Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 10 January 2022 to Question 98316, how many risk assessments of inmates were carried out under the End of Custody Temporary Release scheme.

The End of Custody Temporary Release scheme (ECTR) operated between April and August 2020. Full eligibility details were published at the time. These included minimising the risk to public protection, with those assessed as a high risk of serious harm or convicted of sexual or violent offences excluded; only those who were already close to release and had already served at least half of their time in prison were eligible. In order to comply with contemporaneous Government directions on Covid-19 prisoners would have to have suitable accommodation and healthcare provision available outside of custody.

When considering who would be eligible for the scheme, establishments assessed their entire populations to find those potentially eligible based on sentence length, and offence type among other factors. Those who met the initial criteria were then assessed based on their behaviour in custody and healthcare needs among other factors prior to deciding if they were suitable for release. Data on the number of prisoners who reached the final stages of risk assessment for the ECTR could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.