Cardinal Vincent Nichols has said that Britain’s prisons are facing an “urgent crisis” – but that the Government’s efforts at reform are “a cause for hope”.

The cardinal was speaking the day before the Justice Secretary Liz Truss unveiled plans to invest £1.3 billion in prisons over the next five years.

The Archbishop of Westminster told an audience of chaplains, MPs and peers: “Unprecedented and rapidly escalating levels of suicide and self-harm, assaults on staff, violence including murder; yet we know that better prisons are possible and the Government’s commitment to prison reform is a true cause for hope. We do need courageous improvement in sentencing, education, staffing, health services, family contact and pastoral care.”