Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the additional cost will be, in (a) money, and (b) staff hours, to the Probation Service as a result of the ten tranches of early released prisoners under the Sentencing Act 2026 progression model.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government assessed the impact of the Sentencing Act 2026 reforms through its published Impact Assessment and is working with probation, policing and local partners to manage implementation. The Impact Assessment can be accessed here: Sentencing Act Impact Assessment.
This Government is committed to ensuring the Probation Service has the capacity it needs to manage offenders safely in the community, including those released on licence from October 2026. We are investing up to £700 million in probation and community services by the final year of the spending review period to support the expansion of tagging, accommodation provision and increasing capacity. We have committed to onboarding at least 1,300 more trainee probation officers in 2026/27. This builds on the success of previous years’ campaigns with 1,057 trainees onboarded in 2024/25, and 1,389 in 2025/26.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners serving Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences were released and then recalled to prison because they committed violent or sexual offences, in the last three years.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In 2023, there were 195 IPP recalls related to further charges, 170 in 2024 and 97 in 2025. HMPPS does not record details of the alleged offence or the outcome of any subsequent court proceedings. This information is routinely published in the Offender Management Quarterly Statistics in Table_5_A_10: prison-recalls-2025.ods
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have changed their names while serving a prison sentence in the past three years.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Information about the number of prisoner names changes is not held centrally. It could not be obtained without incurring disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many convicted shoplifters and what percentage of convicted shoplifters avoided an immediate custodial sentence for shoplifting in the past two years.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes statistics on convictions and sentencing outcomes for a wide range of offences in the Outcome by Offences Tool, including theft from shops. This can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many victims were originally contacted advising them that their perpetrator may be released from prison early as a result of the Sentencing Act 2026, but whose perpetrator will now no longer be eligible as a result of the latest offence exclusions.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Sentencing Act 2026 contains provisions which change the proportion of a standard determinate sentence which must be served in prison before the offender serving such a sentence is released automatically on licence. Eligible victims who have opted into the Probation Service Victim Contact Scheme, where the offender is serving a standard determinate sentence, have been informed of the commencement of the legislation.
According to information held on the Probation Service Victim Case Management System, as of 9 July 2026, 8,711 letters had been issued to victims engaged with the Victim Contact Scheme to inform them of the legislative changes to prisoner release arrangements under the Sentencing Act 2026. This figure should not be interpreted as the number of offenders affected by the changes. Not all offenders will necessarily receive an earlier release date, not all eligible victims choose to participate in the Victim Contact Scheme, and some offenders have multiple victims linked to their case.
On 30 August 2026, the Prime Minister announced further exclusions from the progression model. In addition to rape and certain child sexual offences previously announced, these exclusions included all forms of manslaughter, causing death by dangerous driving, causing or allowing the death of a child and indecent assault offences.
As a result of these changes, sentence calculations are being reviewed and, where necessary, recalculated. It is therefore not currently possible to provide the number of victims who were initially informed that an offender in their case may be eligible for an earlier release date, but whose offender is no longer eligible as a result of the subsequent exclusions.
Once sentence calculations have been completed, Victim Liaison Officers will contact affected victims to confirm whether the offender's release date has changed and, where appropriate, provide them with an opportunity to make representations regarding licence conditions.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been recorded as changing their religion, broken down by prison, in each of the last three years.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I refer the honourable Member to the answer I gave on 4 September to Question 26201.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for what reason the Criminal Justice Board has not met since December 2025.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Criminal Justice Board last met in December 2025. Cross-system engagement and oversight has continued through other senior governance arrangements, including the Criminal Justice Action Group (CJAG), which brings together senior leaders from across the criminal justice system to address shared priorities and challenges.
The Lord Chancellor has made clear his intention to reinvigorate the Criminal Justice Board as a forum that takes ownership of reform across the criminal justice system and looks forward to convening it.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to proceed with the proposed restrictions to jury trials in the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government has confirmed that the Courts and Tribunals Bill will return to the House of Commons in October, when Parliament will have the opportunity to continue its consideration of the Bill.
Measures in the Courts and Tribunals Bill are based on Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations in his Independent Review of the Criminal Courts and are designed to reduce demand in the Crown Court. The Prime Minister has said he wants to look in detail at the proposals. It is right that the new administration takes the time to consider the measures, review the evidence, and consider the wide range of views on this legislation.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, in the last three years, how many assaults on (a) prison officers and (b) prisoners, were committed by prisoners on Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners his Department expects to be released in the first tranche of early release under the Sentencing Act 2026 progression model by establishment.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Following the Government's review of the Sentencing Act, and the decision to exclude additional offences from the Progression Model, the commencement date was moved to 1 October 2026. As a result, the first tranche will take place on 1 October 2026, with the second tranche following on 13 October 2026 as originally planned.
We have published the modelled estimates of the volumes of offenders to be released on the first day of each tranche. Current published estimates do not identify releases from individual prisons. This information is now available at: Estimated progression model tranche release volumes - GOV.UK.