Vital measures to improve prison fire safety will not be completed until the early 2030s, an inquiry has been told, after the government U-turned on a pledge over the lifesaving changes.
Ministers had promised to install automatic fire detectors (AFDs) in all cells in England and Wales by 2027 or take them out of use, but backtracked on the commitment earlier this year.
A House of Lords inquiry into the scandal was told on Tuesday that 19,000 prisoners are still held in cells that lack the legally required safety measures.
James McEwen, the CEO of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), admitted it will take until the early 2030s for the lifesaving upgrades to be completed.
He told the Justice and Home Affairs Committee the collapse of a key contractor ISG, who fell into administration in Autumn 2024, and the prison overcrowding crisis meant it was not possible to meet the 2027 target.
“That was a good faith suggestion commitment made, but outside of our control, we have had a prime contractor fall into administration,” he said. “We’ve had the many changes in the prison population since then.”
He added: “What we can do is stretch every sinew, making sure that we’re looking at every technological development, seeing whether that would improve our critical path. I do not believe we will have completed that work in this Parliament.”
For now, cells without AFDs have battery-powered domestic smoke detectors fitted outside the doors.
Cohen Lewis, deputy director for HMPPS estates, safety and litigation admitted these are not as effective as automatic in-cell measures.
He told the committee: “We deploy domestic smoke detection that isn’t as effective, and we don’t rely on it as a compliant measure. We want to move as quickly as we can into an automatic fire detection scenario.”
The Independent previously reported that 11 prisoners have died in cell fires since the government first accepted almost 20 years ago that vital upgrades were needed, according to the Howard League for Penal Reform, which has threatened legal action over the failures.
Mr McEwen told peers that HMPPS “profoundly regret” the death of Clare Dupree, a mother of six who died of smoke inhalation following a cell fire at HMP Eastwood Park in December 2022.
A coroner found the lack of in-cell fire detection in cell 59 on residential unit six, where the 48-year-old was held at the Gloucester women’s prison, possibly contributed to her death.
By the time prison officers were alerted to the blaze, smoke was billowing out from under the cell door and she was screaming: “I’m on fire, help”.
It was 33 minutes before she was pulled from the cell by a fire crew, because by the time prison staff arrived, the door handle was too hot to touch. MoJ tests, conducted in 2007, found that a prisoner will lose consciousness within seven minutes of a cell fire breaking out and die within eight minutes.
Responding to the coroner’s findings, the prison service said work to install AFDs in all cells at Eastwood Park should be completed by winter 2028.
Cell fires have soared by 124 per cent over the last five years. In the year ending March 2025 there were an average of eight each day in prisons in England and Wales – mostly caused by vapes.
According to the fire safety regulator, the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate (CPFSI), prison fires have increased significantly from 1,308 a year to 2,932 in the last five years. In the year ending March 2025, there were 534 fire-related injuries in prisons, down slightly on the previous year, but a significant increase compared to 135 injuries five years ago.
Almost seven in ten were caused by vapes, although the Ministry of Justice is rolling out a tamper-proof vape pen to try to tackle the issue.
