The Tories insisted they listened to public “demands to see criminals punished with proper sentences” after a bombshell report slammed their handling of prisons. A scathing review of the overcrowding crisis concluded the entire system came “within days of meltdown”. And a report – by former chief inspector of prisons Dame Anne Owers – found the “default position was to do as little as possible as late as possible”.

Convicts were moved 180 miles during the height of the crisis, whilst some were asked if they would be willing to share wings with sex offenders or move into separation centres designed for extremists who could radicalise others.

Ms Owers added the crisis was “a symptom of a systemic and long-running problem: the apparently irresistible pressure for more and longer prison sentences coming up against the immovable object of the difficulty, expense and overall effectiveness of building and running more prisons”.

But a Conservative Party spokesman said: “In office the Conservatives rightly listened to the public demand to see criminals punished with proper sentences, and to tackle the capacity issues we had plans to use prisons abroad.

“Labour scrapped those plans and instead chose to release violent criminals back on our streets.

“Labour aren't serious about tackling these issues. They blocked our Deportation Bill that would have mandated the deportation of all foreign criminals.

“Whilst Labour and Reform want shorter sentences the Conservatives will make no apology for ensuring that heinous criminals are kept off our streets and behind bars.”

Dame Anne, a former prisons watchdog, said ministers and justice chiefs did the “minimum necessary” to “avoid meltdown, at the last possible moment”.

This led to emergency measures being triggered, including prisoners released early and others held in police cells.

She said: “That was not for the want of other, more durable, solutions being put forward.

“Officials and then MoJ ministers had been pressing for some time for a formalised and planned way of reducing demand by reducing the custodial period for standard determinate sentences, since it was clear that all supply options had been exhausted.

“Discussions within the MoJ centred on what proportion of the custodial period should be cut, and what exemptions there should be.

“The systems that were set up were not in fact governance systems: they were the equivalent of hurricane warning systems, designed to monitor and ride out storms, rather than to build and plan safe systems that can prevent or withstand them.

“Nearly all of those spoken to in the course of this review regretted the time and effort that went into determining whether the system would collapse in two or in three weeks and then trying to stave it off for a week or two, rather than being able to focus on running an effective prison system.”

And Dame Anne concluded Labour’s controversial decision to release more than 16,000 offenders early has failed to avert another crisis.

She said: “The introduction of SDS40 in late 2024, combined with more extended use of home detention curfew, has provided breathing space, but not a solution.

“By the spring of 2025, prison numbers were once again butting up against capacity, police cells were again being used, and the forums set up to manage capacity were revived.”

Emergency measures to lock up dangerous offenders in police cells also cost taxpayers a staggering £688 a night, compared to the average prison cell cost of £150.

At the height of the crisis, there were fewer than 100 cells and justice chiefs feared a collapse in law and order, with police unable to arrest criminals.

It became so acute “the marker of success was ‘whether everyone got a bed last night’.

Some criminals were moved 180 miles from Durham to Peterborough as prison governors desperately scrambled to avoid breaking point.

Dame Anne said: “The capacity crisis led not only to early releases, but also to sudden and sometimes unwelcome moves between prisons in order to create space in reception prisons. These moves could set off a chain reaction: for example, the review was told that when Durham prison was under particular pressure, they would have to send prisoners to Yorkshire prisons, which would in turn have to send some of their prisoners to the Midlands, and so on.

“At the height of the crisis, Durham was sending men directly to Peterborough prison, 180 miles away, as it was the only reception prison with space. Even in February 2025, prisoners were still being moved from the north-west to the north-east over the weekend.”

She added: “Equally, there was often a chain reaction within prisons to meet capacity pressures.

“In one prison, the review was told that prisoners were being asked whether they would voluntarily transfer to the vulnerable prisoner wing (mainly holding men convicted of sexual offences) or to the segregation unit to create more space.”

And Dame Anne revealed how Downing Street seemingly blocked emergency action to ease the crisis.

She said: “Former ministers expressed to me their frustration about poor communication with the centre of government, the lack of credible plans, and an extreme reluctance to take action.

“For example, from mid-2023, the then Lord Chancellor has made clear that he was advocating, without success, a version of the SDS early release scheme in order to get ahead of the crisis, rather than the minimal salami-slicing approach that was eventually taken.

“Without exception, all those the review spoke to expressed frustration and sometimes anger at the reluctance to accept and then act on the well-documented and imminent crisis, or to agree any coherent plan to avert it.

“In spite of the layers of assurance, arguments and evidence had to be repeated and rehashed, options already long-discussed and proven to be undeliverable had to be resurrected and re-argued.

“Many believed that the default position was to do as little as possible as late as possible, with the consequence that the system repeatedly reached the brink of collapse, rather than accepting the inevitable and getting ahead of the crisis.

“Because decisions were made at the last possible moment, they then had to be implemented across the whole prison service within very few days, at a point of maximum crisis."