Prisoner Releases in Error

Catherine Fookes Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Member knows that about 17 prisoners a day were released in error under the last Government.[Official Report, 11 November 2025; Vol. 775, c. 43.] (Correction) He knows too that, in introducing their early release scheme and our emergency early release scheme, there is complexity in the system. I will look closely at the data that is available in relation to the prison in his constituency.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Having spoken to my prison governor in Monmouthshire this weekend, I know the burden that clerks and prison officers are under when they are calculating these sentences on paper. The brass neck of the Conservatives is quite something to be believed. Their own party grandee William Hague has said that

“the Conservative Government failed to grasp either that they had to build more prison places or that they had to let people out, and they did not want to face up to either.”

Can the Secretary of State say how we are tackling both?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. She is absolutely right; we have to grip the system. I did that by chairing a performance board in the Department yesterday, and I have done it by asking Dame Lynne Owens to look at this closely. There does now need to be an urgent query process working between courts and prisons so that we are not seeing those mistakes between the two systems. I think that ultimately it will take digital technology to fix this, but I have started that with £10 million to expand the digital rapid response unit so that we can at least start to raise flags in and across the system so that those working in our offender management units can spot where there might be a problem. I am pleased that the Sentencing Bill, which has now been through this House, will simplify the system greatly, because it is too complex at the moment.