Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have been released early under the End of Custody Supervised Licence scheme in each prison since 16 October 2023.

As the Lord Chancellor set out in his statement of 16 October, End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL), first implemented on 17 October 2023, uses s248 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to remove onto licence some prisoners up to 18 days in advance of their automatic release date. Its use is targeted, and it will only operate in certain areas for a limited period of time.

Data on Prison releases are routinely published as part of the Offender Management Quarterly Statistics, the latest available data goes to June 2023. The number of releases under s248 is not included in this publication but we are currently reviewing what statistics we routinely publish