HMP Leyhill: Offender Abscondments

Warinder Juss Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call Justice Committee member, Warinder Juss.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

Any prisoner absconding is, of course, bad news and something that should not happen, but does the Minister agree that it is a symptom of the broken-down prison system that we inherited from the previous Government and something that we are now trying to sort out? Can she confirm that the rate of prisoners absconding is lower under this Government than it was under the previous Government?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

My hon. Friend is right: the levels are decreasing. That is due to the strong and robust frameworks on absconding prisoners that we are putting in place. We inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse and took immediate action days after coming into office to stabilise our prisons. We are bearing down on releases in error, which have caused huge upset and concern to victims and can put the public at risk. I state again at the Dispatch Box that that is wholly unacceptable. We have introduced mandatory stronger release checks to catch those errors before they happen, as that is the most effective way of protecting the public, and Dame Lynne Owens is examining the causes of releases in error.

Abscondment numbers are coming down. I am proud of the work that has been done. Any abscondment is one too many and we are working to bring that number down even further.