Estonia has firmly rejected any suggestion that it would rent prison cells to the United Kingdom to help relieve overcrowding in jails across England and Wales. Justice Minister Liisa Pakosta told the BBC that Estonia would not offer prison space to other nations while it is already preparing to house Swedish inmates at its half-empty Tartu prison under an agreement signed last week. The rejection comes as both the Conservatives and Reform UK have pushed for the UK government to pursue overseas prison rental deals, including with Estonia, to prevent further early releases of offenders.
Why did Estonia reject the idea?
Pakosta said no formal proposal had been made by the UK, but that any such approach would be turned down without hesitation. She invoked a well-known political phrase to make her position unmistakable.
"our answer would be unequivocal - in Margaret Thatcher's famous words: No. No. No."
"Such a proposal would not merely be mistaken, misguided or unacceptable; it would deserve to be rejected outright."
The reference echoes Thatcher's 1990 speech in which she repeated "no" three times while opposing deeper political and economic integration within the European Community, the forerunner of the European Union.
What is Estonia's arrangement with Sweden?
Estonia has already committed its Tartu prison capacity to Sweden rather than the UK. Sweden has agreed to pay Estonia up to £52m (€61m) a year to house up to 600 Swedish offenders at Tartu, with an additional £7,254 (€8,500) per prisoner, per month once numbers pass 301 inmates. According to reporting on the parliamentary approval of the deal, Estonia's parliament has now formally ratified the agreement, which runs for five years with an option to extend by a further three years, and gives Sweden access to as many as 400 cells at the facility. A separate report from an Estonian broadcaster covering staffing preparations at the prison notes that Estonia intends to retain some of its own capacity in case domestic prisoner numbers rise again. Under the financial terms described by the same report, Sweden will pay at least €30.6 million annually simply for readiness to hold 300 prisoners, on top of the per-inmate charges for places beyond that threshold.
Preparations are already under way on the ground. According to an Estonian news outlet's coverage of prison preparations, the first Swedish inmates are expected to arrive in August 2026, with the prison population gradually rising towards the agreed 600-inmate capacity over roughly a year.
How does this connect to wider UK prisons policy?
The Labour government explored renting Estonian prison space back in 2024, when Sir Keir Starmer was prime minister, though those talks did not lead anywhere. Pakosta has previously said she met then-Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood in Lithuania to discuss the matter. The issue has resurfaced under Prime Minister Andy Burnham's government, which is preparing to release thousands of prisoners early in October 2026 as jails in England and Wales approach full capacity. Burnham has instructed the justice secretary to produce a plan by September aimed at freeing up space through removing more foreign national offenders, releasing some prisoners on indefinite sentences, and using space in women's jails for male inmates. This overlaps with separate pressure from Kemi Badenoch's call for emergency legislation to halt early prisoner release, which she has urged Burnham to adopt over a paused scheme affecting roughly 700 prisoners.
Downing Street has not ruled out renting foreign prison space but has stressed the limits of such an approach. A No 10 spokesperson said the government's focus remained on domestic capacity, noting that any overseas rental scheme would require new primary legislation underpinned by a complex international agreement that could take years to negotiate. A government source told the BBC that renting cells abroad would do nothing to address the immediate crisis.
What are other parties proposing?
Reform UK has put forward its own solution, arguing that removing all foreign criminals from UK prisons could free up 10,000 spaces. Leader Nigel Farage said his party was examining transferring foreign offenders to countries including El Salvador and Kosovo, and did not rule out further Baltic options.
"I mean, conversations could certainly be had with Lithuania, for example, or perhaps Estonia as well."
A Reform UK spokesman clarified that the party's policy centres on El Salvador and Kosovo, with other countries considered only "if they are open to the idea". This builds on an earlier announcement detailed in Farage's proposal to deport foreign inmates abroad as part of a wider £17.4bn crime package intended to end Labour's early release scheme.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, have urged Burnham to revive a prison rental policy they introduced while in government in 2023, modelled on arrangements used by Norway and Belgium, which have rented cells in the Netherlands to manage their own overcrowding. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said the policy had been abandoned by Labour after the Conservatives left office.
"That was a catastrophic mistake by the Labour government that should be urgently reversed."
The Conservatives have not responded to requests for comment on Estonia's rejection of a rental deal.
How have Lithuania and Kosovo responded?
Lithuania's Ministry of Justice said it had held no discussions with the UK about accepting transfers of Lithuanian citizens imprisoned there, and that it saw no scope for entering practical arrangements of that kind. Kosovo, which has already agreed to lease 300 of its prison cells to Denmark under a deal worth £170m (€200m), struck a more open tone. A government spokesperson said Kosovo valued partner countries' willingness to pursue new cooperation on international justice, but stressed that the Denmark agreement would need to be implemented first before any similar deal could be considered.
How much would this actually cost?
Both former Conservative and Labour ministers have separately concluded that renting prison space abroad would be expensive, the BBC has been told. The average annual cost of a prisoner in a public-sector prison in England and Wales stood at £60,018 in the 2024/25 financial year, according to Ministry of Justice figures, giving some sense of the scale of costs any rental scheme would need to match or undercut.
What is the state of Estonia's prison capacity?
Estonia's prison population has been declining for years, a trend that predates the Sweden deal. According to the World Prison Brief, Estonia held about 1,711 prisoners in May 2026 against an official capacity of 2,805. Separate figures reported by an Estonian news service tracking falling prisoner numbers put total national capacity at roughly 3,000 beds, with 54% occupied; at Tartu specifically, only 308 of 998 beds were in use. Estonia's National Audit Office warned in 2023, as reported by the same broadcaster, that occupancy could fall to around a third within a decade if the trend continued, a concern that appears to underpin Estonia's willingness to lease capacity to Sweden. Tartu's official capacity was itself raised to 1,075 places, according to a 2019 report from the Council of Europe's anti-torture committee, even as the facility has continued to run below full occupancy. Preparations for Swedish arrivals were already visible in 2025, when a US news outlet reported that Tartu Prison was being readied to receive its first Swedish inmates as part of the bilateral arrangement now formally in force.
What happens next?
The first Swedish prisoners are due to arrive at Tartu in August 2026, according to Estonian broadcaster reporting, with numbers rising gradually until the agreed capacity is reached by the end of the following year. The Sweden-Estonia lease is set for five years, with the possibility of a three-year extension once that term concludes. In the UK, Burnham's justice secretary is due to present a domestic capacity plan by September 2026, while any UK move to pursue overseas prison rentals would first require new primary legislation and a lengthy international negotiation process, according to Downing Street.
Key Facts
- Estonia's Justice Minister Liisa Pakosta has ruled out renting prison cells to the UK, citing its existing Tartu arrangement with Sweden.
- Sweden will pay Estonia up to £52m (€61m) a year, or at least €30.6m for readiness to hold 300 prisoners, plus €8,500 per extra inmate monthly.
- The first Swedish inmates are expected at Tartu prison in August 2026, with capacity rising to 600 over about a year under a five-year lease.
- Lithuania says it has held no discussions with the UK on prisoner transfers, while Kosovo says it will prioritise its existing Denmark deal.
- Burnham's government must present a domestic prison capacity plan by September 2026 amid planned early releases in October.
