Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of offenders granted (a) early release, (b) temporary license and (c) home detention curfew over Christmas in each year since 2020.

Prisoners are not released early or on home detention curfew (HDC) to allow them to go home for Christmas. Prisoners who are eligible for HDC and meet all relevant criteria will be released on or after they reach the eligibility date, whenever it falls.

The number of people released on HDC in the week including Christmas Day in 2020 was 166, and in 2021 it was 202.

Where a prisoner is serving a sentence of 5 days’ imprisonment or more and their automatic release date falls on a weekend or bank holiday the law requires their release on the preceding working day so that there are appropriate services and support available when they are released. In 2020, 116 prisoners whose automatic release date fell on 25 or 26 December were released on Thursday 24 December as a result of this provision. In 2021, 145 prisoners whose automatic release date fell on 25 or 26 December were released on Friday 24 December.

On 25 December 2020, the recorded data indicates there were 14 individuals recorded as temporarily released from prison. On 25 December 2021 the figure was 1,377.

It is not possible to robustly estimate the number of prisoners that will receive ROTL, HDC and early release over Christmas 2022, by offence, within the disproportionate cost threshold.