Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) male, and (2) female, prisoners who were aged 25 years or younger at the time of sentencing were serving a life sentence in custody with a tariff of 15 years or more in each year since 2022, categorised by ethnic group.

Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) on the prison population.

Table 1: Number of prisoners serving life sentence who were aged 25 years or younger at sentencing, with a tariff of 25 years or more, broken down by sex, ethnicity and imprisonment status.

Table notes:

1. Tariff length is the time between date of sentencing and tariff expiry date, and does not take into account any time served on remand.

2. Offenders who are 25 years old or younger at sentencing includes everyone not yet 26 years old at sentencing.

3. Figures include offenders who received a Whole Life Order.

Disclosure control

An asterisk (*) has been used to suppress values of two or one. This is to prevent disclosure of individual information. Further disclosure control may be completed where this alone is not sufficient.

Source: Prison NOMIS and Public Protection Unit Database

Data sources and quality

The figures in the above tables have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what the average tariff length of a life sentence for murder was in 2024 and 2025 to date, in years and months.

Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) on the prison population.

Table 1: Mean Tariff Length for Offenders Who Committed Murder, by Year of Sentence

Table notes:

1. *Data for 2025 are up to 30 September 2025.
2. Figures are subject to change as more information about tariff becomes available.
3. Tariff length is the time between date of sentencing and tariff expiry date, and does not take into account any time served on remand.
4. Figures do not include offenders who received a Whole Life Order.

Source: Public Protection Unit Database

Data sources and quality

The figures in the above tables have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) male, and (2) female, prisoners are currently serving an Extended Determinate Sentence with a custodial term of (a) less than or equal to 6 months, (b) greater than 6 months to less than 12 months, (c) 12 months to less than 2 years, (d) 2 years to less than 4 years, (e) 4 years to less than 5 years, (f) 5 years to less than 7 years, (g) 7 years to less than 10 years, (h) 10 years to less than 14 years, (i) 14 years or more.

Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The requested information can be found in the table below.

Table: Prisoners serving an Extended Determinate Sentence by sentence length, as at 30 September 2025, England and Wales [note 1][note 2]

[note 1] Figures based on Extended Determinate Sentenced prisoners with a recorded sentence length.

[note 2] Judicially Imposed Sentence lengths as recorded on prison-NOMIS

Data quality - The figures in the table have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Disclosure control - Where necessary, [c] has been used to suppress values of one or two to prevent the disclosure of individual information. Further disclosure control may be completed where this alone is not sufficient. This could include the secondary suppression of zero values.

Additional resources - Key statistics relating to offenders who are in prison or under Probation Service supervision can be found in the Offender management statistics quarterly (OMSQ) publication - Link to 'OMSQ publication' (opens in a new window).

Crown copyright (produced by the Ministry of Justice)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what was the (1) mean, and (2) median, tariff length for prisoners receiving a life sentence aged (a) under 18, (b) 18 to 20, (c) 21 to 24, (d) 25 to 29, (e) 30 to 34 (f) 35 to 39, (g) 40 to 49, (h) 50 to 59, (i) 60 to 69, and (j) 70 and over, at the time of sentencing, in 2024, and in 2025 to date.

Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) on the prison population.

Table 1: Mean Tariff Length for Offenders Receiving a Life Sentence, by Age at Sentencing and Year of Sentence

Table 2: Median Tariff Length for Offenders Receiving a Life Sentence, by Age at Sentencing and Year of Sentence

Table notes:

1. *Data for 2025 are up to 30 September 2025.

2. Figures are subject to change as more information about tariff becomes available.

3. Tariff length is the time between date of sentencing and tariff expiry date, and does not take into account any time served on remand.

4. Figures do not include offenders who received a Whole Life Order.

Data sources and quality

The figures in these tables have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Source: Public Protection Unit Database

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many people currently in prison aged 80 or older are serving a sentence they originally received when aged (a) 15 to 17, (b) 18 to 20, (c) 21 to 24, (d) 25 to 29, (e) 30 to 39, (f) 40 to 49, (g) 50 to 59, (h) 60 to 69, and (i) 70 and older.

Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The requested information can be found in the table below:

Table: Number of prisoners aged 80 or over broken down by age at sentencing, 30th September 2025, England and Wales [note 1]

Source: Prison NOMIS

[note 1] The data presented in this table excludes prisoners awaiting sentencing that are held on remand.

Data quality - The figures in the table have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Disclosure control - Where necessary, [c] has been used to suppress values of one or two to prevent the disclosure of individual information. Further disclosure control may be completed where this alone is not sufficient. This could include the secondary suppression of zero values.

Additional resources - Key statistics relating to offenders who are in prison or under Probation Service supervision can be found in the Offender management statistics quarterly (OMSQ) publication - Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK.

Crown copyright (produced by the Ministry of Justice)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government, as of 30 September 2025, how many and what proportion of recalled (1) men and (2) women in prison were serving (a) less than or equal to 6 months, (b) greater than 6 months to less than 12 months, (c) 12 months to less than 2 years, (d) 2 years to less than 4 years, (e) 4 years to less than 5 years, (f) 5 years to less than 7 years, (g) 7 years to less than 10 years, (h) 10 years to less than 14 years, (i) 14 years or more (excluding indeterminate sentences), (j) extended determinate sentences, (k) imprisonment for public protection, (l) a life sentence, (m) a non-criminal sentence, (n) a sentence of length not recorded.

Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) on the prison population.

The information needed to provide a comprehensive answer to these questions could be provided only at disproportionate cost as central records are not kept in a way that they can be filtered by the required fields to obtain the information.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many recalls to custody initiated by the probation service in 2024 were for people serving a (1) standard determinate sentence, (2) extended determinate sentence, (3) mandatory life sentence, (4) discretionary life sentence, (5) automatic life sentence (imposed on or before 4 April 2005), and (6) automatic life sentence (imposed after 4 April 2005).

Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) on the prison population.

The information needed to provide a comprehensive answer to these questions could be provided only at disproportionate cost as central records are not kept in a way that they can be filtered by the required fields to obtain the information.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the (1) mean and (2) median number of months served beyond tariff for individuals who have not yet been released and are serving (1) a life sentence, (2) a mandatory life sentence, (3) a discretionary life sentence, and (4) an automatic life sentence.

Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data in Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ) on the prison population.

The information needed to provide a comprehensive answer to these questions could be provided only at disproportionate cost as central records are not kept in a way that they can be filtered by the required fields to obtain the information.