The government is spending £5m running a ‘competition’ to decide which companies will win billions of pounds worth of contracts to run new private prisons.
This week, Justice minister Robert Buckland admitted the government had spent £1.8m so far on the tendering process.
And he added that costs were projected to hit £5.5m before the process was finished.
The bulk of the costs are for the staff and outside advice on how to ‘develop and run’ the competition.
And Labour ’s shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon said the spending a ‘complete waste of money.’
Mr Burgon said: “The millions wasted on this private prison ‘competition’ should be being put to much better use by investing in crime prevention and on rehabilitation to keep us all safer.
“This is a complete waste of money, especially at a time of record cuts to the Ministry of Justice budget.
“It really is time to break the hold that the private sector has on the Ministry of Justice.
“The government should pull its plans for yet more private prisons.
“Labour will put an end to them and to the wheelbarrows of cash being handed over from the Ministry of Justice to failing private sector companies.”
The cash will be used to decide who gets to run the new planned private prisons including HMP Glen Parva in Leicestershire and HMP Wellingborough.
The public sector is banned from bidding to run any of the new prisons.
But experts point to the poor track record of the private sector in running Britain’s jails.
The UK has a greater proportion of inmates in private prisons than any country except Australia.
Around 20 percent of the 82000 prison population is being held in jails run by three companies: G4S, Serco, and Sodexo.
