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Male prisons in Britain are 99% full and will run out of space in November, the Government has warned. It announced plans to start building three new prisons this year in a bid to make more space.

Speaking at a press briefing in Downing Street the MoJ's interim permanent secretary, Amy Rees, told journalists: "The total prison population is 88,087 and the adult male estate is operating at approximately 99% of its capacity every year. On our current trajectory, the prison population rises by 3,000, and now we expect to hit zero capacity, to entirely run out of prison places for adult men, in November of this year."

Early release measures have "only bought the service time", Ms Rees said, including the Government's decision to reduce early release to 40% of sentences.

The prison population is rising by 3,000 each year, "the equivalent of two large prions every single year", Ms Rees claimed.

She added: "Even with these measures in place, we will run out of prison places in just five months time."

The Government will bring forward legislation in the coming weeks that means offenders serving sentences between one and four years can only be returned to prison for a fixed 28-day period in a change of recall measures, Ms Mahmood said.

The Justice Secretary said: "Today, I am announcing a measure that will target the recall population, which has more than doubled in seven years.

"We will bring legislation in the coming weeks that means those serving sentences of between one and four years can only be returned to prison for a fixed 28-day period.

"Some offenders will be excluded from this measure, including any offender who has been recalled for committing a serious further offence.

"We also will exclude those who are subject to higher levels of risk management by multiple agencies where the police, prisons and probation services work together."