Foreign national prisoners would be “closer to home” in cells in Estonia, the House of Lords has heard.

Conservative peer Lord Farmer also said that moving prisoners from British jails to Estonia would “give us more space”, during a debate on challenges on prison capacities.

There have been reports that the Government is investigating the possibility of sending some inmates to prisons in Estonia to increase capacity in the short term.

Last year the then justice secretary Alex Chalk said he was in discussions with other European countries about the possibility of renting prison cells for British offenders as a way to ease overcrowding.

Lord Farmer has produced two reviews for the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) on the importance of families and other relationships to prisoners’ rehabilitation.

He told the House of Lords: “Successful rehabilitation reduces pressure on prison places. My two reviews for the MOJ, which they continue to implement with dedication and enthusiasm, emphasise that healthy relationships greatly reduce reoffending, as those who receive family visits are 39% less likely to reoffend than those who don’t have them.

“HMPPS (HM Prison & Probation Service) are very mindful of closeness to family when selecting which prisoners to send abroad.

“28% of foreign national prisoners are either Romanian, Polish or Albanian, and would be closer to home in Estonia than in British jails, and give us more space.

“Many prisoners without family on the outside or friends to help them go straight benefit from well supervised peer support in prison, and those relationships protect against repeat offending.”

Justice minister Lord Timpson said: “The plan to rent prison places in Estonia was explored by the previous Government, but is not something we intend to implement.”

On Tuesday around 1,700 prisoners were freed from jails across England and Wales came after Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans in July to cut temporarily the proportion of sentences which inmates must serve behind bars from 50% to 40% to tackle capacity issues.

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Burt said she moved to call the debate on overcrowding to address the “sorry mess” in the prison service.

She said: “Today, the number of prisoners is double what it was over 20 years ago, and the average length of sentence has doubled.

“You don’t have to be a statistical genius to work out that there’s some kind of causal connection here.”

Baroness Burt raised the rise in self-harm and assault on prisons which, combined with overcrowding, “mean that there’s not enough space or resources to make a prisoner’s experience rehabilitative or even safe”.

She said: “Overcrowding makes everything so much worse.

“Prison officers have to deal with a highly inflammatory situation.

“Trying to keep prisoners and themselves safe, preoccupies most of their time, and rehabilitation sometimes goes out of the window.

“No wonder recidivism gets worse.”

“We also know that we cannot build our way out of an overcrowding problem.

“The MOJ’s own forecasts say the prison population will grow to 94,000 and over 114,000 in the next four years alone.”

The Lord Bishop of Sheffield said overcrowding was “not conducive to a transformative culture” for people in prison.

He said: “Every person supported to turn away from offending makes our country safer for everyone, but truly effective rehabilitation almost always takes place in a context of care and trust, and it surely goes without saying that overcrowding in prisons is not conducive to a transformative culture.”

He added: “Those working in prisons rightly expect to be protected from harm and to carry out their duties with dignity.

“Current overcrowding has made a difficult role immensely challenging. Hidden from public view, prison staff work in conditions in their place of employment that few of us can appreciate or would tolerate, prisons must be safe for staff if a culture of respect and trust is to be built.”

Justice minister Lord Timpson said: “Overcrowded prisons are dangerous places” adding that he has “never known things as bad as they were when this Government took office.”

On his plans for reform, he said: “I am hoping to be here for a long time and I think it will take a long time.”