The former CEO of the Timpson Group, which provides key cutting and shoe repair services, is known for hiring ex-offenders and is a former chairman of the Prison Reform Trust.
Lord Timpson took up his role at the Ministry of Justice in July last year, when the penal system in England and Wales was close to breaking point. Prisons were full, and months later thousands of inmates were released early as part of an emergency plan to ease overcrowding and free up space.
He says prisons are still in a state of “crisis”, with fewer than 1,000 spare places and more than 88,000 people in custody in England and Wales.
“We recently opened HMP Millsike,” he says, describing the new category C prison which opened in East Yorkshire in March, with capacity for up to 1,500 inmates. “We’ve got more cells opening across the country. We need to keep building prison places because the population is going up.”
Last month, three prison officers were seriously injured at HMP Frankland, in Durham, after they were attacked with makeshift weapons and hot oil by one of the men responsible for the Manchester Arena bombing. Hashem Abedi was being held in a separation centre – used to house a small number of the most dangerous and extremist inmates – at the category A, maximum security jail.
“What happened in Frankland is absolutely shocking,” Lord Timpson says. “The level of violence in prisons is far too high – and it is increasing.
“Our prison staff did an incredible job. I don’t want them to turn up to work thinking that there’s going to be violence. I want them to turn up to work helping people turn their lives around.”
However, the number of assaults on staff in prison is the highest in a decade, with 10,605 recorded in 2024.