PRISONERS staged a protest at HMP Hewell over the weekend, which was broken up without injuries to staff or prisoners.

The disturbance, which the Ministry of Justice say involved two prisoners, took place on Sunday (February 12), although the nature of the protest has not been disclosed.

A Prison Service spokesman said: "Two prisoners were protesting at HMP Hewell for a short period of time on Sunday 12 February.

"The incident was resolved quickly and there were no injuries to staff or prisoners."

The protest comes just a day before Justice Secretary Liz Truss hit back at opposition calls to reduce the current number of prisoners in England and Wales to improve prisoner safety.

Speaking during a keynote address on Monday, she said cutting the current number of 85,000 prisoners to 45,000 – the 1990 level – is a "dangerous quick fix".

She said: "Public protection is paramount which means managing the prison population in a safe and sustainable way.

"I want to see it go down because we have got better at managing the population inside our jails.

"Reductions by cap or quota, or by sweeping sentencing cuts are not a magic bullet, they are a dangerous attempt at a quick fix.

"We need to do the hard work of improving community sentences, dealing with problems like drink and drugs and making our prisons work better.

"This will not be fixed in weeks or months – but if we are resolute – we will see our society become safer and our prison population will reduce."

Her speech came ahead of the broadcast of a BBC Panorama investigation in HMP Northumberland, which highlighted the scale of the issues facing prisons.

The BBC's undercover reporter said inmates were effectively running the prison, where he witnessed widespread drug abuse.