Asked about the rebranded language in the prisons, the Deputy Prime Minister said: “I am interested in punishment because that is what the public expects. I am not really interested in stigmatising in a way that is counterproductive to my driving down reoffending.

“What you have heard, which I like, is giving offenders something to lose. If you come to a place like this with gyms, workshops and the ability to do skills education, you get a glimmer of the future of how your life could be.

“Then it is up to offenders to take that second chance. If they don’t do that, they lose their entitlements, their perks. That is what really matters.”

The £253 million prison – a category C for training and resettlement – breaks the mould in not only its approach but design. 

The seven blocks have four floors, each with 60 prisoners, set out in an X-shape so the guard can stand in the centre and see every cell door on the floor to spot any trouble.

The corridors are wider, so inmates cannot “accidentally” bump into each other as they might on a typical walkway in a Victorian jail. It is the first prison where bars are replaced by reinforced glass, which has been “tested to destruction” by being hit by anything from a bed to a sledgehammer.