Prisoner Releases in Error

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I can give my hon. and learned Friend that undertaking. That is why we have brought forward the sentencing review and increased the removal of foreign national offenders to 5,000. All of that has been done in the last 16 months, when the Conservatives never did it once.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Two days before Kaddour-Cherif was released, the Justice Secretary said he had

“introduced the strictest checks ever seen in our prison system to stop similar unacceptable errors in future.”

Were they not implemented, or are they not strict enough?

[Mr Lammy]

Was the hon. Gentleman not listening? I discussed the cases just a few moments ago, and I discussed how those cases emanated prior to those checks—many of them—and that one of the errors in those cases started in the court system. It is also the case, and I have been crystal clear about this with the House, that in a paper-based system in which it is often the most junior people in our OMUs who are dealing with this, we cannot eradicate all human error. Any Secretary of State who stood at this Dispatch Box and said that we could would be telling a mistruth.