.

Andrea Coomber, chief executive of the Howard League for Prison Reform, backed the committee's findings.

She said there were too many vulnerable people locked up for too long in their cells, which leads to frustration, despair and violence.

Coomber told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast that HMP Parc had made progress in making the prison more secure from drones bringing in drugs.

Inspectors had also found a reduction in inmates testing positive to drugs, down to 25%, but this was still too high and the self-harm rate was still among the highest.

"The prison leaders need to be given the opportunity to really make Parc Prison a productive and safe jail, which it still is not," she said. "So just adding 345 new men into this prison is not the answer."

In the most recent year, the average prison population has been 1,786, with 40% of prisoners being kept in what's classed as crowded accommodation, according to HM Prison and Probation Service figures.

HMP Parc did not address the expansion issue, but said: "Parc's latest inspection report [published in February 2026 HMP Parc – HM Inspectorate of Prisons] highlights that progress has been made in many areas, particularly in disrupting the supply of drugs."

"This is significant and is helping to drive wider improvements throughout the prison, especially in reducing self-harm and violence," it added.

The MoJ said: "We're taking decisive action to address the prison crisis inherited by this Government – building 14,000 extra prison places by 2031 and reforming sentencing to ensure we can always lock up dangerous criminals".