Prisoner Early Release Scheme

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jake Richards)]

This Government inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse. In July 2024, men’s prisons were operating at 99% capacity. At one point, fewer than 100 places were available across the male estate. Without intervention, we risked running out of prison places, leaving courts unable to sentence offenders and police unable to make arrests.

This Government have acted to increase capacity and to reform sentencing. We have committed to delivering 14,000 prison places by 2031 and have already delivered 3,200. The last Government added just 500 net places in their time in office. We have also accelerated the removal of foreign national offenders, returning around 11,700 to their countries of origin. It is in that context that we launched the independent sentencing review in October 2024 and subsequently passed the Sentencing Act 2026 earlier this year to place the prison system on a more sustainable footing and ensure that space is always available for the most dangerous offenders. The Act also aimed to avoid the chaotic emergency release schemes carried out with little scrutiny or warning by the Conservatives.

However, we know that aspects of these changes have caused concern, and we are determined to do the right thing for victims. That is why the Government listened to the concerns raised, paused the implementation of the progression model and conducted an urgent review. As the Lord Chancellor confirmed in this House on 1 September, in addition to the 18,000 dangerous offenders already ineligible for the progression model, this Government have excluded rape and serious child sex offences from eligibility for changes to release dates under the Sentencing Act. Unlawful killings, including manslaughter, causing or allowing the death of a child, and death by dangerous driving, are also excluded, as well as indecent assault, ensuring that more historical child sex offences prosecuted under older laws are treated consistently with equivalent offences today. That means that hundreds more dangerous criminals will be staying behind bars for longer, including those who killed PC Andrew Harper in the line of duty.

The first releases on the progression model took place on 1 October, with His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service working closely with operational partners to ensure that eligible offenders were released safely into the community. As the second tranche of releases begins today, robust arrangements remain in place to manage releases, support probation practitioners and supervising offenders, and ensure that those subject to electronic monitoring requirements are fitted with a tag. As part of the supervision of offenders released into the community, HMPPS will maintain rigorous oversight of those on licence, with measures in place to recall those who are non-compliant.

We recognise the significant effect that release date changes can have on victims. We will ensure that those in the victim contact scheme who are affected by the new exclusions are informed if there are any changes to the release date of the offender in their case. I have also instructed my officials to attempt to contact victims not in that scheme to provide information, should they wish for that to happen. We have launched the victim support offender release helpline, with nearly £19 million of additional funding, to provide victims with emotional support, practical advice such as safety planning, and general information about sentencing changes.

It is important to add that the Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending is unable to be here today because she is currently speaking with governors about early release and how the implementation of the progression model is going.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Justice Secretary.

[Nick Timothy]

Two weeks ago, 700 prisoners were released from prison across the country, and today a further 650 will be released, most after serving just one third of their sentence. The Justice Secretary told the country that proper safeguards would be put in place, with a presumption that all released prisoners would be tagged. He called it the “toughest” tagging regime in history, but that was nonsense. Four days after the first release, the Justice Secretary admitted that he had no idea how many released prisoners had been tagged, and protested that it was unreasonable to expect him to know how many had been tagged so soon into the scheme. I have some advice for him and his Ministers: it is better to work out how to implement your policy before it starts, not after.

We know that a majority of prisoners are not being tagged before release, and we know that reoffending is already off the charts. The Met says that there have been 100 tag breaches in London each day since Labour’s first early release scheme began, while two or three prisoners released early are being re-arrested every week. I do not want to hear the same old lines from the Minister about prison building, though I note he has changed his tune since the Prime Minister took office in July. Since the election, not a single new prison development has been planned or approved—those were the Minister’s words in a written answer. The only new prison opened was begun under the last Government, and prison places are unused because officer numbers are down under Labour.

Can the Minister tell us very clearly the answers to the following three questions? How many prisoners released so far have and have not been tagged? How many tag breaches by released prisoners have there been? If he does not know the answers to those questions, when will the Justice Secretary and his team find out and tell the House of Commons?

[Jake Richards]

I am grateful for the hon. Member’s questions. I noticed over conference recess that the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien), who I think is the Conservatives’ policy chief, apologised for the lack of investment and action on criminal justice over 14 years of Conservative Governments. It would be welcome to hear that from the Dispatch Box today, but alas, we will still have to wait for that apology.

Turning to the hon. Member’s questions, we have set out the numbers of prisoners who will be released in each tranche—that is publicly available on the Government’s website. We will be setting out data in relation to prisoner releases as we always do, and the next batch of data will be released in January of next year. This is a new sentencing regime, and it is right that we release the data in the appropriate way, as we have always done.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Justice Select Committee.

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Tagging could be a way to provide real reassurance to communities and victims, but only if tags are fitted promptly and offenders are monitored. In April of last year, the Justice Committee raised concerns in writing about the time being taken to fit tags, and the Institute for Government found that between January and April of this year, more than 5,000 people who should have been monitored were not tagged—that equates to 15% of all people with an electronic tagging order. It also found that almost 1,600 people wearing a tag were wearing one that did not send a signal, due to technical faults or the device not being charged. Can the Minister tell us whether anything has changed since April? Specifically, what percentage of GPS tags are now being fitted on time? What is the longest time an offender can wait before monitoring begins, and when will offenders be tagged on day one, as victims and the public should be able to expect?

[Jake Richards]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of not just having a tagging regime that works, but making sure that that regime is robustly monitored and scrutinised. Since March of this year, there have been improvements by Serco, the company that is operating the tagging regime. My hon. Friend will no doubt have seen the National Audit Office report, and we will fully respond to it in detail as and when the full report is published later this month.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

The prison capacity crisis that the Conservatives left behind is unforgiveable, but the situation we find ourselves in two years later is a national emergency waiting to happen. The entire criminal justice system is in freefall. Victims have been left looking over their shoulders for their released perpetrators; more than a third of the places that were freed up by the last wave of releases were filled again within a week; and the very probation officers who are overseeing these releases will decide in the coming weeks whether to take strike action.

The Government have never had a grip on this issue. Everyone who comes into contact with the criminal justice system is being failed, and tinkering around the edges will not fix the problem. Will the Minister commit to tagging prisoners immediately upon release—at the gates—as called for by the Victims’ Commissioner, ensuring that perpetrators are not allowed to evade being tagged or left unmonitored for days? Will he also commit to a royal commission on the entirety of the criminal justice system, so that we can finally get to grips with the deep-rooted issues caused by successive Governments’ complacency and mismanagement?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Richards]

There have been question marks, to put it mildly, over the performance of the companies that undertake the contracts. We are working closely with Serco, and there has been an improvement in the implementation of tagging since March. However, I would suggest that although there is a presumption that every person who is released should be tagged, ultimately it is an operational decision and a decision for the Probation Service, as is the case in respect of the 4,500 prisoners who are released every month as per normal.

[Mr Speaker]

We will let the Front Benchers change over after we have heard from Jim Shannon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister very much for his answers. I am sure that he was watching television this morning when the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said that he was arresting

“two or three early-release offenders a week”,

and that seems to be the case. He gave the example of someone who was released last week having originally been arrested for shop theft, and who lasted just a few days before doing the very same thing and is now back in prison. More worryingly, the Met Commissioner said that those who have been convicted of firearms offences have also been released. Surely it is time to ensure that gun-toting criminals are not allowed back on the streets.