MP wants assurances if city’s jail is sold off

site in Baglan. The others are in Yorkshire, Wigan and Kent.

The announcement is the latest step in a £1.3bn revamp of the Government’s estate first launched under former Justice Secretary Michael Gove amid concerns a number of facilities were overcrowded and rundown. In 2015, Mr Gove said he planned to close “old Victorian prisons in city centres”.

Cardiff’s Victorian site, off Knox Road in the heart of the city, was extended in 1996 and now has a capacity of 784.

Ms Stevens said: “It is clear to me that the appointment of Savills as valuers is a precursor to selling the Cardiff Prison site. I will be demanding specific assurances from the Government that prison staff, prisoners and access for families to visit will be the top priorities in decisions about HMP Cardiff’s future and, that if the site is to be sold, the full market rate will be achieved so the taxpayer, not private property investors, get the best deal.”

She added: “I welcome the aim of modernising the prison estate both to improve conditions for prisoners and prison staff and to support effective rehabilitation. Since the start of the Tory and Lib Dem coalition in 2010, our prisons have rapidly deteriorated into a crisis state with levels of violence against prison staff, drug finds, prisoner suicides and self-harm at record levels.

“HMP Cardiff in my constituency is a Victorian prison, with a 45% rate of overcrowding, but I am told by the Prisons Minister that no decision has been taken about its future and that the new prison to be built in Port Talbot is not a replacement for Cardiff or for HMP Swansea. Neither has the Minister confirmed whether the new Port Talbot prison will be publicly or privately run.”