PRISONS minister Lord James Timpson was urged to bring services in-house today after revealing that only one of the three new jails announced by the government will be run by the public sector.

Addressing the Prison Officers Association (POA) annual conference in Eastbourne, the minister also said that former justice secretary David Gauke‘s review into criminal sentencing will be published ”imminently” and recommend technologically driven solutions to keeping offenders out of jail.

Speaking after Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced three new prisons will be built, starting this year, as part of a “record prison expansion,” Lord Timpson said: “Yesterday the Treasury announced they are going to fund our prison expansion plans across the spending review period.

”That is a total capital investment of £4.74 billion and will allow us to start building three new prisons in addition to the recent HMP Millsike.

”I’m pleased to confirm that one of these new prisons will be run by public-sector prison service.”

He said that government will invest £300 million in prison maintenance this year and that Mr Gauke’s findings are due to be published imminently.

”We do know that it’s likely to call for more punishment to take place outside prison using technology like tags to deter re-offending, with robust community sentencing,” he said.

”I took part in round table discussion last week with leaders with the technology sector to discuss how they might be able to turbo-charge those efforts and help probation service to deliver on the review’s recommendations. It’s about how technology is supporting officers, not replacing them.”

Lord Timpson also insisted he was taking a ”zero-tolerance” approach to assaults on prison staff following high-profile attacks at HMPs Frankland and Belmarsh.

POA chairman Mark Fairhurst asked him what happened to Labour’s pre-election pledges for the ”biggest wave of public insourcing for a generation.”

He welcomed the £300m investment, but added: ”There’s a £1.8bn deficit.

”You continue the failed model of private prison maintenance — bring it back in-house.”

He also stressed that following the serious assaults on prison staff, such as in HMP Frankland high-security prison last month, ”if you don’t give us super-max facilities, one of my colleagues is going to be murdered on duty, and I will not hold back.”