Accidental Prison Releases

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The process is a mixture of paperwork and computers and digital. In an offender management unit, there are literally boxes and boxes of paperwork, all over desks and on the floor, that follow offenders around the various prisons that they go to.

My and the team’s solution is very much digitally based, but we need to make sure we link that across the whole justice system, and the Home Office as well, because a number of the errors can be caused not just in the prison but in the courts too. So, longer term, it has got to be right that we look at a digital solution across the whole justice sector.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, what assessment has the Minister made of the raising of the skilled workers visa threshold and its impact on the Prison Service, in view of the current difficulties?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

It is right that the Government want to bring down net migration, and we are supporting the staff who are affected. I have to say that the staff I have met do a fantastic job and we want to support them as much as we can.