A CAMPAIGN group has spoken out after it emerged that two prisoners at Full Sutton jail are seeking sex change operations.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance said the NHS and justice budgets were not “endless pots of taxpayers’ cash,” and so health and prison bosses must justify every penny spent.

Campaign manager Robert Oxley said: “Expensive treatment on the NHS must be based on medical need, especially with the increasing care demands placed on the health service.”

“Part of prison involves removal of a criminal’s liberty.

“Many people will find it surprising that these changes have been given the go-ahead, given the huge, and expensive, complications it will create.”

The Press reported yesterday that, according to the annual report by the Independent Monitoring Board for the prison near Stamford Bridge, the two unidentified inmates had “exercised their legal right of choice and requested the right to start on the path of changing gender.”

The report said staff had received training and necessary arrangements had been put in place to support the prisoners.

The Prison Service was asked by The Press yesterday whether these would be the first two high- security prisoners in the country to get a sex-change operation, and at what stage would they switch from a men’s prison to a women’s, if the treatment proceeded.

A spokesperson said it did not comment on individual prisoners.

The spokesperson added: “Prison staff are required to manage transgendered prisoners in accordance with the law. Any issues relating to the medical treatment or funding are a matter for the NHS.”

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “It is possible to receive hormone treatment and gender reassignment on the NHS and prisoners have the same access to the NHS as anybody else. There is no standard price regarding how much the surgery costs.”